Monja Faraoni

The library of Collegio San Francesco in Lodi possesses an Antiphonale parvum decorated with an individual miniature depicting the Annunciation, recently studied, from a codicologic perspective, by Lisa Longhi. A comparison between the codex and two cropped miniatures individuated by Mirella Levi D’Ancona in 1963 – the letter E with St. Augustin and the Resurrection of Christ signed “Nebridius ME P”, the latter discovered by Giordana Mariani Canova in 1975 at the Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University – makes it possible to attribute the manuscript to the miniaturist Frate Nebridio from Cremona, the last standing representative of the local Late-Gothic culture. While his production denotes an undeniable connection with the painting of Bonifacio Bembo, it is also rich of personal stylistic features, such as the introduction of frames along which musician angels peer out, becoming the artist’s very signature. Nebridio died before 1503, and he entrusted his nephew Marchino with the completion of his unfinished works, as suggested by the payment Marchino received for completing a Gradual for the monastery of San Sigismondo.

Painters from Brescia in the Cosway Collection in Lodi MONJA FARAONI The article addresses a previously unpublished corpus of paintings, part of the Cosway Collection in Lodi and attributed to the artist Giovanni Renica (1808-1884) from Brescia. It consists in some small oil landscapes and a Portrait of Father Christopher, the back of which reveals a manifold dedication indicating 1872 as the date of acquisition of all the paintings, a gift from the artist to Elena Solera, at the time Mother Superior of the famous boarding school founded by Maria Hadfield Cosway in 1812. The links between the institution and painters from Brescia were already revealed by the group portrait in which Gabriele Rottini celebrated Cosway’s philanthropic activity in 1834-35, depicting the woman together with other English dames and some students during a lecture. Another painting by Rottini in the collection is a small Portrait of a Girl, probably Cosway’s daughter Mariannina, herself a student of the school.