CHAPTER XII. Page 183 to 205.

THE ILLUMINATED MANUSCRIPTS OF ITALY AND SPAIN.

Italian art slow to advance; its degraded state in the twelfth century; illuminators mentioned by Dante; _Missal_ in the Chapter library of Saint Peter's; the monk Don Silvestro in the middle of the fourteenth century; his style of illumination; the monk Don Lorenzo; Fra Angelico as an illuminator; Italian _Pontifical_ in the Fitzwilliam library; manuscripts of the works of Dante and Petrarch; motives of decoration; Italian manuscripts after 1453; introduction of the "Roman" hand; great perfection of writing, and finest quality of vellum; the illuminators Attavante, Girolamo dai Libri, and Liberale of Verona; manuscripts of northern Italy; their influence on painting generally; Italian manuscripts of the sixteenth century, a period of rapid decadence; Giulio Clovio a typical miniaturist of his time; the library of the Vatican; its records of the cost of illuminating manuscripts. The manuscripts of Spain and Portugal; the manuscripts of Moslem countries, especially Persia.