The Illustratore was an Italian illuminator active between 1330 and 1347. Manuscript Leaf with a female saint (possibly Dorothy) in an Initial G, from a Gradual - ca. 1330–40 - Attributed to the Illustratore
at the

Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 ...

; retrieved August 17, 2022 Almost nothing is known about him. Due to similarities between the two, his output was first designated as separate from that of

Niccolò da Bologna Niccolò di Giacomo da Bologna (c. 1325 – c. 1403), usually known as Niccolò da Bologna, was one of the most important and prolific manuscript illuminators in 14th-century Bologna. He was active from about 1349 to 1403. He is known for his ...

;A Cutting Illuminated by the Illustratore (Ms. 13) and Bolognese Miniature Painting of the Middle of the Fourteenth Century
by Jacky de Veer-Langezall, in ''The J. Paul Getty Museum Journal'', vol. 20 (1992), p.121-138; archived at

JSTOR JSTOR (; short for ''Journal Storage'') is a digital library founded in 1995 in New York City. Originally containing digitized back issues of academic journals, it now encompasses books and other primary sources as well as current issues of j ...

indeed, Erbach von Fürstenau at first called him the Pseudo-Niccolò,"La miniatura bolognese: Studi su Niccolò di Giacomo"
by Erbach von Fürstenau, in ''L'Arte'' xiv (1911), pp. 1 - 12; as cited in '' The Grove Encyclopedia of Medieval Art and Architecture, Volume 2'', edited by

Colum Hourihane Colum Hourihane is an Irish-born art historian, iconographer, and editor formerly of Princeton University, specializing in medieval art and iconographic studies.

; published 2012 by

Oxford University Press Oxford University Press (OUP) is the university press of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world, and its printing history dates back to the 1480s. Having been officially granted the legal right to print books ...

so close was the resemblance between their works. The name "Illustratore" has since been accepted instead; his identity, however, remains unknown, although various hypotheses (including

Andrea da Bologna Andrea da Bologna was a follower of Vitale. A painting by him, representing 'The Virgin and Child,' signed De Bononia natus, Andreas fatus a.d. MCCCLXXII, is in the church Del Sacramento at Pansola, near Macerata. Another example of this painter ...

) have been put forth, with varying degrees of success. He is known to have worked on at least one manuscript with the

Master of 1328 The Master of 1328 was an Italian illuminator active in the area around Bologna from about 1320 until 1340. His name is derived from the date on a tradesman's register, the ''Matricola dei merciai'', now in the Civic Museum in Bologna; his han ...

. '' The Grove Encyclopedia of Medieval Art and Architecture'' observed that no work by the Illustratore is known after the

Black Death The Black Death (also known as the Pestilence, the Great Mortality or the Plague) was a bubonic plague pandemic occurring in Western Eurasia and North Africa from 1346 to 1353. It is the most fatal pandemic recorded in human history, causi ...

of 1348.

References

14th-century Italian painters Manuscript illuminators Anonymous artists Year of birth unknown {{Italy-artist-stub Erbach von Fürstenau