Udine Aesop

The so-called Udine Aesop is a remarkable literary and artistic testimony to 15th-century Tuscan civic lay culture. The manuscript contains a collection of free Italian translations and adaptations of several moralizing and edifying works by classical and medieval authors such as Seneca, Cato, and Bernard of Clairvaux, with Aesop's famous fables making up the majority of the text. They dominate the codex not only in terms of length, but also because of their striking illumination, which is absent from the other parts. Almost every fable is accompanied by a large, page-wide washed pen-and-ink drawing. The 64 miniatures depict scenes from the respective fables in a sketchy, folkloristic manner, characterized by expressive animal depictions, people in rustic clothing, and vivid gestures. Despite their simplicity, these extensive illustrations are highly remarkable for a vernacular text. Francesco Orlandi, who created both the text and the miniatures, deliberately distanced himself from the elegant court art of the time and instead implemented an independent book art that reached its middle-class lay readership in a much more accessible way.