Medici Aesop

This wonderful collection of fables from the the Greek writer Aesop is illustrated with the most beautiful illustrations in this manuscript. Originally intended as a Greek textbook for Piero de Medici in Florence ca. 1480, this manuscript offers a deep look into the tremendous art of the Italian Renaissance. The famous fables from antiquity with animal and human protagonists impress with their playful lessons in moralistic life as much today as they did in the 16th century. This edition of the Medici manuscript is even today the most beautifully illustrated and furnished collection of Aesop’s Fables.

A Schoolbook for the Offspring of de Medici

Lorenzo I de Medici, known as il Magnifico, the Magnificent, undoubtedly commissioned the Aesop-Edition for his son Piero. For the time around 1500, this wasn’t anything special, but the return of the classic Greek texts in the Renaissance lead to a new discovery of the Greek writer, Aesop (620–560 BC). It was not only the moralistic aspect of the fables that was important, but the original language of the texts, Greek, was also in high demand as a relic of the past. Aesop’s Fables were already widely available in a Latin translation in Late Antiquity and in the Middle Ages, but were later re-translated into the original Greek ca. 1300. Thus, Aesop received new meaning as an entertaining and educational lecturer, his work instructed many young men in Greek. One can well imagine that Piero de Medici also used this manuscript with that goal in mind. The manuscript’s connection to the influential Florentine Medici family is demonstrated not only by inventory lists that prove Piero de Medici’s ownership of the book, but also due to a direct piece of evidence that lies in one of the miniatures; a small Medici Coat of Arms is recognizable.

Illustrations of Animals from the greatest Artists

Throughout the 150 pages, a variety of Aesop’s Fables are presented and illustrated with 135 half-page miniatures, which are enriched with gold. An unknown writer copied the text in around 1480 in Milan from a printed edition of Bonus Accursius. Mariano del Buono (1433–1504) and the Master of the Hamilton Xenophon can be identified as the artists adoring the book, who were both masters of manuscript art in the 16th century. They designed the pages with gorgeous initials and floral ornaments alongside a left-side border around the text. The wonderful and impressive miniatures are like panel paintings in narrow borders conveniently integrated in text. A bright world of animals populate the miniatures: donkeys, horses, dogs, rabbits, all manner of birds, wild boar, foxes and camels. Altogether, the wondrous spiritedness and realism of the Renaissance is depicted. Grandiose, airy landscapes highlight the representations. The artistic and lovingly designed miniatures, by the same token, embrace the adjoining text’s juxtaposition with animals, people, and God, as the individual stories go hand-and-hand with one another. The coloring and the wonderfully crafted depictions of animals are not only entertaining for adults, but also certainly for children. They underline the anecdotes that Piero de Medici certainly learned as a kid from this present manuscript, with represents one of the most beautiful illustrated editions of Aesop’s Fables from the Renaissance.