Gaspare da Padova, f. 1466/67-c. 1493
The documentary material relating to the illuminator is considerable. He was especially active in Rome at the service of the Gonzaga family, both as the famulus of Card. Francesco (1461-1483) and the Marquis of Mantua, Federico (1478-1484). From the year 1485 he worked for Card. Giovanni d’Aragona (1477-1485), son of Ferrante, king of Naples and, shortly afterwards in Rome, for Card. Raffaello Riario (1477-1521). These events are widely attested to by correspondence of letters, the composition of testaments and sources of various kinds (Putaturo Murano, Ipotesi per Gaspare Romano, pp. 95-99; Ruysschaert, Miniaturistes «romains», pp. 264-266; Toscano, La miniatura “all’antica”, pp. 249-287; Bentivoglio-Ravasio, Gaspare da Padova, pp. 251-252; Iacobini - Toscano, «More graeco, more latino», pp. 125-190). In contrast to the considerable amount of information available on his profession, which was for the most part in Rome where Gaspare could have reached “perhaps by following those Venetians who like Sanvito landed there after the election of Paul II Barbo (1464-1471)”, there is nothing yet to be known about the years of his formation (original text: Bentivoglio-Ravasio, Gaspare da Padova, pp. 252-253; Iacobini - Toscano, «More graeco, more latino», pp. 125-190). The catalog of the artist takes shape beginning from ms. Vat. gr. 1626 of the Vatican Library, a manuscript containing the bilingual Iliad, in Greek and Latin, dated May 31, 1477 and signed by the scribe Giovanni Rhosos, but copied in the Latin review by Bartolomeo Sanvito and only partially illuminated (Chambers, A Renaissance Cardinal, pp. 60-64; Toscano, La miniatura “all’antica”, pp. 249-262; Buonocore, Scheda nr. III.25, p. 265; Bentivoglio-Ravasio, Gaspare da Padova, pp. 252-253; Iacobini - Toscano, Scheda nr. III.22, pp. 256-259; Iid., Illustrare Omero, p. 64-80). From the seventies of the fifteenth century, Gaspare cultivated his most important professional relationship with Bartolomeo Sanvito, when both were “familiares et continui commensales” (Iacobini - Toscano, Illustrare Omero, p. 67) of Card. Francesco Gonzaga (Ruysschaert, Miniaturistes «romains», pp. 268-271; Toscano, La miniatura “all’antica”, pp. 249-262).
The illuminator and the calligrapher then created a new way to illustrate manuscripts with the invention of the so-called frontispiece “all’antica”. They changed the relationship between the space reserved for writing and that reserved for the image, they worked in the fruitful exchange between the “restitution of the epigraphic capital”, found in the particular graphic forms of Sanvito, in an alternation of colored inks and letters with well-defined shapes, and the “architecturally triumphal context of the Paduan setting” (original text: Bentivoglio-Ravasio, Gaspare da Padova, p. 252 and also Toscano, La miniatura “all’antica”, pp. 249-287 e Iacobini - Toscano, «More graeco, more latino», pp. 125-190). Both of them, profoundly indebted to the Mantegna style, reinvented the imagerie of antiquarian language on parchment, thus creating pages of style that is quite recognizable and refined (Toscano, La miniatura “all’antica”, passim; Iacobini - Toscano, «More graeco, more latino», pp. 125-190). In addition to the aforementioned Vatican Homer, other famous examples of the Gaspare/Sanvito collaboration include the Commentarii of Caesar, ms. 453 preserved in the Biblioteca Casanatense of Rome, or the Vitae duodecim Caesarum, ms. lat. 5814 della Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris, made around the mid-70s (Toscano, La miniatura “all’antica”, pp. 249-262; Bentivoglio-Ravasio, Gaspare da Padova, p. 254; Iacobini - Toscano, «More graeco, more latino», p. 170-178). From the same period is the commentary on Juvenal by Domizio Calderini, ms. Plut. 53. 2, Florence, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, made for Pope Sixtus IV at the beginning of his pontificate (Iacobini - Toscano, «More graeco, more latino», pp. 165-170); made for the same patron are manuscripts of the Vatican Apostolic Library, Vat. lat. 2094, the De animalibus of Aristotle translated by Theodore Gaza (Toscano, La miniatura “all’antica”, pp. 249-262) and the Vat. lat. 2044, Platina, Vitae Pontificum. During his sojourn in Napoli, we may call to mind certain manuscripts from Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, lat. 1659 containing the Epistulae of Cyprian (Toscano, La miniatura “all’antica”, pp. 278-280) and the Moralia in Job, lat. 2231, made between Rome and Napoli (Toscano, La miniatura “all’antica”, pp. 278-280; Iacobini -Toscano, «More graeco, more latino», pp. 185-190). Lastly, the manuscript from the second half of the mid-80s preserved in the British Library of London, Royal 14. C. III, with the Chronica di Eusebio di Cesarea, and also copied by Sanvito per Bernando Bembo and “modelled on a Paduan manuscript that Sanvito uses on more than one occasion” (original text: Bentivoglio-Ravasio, Gaspare da Padova, p. 256, see also Toscano, La miniatura “all’antica”, pp. 271-272; Iacobini - Toscano, «More graeco, more latino», pp. 178-183).
PUTATURO MURANO, Ipotesi per Gaspare Romano, pp. 95-110; RUYSSCHAERT, Miniaturistes «romains», pp. 263-274: 264-271; CHAMBERS, A Renaissance Cardinal, passim; MADDALO, Ancora sul libro miniato, pp. 68-78; TOSCANO, La miniatura “all’antica”, pp. 249-287: 249-262, 270-284; MADDALO, Sanvito e Petrarca, pp. 25-27; BUONOCORE, Scheda nr. III.25, p. 265; BENTIVOGLIO-RAVASIO, Gaspare da Padova, pp. 251-258; IACOBINI, Toscano, Scheda nr. III.22, pp. 256-259; IACOBINI - TOSCANO, Illustrare Omero, pp. 64-80; IACOBINI - TOSCANO, «More graeco, more latino», pp. 125-190.