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Initial S: Pentecost

Creator

Italian Illuminator · 1349–1403

Niccolò da Bologna was one of the most important and prolific manuscript illuminators of the fourteenth century in Bologna, a university town famous for its law faculty. He is known especially for his expressive figures and crowded, action-filled narrative scenes. The first signed works by Niccolò are all copies of Gratian's *Decretals,* one of the standard works of canon law. He and his workshop

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Date: about 1394–1402
Medium: Tempera and gold
Culture: Italian
Department: Manuscripts
Institution: Getty Museum
Object ID: 2c43a397-eb34-4686-9030-b514d6f0cb76

From the Getty Museum record

This illumination shows Pentecost, the moment in which the Holy Spirit descends upon the twelve apostles in order to give them the ability to speak foreign languages so they might preach throughout the world. Although all twelve apostles are shown, sometimes only a forehead or a hint of a nose indicates the body. The narrative style of the artist, Niccolò da Bologna, was often crowded and intense. His solid, squat figures are compressed into the small space of the initial, overlapping one another. This cutting is one of twenty known large historiated initials made for a choir book commissioned by the Carthusian monastery of Santo Spirito in Lucca.

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