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The Caporali Missal
miniatures by Bartolommeo Caporali (Italian, c. 1420–1503)
assisted by Giapeco Caporali (Italian, d. 1478)
1469
- Medium
- Ink, tempera and gold on vellum; 400 folios
- Classification
- Bound Volume
- Dimensions
- Overall: 35 x 25 cm (13 3/4 x 9 13/16 in.)
- Culture
- Italy, Perugia
- Museum
- Cleveland Museum of Art, Medieval Art
- Credit line
- John L. Severance 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
Called a missal, this manuscript served as a liturgical service book used by the priest at the altar during Mass. According to a colophon, an inscription on folio 400, the missal was made for the Franciscan church of San Francesco in Montone, near Perugia in the region of Umbria, in 1469. It was illuminated by Bartolomeo and Giapeco Caporali, two artist brothers who collaborated on the page decorations. The missal is opened here to the volume’s masterpiece, a two-page deluxe opening to the Canon of the Mass with a Calvary scene. The Canon introduces the most solemn part of the Mass during which the priest elevates and consecrates the Eucharistic bread and wine. Saint Francis kneels at the foot of the cross, attesting to the missal’s Franciscan use and affiliation.
