Illuminated manuscripts in Florence

We don’t talk enough about illuminated manuscripts, books of incredible beauty that monks would take years decorating.
The history of miniatures in Italy has its roots in the Early Middle Ages (6th-11th centuries). This art form developed primarily in monasteries, true hotbeds of culture and craftsmanship, where monastic scriptoria, rooms for copying manuscripts, were the heart of book production.
With the birth of universities, manuscript production underwent a transformation. In the 13th century Bologna in particular became the hub of miniatures, no longer dominated by monks, but by lay illuminators who worked on commission for the newborn university.
While Bologna dominated the university sector, illuminated art began to emerge strongly in Florence in the 14th century, influenced by Giotto's painting and the nascent workshops. Under the rule of the Medici family, particularly Cosimo the Elder and Lorenzo the Magnificent, the art of miniatures reached its peak. The Medici commissioned sumptuous manuscripts for their private libraries and for the monasteries they patronized (such as San Marco).
Florentine illuminators were the first to integrate Renaissance principles into their illuminated manuscripts: perspective, volume, anatomy, and classical architecture.
In Florence, these precious manuscripts can be admired today in the Museum of San Marco and the Laurentian Library in San Lorenzo.
The manuscripts are often exhibited on rotation to showcase different volumes and their illustrated pages each time.
One of the most important manuscripts in the collection of the Museum of San Marco is the Missal of San Domenico, a masterpiece of early 15th-century Italian illumination.The volume, made between 1424 and 1430, contains incredible miniatures painted by Beato Angelico and represents the earliest evidence of his activity as an illuminator.
Initially created for the convent of San Domenico in Fiesole, where Beato Angelico resided, it later became the property of Leopold II of Lorraine’s wife and later went to enrich the catalog of the National Library of Florence. Finally, in 1869, it passed on to the newly established Museum of San Marco.

The invention of movable type printing in the mid-15th century sealed the fate of the illuminated manuscript. At first, illuminators attempted to compete by decorating the first printed editions, but the production of printed books was much faster and cheaper, so it quickly gained the upper hand.The illuminated masterpieces preserved today in Italian convents and museums are therefore true treasures made of parchment and pigment. They are not just books, but testimonies to a bygone era when everything moved more slowly and even objects now considered of everyday use, were a luxury requiring years of hard work by expert hands to be completed.