![Initial G[audeamus omnes] from a Gradual: The Court of Heaven, by Don Silvestro dei Gherarducci, 1371–77](/thumbs/cma/1930.105/1930.105_web.jpg)
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Initial G[audeamus omnes] from a Gradual: The Court of Heaven
Don Silvestro dei Gherarducci (Italian, 1339–1399)
1371–77
- Medium
- ink, tempera, and gold on vellum
- Classification
- Manuscript
- Dimensions
- Sheet: 38.6 x 36.5 cm (15 3/16 x 14 3/8 in.); Framed: 68.9 x 53 cm (27 1/8 x 20 7/8 in.); Matted: 63.5 x 47.6 cm (25 x 18 3/4 in.)
- Culture
- Italy, Florence
- Museum
- Cleveland Museum of Art, Medieval Art
- Credit line
- Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund
- Rights
- Public domain (CC0), as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Teens profiles and older: its museum says too little about what it shows to place it for younger viewers. How works are placed
View at the Cleveland Museum of Art
About this work
This elegant and colorful initial G comes from a multivolume set of choral books illuminated by Don Silvestro, a Camaldolese monk, for his monastery of Santa Maria degli Angeli in Florence. In the original book, this initial would have introduced the text: Gaudeamus omnes in Domino (“Let us rejoice in the Lord”), the beginning of Introit, the introduction, for the Feast of All Saints on November 1. This beautiful initial is generally considered to be the artist’s masterpiece.
