Scripsi et miniavi. Copisti e miniatori nelle sottoscrizioni dei manoscritti medievali

Abstract

This paper illustrates a research project aimed at cataloguing the illuminators’ subscriptions and investigating the figure of those illuminators who are also copyists, from an interdisciplinary perspective in which the findings of art historians are combined with paleographic investigations. The aim is to study the appearance, the location of these signatures, the motives and circumstances of their affixation, and the possible conditioning operated by the context, i.e., by the book type, patronage or tradition. With this in mind, nine categories are identified which classify the available data, and examples are presented of both illuminators who are exclusively artists and calligraphers or decorators who combine, with different articulations and outcomes, the two skills. The examples presented open up a reflection not only on the possible scientific acquisitions to which the project can lead, both from the point of view of art history and for the recognition of the hands and graphic skills proper to specific areas of production, but also on the methodologies applied and the meaning of the forms and terms used in the subscriptions.