# Gradual from Santa Maria degli Angeli \(Folio 148\) [View the canonical artwork record]() ## Artwork - Artist: [GHERARDUCCI, Don Silvestro dei]() - Date: 1351-1400 - Technique: Tempera and gold on parchment, 292 x 299 mm ## Commentary Gradual from Santa Maria degli Angeli \(Folio 148\) c. 1370 Tempera and gold on parchment, 292 x 299 mm Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York Among the various choir books that Don Silvestro illuminated for his monastery, Santa Maria degli Angeli, one \(Cod. Cor. 2, now in the Biblioteca Laurenziana, Florence\) clearly stands out for its high artistic quality. As were most of the Santa Maria degli Angeli choir books which entered the Biblioteca Laurenziana, it was mutilated in the Napoleonic period. Twenty pages - many of them the most important and most beautiful - were cut from this gradual and found their way into various collections. There are thirty-eight present and missing illuminations in the codex on which a reconstruction can be based. The cutting from folio 148 depicts the Birth of the Virgin in an initial G. This initial begins the introit to the Mass for the feast of the Birth of the Virgin \(September 8\). The letter G overgrown by rich foliage with lilies, opens into the interior of St Anne's bedroom. Having given birth to a daughter, she sits up on her bed and glances at her child, who is about to be bathed. A maiden with the heavenly child on her lap is testing the temperature of the water in the bowl, while another adds some more water to it. The iconography is Sienese, faithfully following the composition of <A onclick="return OpenOther\('/html/l/lorenzet/pietro/2/15birth.html'\)" HREF="/html/l/lorenzet/pietro/2/15birth.html">Pietro Lorenzetti's altarpiece</A> for Siena cathedral. ## Related artworks - [Assumption of the Virgin]() - [Gradual 1 for San Michele a Murano \(Folio 32\)]() - [Gradual 1 for San Michele a Murano \(Folio 38v\)]() - [Gradual 1 for San Michele a Murano \(Folio 46\)]() - [Gradual 1 for San Michele a Murano]() - [Gradual 2 for San Michele a Murano \(Folio 44\)]() - [Gradual 2 for San Michele a Murano \(Folio 74\)]() - [Gradual 2 for San Michele a Murano \(Folio 78\)]() - [Gradual from Santa Maria degli Angeli \(Folio 134\)]() - [Gradual from Santa Maria degli Angeli \(Folio 137\)]() - [Gradual from Santa Maria degli Angeli \(Folio 142\)]() - [Gradual from Santa Maria degli Angeli \(Folio 155v\)]() ## Attribution [Web Gallery of Art]()