Missal of George of Challant

Missal of George of Challant

The medieval church of St. Peter and Orso in the Italian city of Aosta is in possession of some of the greatest masterpieces of late-medieval illumination. A particularly precious treasure of the ecclesiastical collection is the Missale Magnum Festivum Georgii Challandi, the missal of the noble art patron Georges de Challant. The missal that was personally commissioned by him contains 352 parchment pages with religious songs and texts and is illuminated with extraordinary artistry.

An Influential Art Patron

Georges was a descendant of the House of Challant, the most powerful and famous noble family in Aosta. Georges was the leader of the local church and was governor of the County of Aosta. He invested the majority of his wealth in legendarily precious ecclesiastical artistic treasures. He was soon counted among the most important art patrons in Italy at the time of the Renaissance. Among the numerous art book, which were financed by Challant, the Missale Magnum occupies a special place. It is probably the most personal work to survive from his private library.

Uniform Design

The large-format, hand-illuminated missal consists of 176 double-sided parchment pages, not all of which are provided with a page number. Every page described contains texts in two finely-designed columns. The columns of text always consist of 28 lines. This well-thought-out system was not disrupted anywhere in the book. The incredibly high-quality, artistically attractive illustrations of the missal astound every beholder.

Legendary Illumination

The full-page illustrations in the book display an incredible variety of scenic depictions of biblical stories and saints’ legends. For example, here one sees a Crucifixion scene, an Annunciation scene, as well as holiday-related scenes for important church feasts like Easter and Pentecost. Certain symbolic elements in the depictions, which are frequently inspired by nature, lend it as much meaning as the text itself. Never before were book illustrations of this kind made in Italy. Aside from the full-page miniatures, the borders are also visually designed in an enchanting way. Numerous golden initials round out the high-quality impression of the art book.