The Florentine Bible of the Biblioteca Nazionale
Universitaria of Turin
The fourteenth-century three volumes Florentine Bible
preserved in the Biblioteca Nazionale of Turin (mss.
F.I.9-11) includes inventory notes which prove that it belonged
to the Carthusian Monastery of Asti, founded in
1387. Scholars, however, never focused on the original
provenance of the manuscript, the priory of Santi Apostoli
in Florence, as the initial invocation suggests. Since
the 1970s, the decoration of the first two volumes has
been ascribed to two masters, named Maestro del Laudario
and Maestro daddesco, but the third volume with the
New Testament has been largely neglected. This article
places the third illuminator in the culture of the same
period, that is the first decades of the fourteenth century.
His collaboration with the priest Cinus, who copied the
first volume of the Bible and probably directed the whole
work, seems to recurr over the years.