The two coats of arms that appear on the lower margin of fols. 1 and 105v feature a blue lion rampant against a silver background and have been associated with the Florentine Acciaiuoli family, which was influential at the Neapolitan court of the House of Anjou. The Dominican at prayer depicted both in the initial “A” on fol. 1 and at the foot of the Crucifixion on fol. 105v has been recognised as Angelo del Monte Acciaiuoli (1298-1357), cousin of Niccolò Acciaiuoli, a monk at the Florentine convent of Santa Maria Novella: after becoming Bishop of L’Aquila and then of Florence, from 1349 onwards he was chancellor at the Anjou court and a few years later, from 1355, bishop of Montecassino resident in Naples.¹ The fact that the Dominican appears beneath the Crucifixion with his mitre placed on the ground allows us to date the creation of the manuscript to around 1355, the year he was appointed as the head of the Cassino diocese, to which we can also link the presence of a monk saint, probably St Benedict, among the foliage in the border of fol. 1. 

The decoration of the manuscript can be associated with Neapolitan book illumination in the second quarter of the 14th century, which revolved around Cristoforo Orimina. Thanks to his inscription in the Malines Bible (Leuven, Universiteits-bibliotheek, Maurits Sabbebibliotheek, MS. 1, f. 308v), he has been attributed with some of the most important illuminations from the Anjou period.² The characteristic decorative structure of fol. 1, damaged by abrasions, is, for instance, used again in the later Missal created in Naples for the canon Nicola Giovanni Riccardi de Riccardinis, who died in 1368 (Avignon, Bibliothèque Municipale, MS. 138, fol. 11).³ The more muted style, of clear Giottesque stamp, of the works united around Orimina differs considerable from the scene of the Crucifixion in the Acciaiuoli Missal. Here, the elongated figures, characterised by a more Gothic and expressionistic component, can be attributed to one of the various assistants of the Neapolitan miniaturist, an artist perhaps coming from the central Italian artistic tradition (Umbria), considered in studies alongside other illuminators close to the master,4 but whose work is not recognisable elsewhere. 

Fabrizio Crivello 

¹ D’Addario 1960, pp. 76-77. 

² Perricc ioli Saggese 1997, pp. 870-871; Id. 2004, pp. 839-840; Id., “Christophoro Orimina: An Illustrator at the Angevin Court of Naples”, in Wattee uw, Van der Stock 2010, pp. 113-125; Id. 2013, pp. 494-497. 

³ M.-C. Léonelli, unnumbered entry, in Avignon 1993, pp. 32-36; F. Manzari, cat. 135, in Rome 2009b, pp. 303-305. 4 Freuler 2013; A. Improta, “Manoscritti miniati per nobili e ufficiali del regno angioino, con alcune novità per la miniatura a Napoli in età durazzesca”, in Mathieu I., Matz 2019, pp. 315-350; F. Manzari, “Un nuovo foglio miniato della bottega Orimina, un Graduale smembrato e la figura di un anonimo miniatore napoletano del Trecento”, in Storie di Artisti. Storie di Libri 2008, pp. 293-312; Manzari 2010, pp. 116- 138.