Illuminations

Although Lorenzo Monaco was primarily a painter of panels and frescoes, he was also remarkable as an illuminator. He learned the craft of manuscript illumination in the scriptorium of Santa Maria degli Angeli in Florence under the tutelage of Don Silvestro dei Gherarducci. During the period of Lorenzo Monaco's residence at the Camaldolese monastery of Santa Maria degli Angeli, the scriptorium there was engaged in the writing and illumination of two large series of antiphonaries, and a set of graduals for their sister house of San Michele a Murano. Both volumes of the latter and the first three volumes of the former was painted by Don Silvestro, and two other volumes of the antiphonaries had been contracted to secular artists for illumination. With the arrival of Lorenzo Monaco, however, the completion of these books seems to have been entrusted exclusively to him.