The Prayers and Soliloquies of the Fathers manuscript in the Biblioteca Marciana is a deluxe book of Christian prayers, psalms, and liturgical texts compiled for private contemplation by Ercole I d'Este, Duke of Ferrara, Modena, and Reggio. With illumination attributed to Tommaso di Cesare Bassi da Modena, it was written by Andrea dalle Vieze at the Este court in Ferrara around 1482. Its sixty-eight miniatures in the characteristic bright palette of Ferrarese painting include author portraits and a variety of biblical and extra-biblical Christian subjects.
The "Fathers" whose texts appear in the book include the early Christian Church Fathers Saint Augustine of Hippo (354-430), Saint Jerome, and Saint Gregory of Nazianzus, but also the medieval theologians Saint Anselm (1033-1109), Archbishop of Canterbury, and Saint Thomas Aquinas (d. 1274).
A Dynasty of Art Patrons
The Prayers and Soliloquies manuscript is one of many splendid manuscripts produced at the Este court in Ferrara for the ducal half-brothers Leonello (1407-1450), Borso (1413-1471), and Ercole I (1431-1505) d’Este. Under their leadership, the court became a center of production in the arts of panel painting, sculpture, tapestry, and manuscript illumination.
Focus on Saint Augustine
Most of the texts in the manuscript are attributed to Saint Augustine, and the manuscript is thus also known as the "Sant'Agostino Estense." The saint is pictured in nearly half of the miniatures, including witnessing the Creation of Adam and the Crucifixion (fols. 30r and 68v).
A Range of Christian Subjects
The manuscript includes miniatures of narrative biblical subjects—such as the Entry into Jerusalem, the Descent of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, the Betrayal, the Presentation in the Temple, and the Flagellation (fols. 35v, 55r, 80r, 90v, and 141v). There are also devotional images inviting contemplation, such as the Man of Sorrows (fols. 46r and 98v). Among the saints pictured are the archangel Michael, Thomas, and Catherine of Alexandria (fols. 99v, 119v, and 180v).
Andrea dalle Vieze, Court Librarian
The manuscript's scribe seems to have been employed by Ercole as a librarian, scribe, illuminator, and organizer of book production. He wrote the Prayers and Soliloquies manuscript in long lines (a single column) in Gothic Rotunda script. The compiled text, characterized as "prayers, meditations, and soliloquies" of Augustine, is dedicated to Ercole, for whom the small volume was intended.
The prayer book includes the seven Penitential Psalms, which focus on the confession of sin and hope for forgiveness, and the Office of the Dead, a series of prayer services for the repose of the souls of the deceased, texts more commonly found in Christian devotional books of the period than the patristic prayers that occupy most of its pages. These are introduced by full-page miniatures of David in Prayer and the Death of the Virgin, respectively (fols. 142v and 154v).
From the Library of a Venetian Admiral
The manuscript does not appear in any of the Este library inventories. The Venetian nobleman and admiral Giacomo Nani (1725-1797) bequeathed the manuscript to the Biblioteca Marciana. The rebacked binding is of blind-tooled brown leather.
We have 1 facsimile edition of the manuscript "Prayers and Soliloquies of the Fathers": Sant'Agostino Estense facsimile edition, published by Graffiti, 2011
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