Master T.° Ve. (active 1520s-1560s), Illuminated frontispiece of the commissione of Doge Francesco Donato to Vincenzo Gritti as Lieutenant of Udine, 1546. Paint and gold paint on vellum, height 24 cm x width 17 cm. Accession Number: 2.a.2.1. Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum © 2013 Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum

Emblematic Binder (active 1530s- about 1552), Upper cover of the commissione of Doge Francesco Donato to Vincenzo Gritti as Lieutenant of Udine, 1546. Leather tooled in blind and gold, height 24 cm x width 17 cm. Accession Number: 2.a.2.1. Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum © 2013 Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum

Emblematic Binder (active 1530s- about 1552), Lower cover of the commissione of Doge Francesco Donato to Vincenzo Gritti as Lieutenant of Udine, 1546. Leather tooled in blind and gold, height 24 cm x width 17 cm. Accession Number: 2.a.2.1. Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum © 2013 Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum

Emblematic Binder (active 1530s- about 1552), Spine of the commissione of Doge Francesco Donato to Vincenzo Gritti as Lieutenant of Udine, 1546. Leather tooled in blind and gold, height 24 cm x width 4.5 cm. Accession Number: 2.a.2.1. Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum © 2013 Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum

Italian (Venice), Text page from the commissione of Doge Francesco Donato to Vincenzo Gritti as Lieutenant of Udine, 1546. Ink on vellum, height 24 cm x width 17 cm. Accession Number: 2.a.2.1. Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum © 2013 Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum

Virgin and Child, St. Francis of Assisi, leone andante, St. Vincent Ferrer, Latin inscription reading 'I Francesco Donato, by the grace of God, Doge of Venice, etc', putti raising the Gritti family arms, antique armor and trophies.

This illumination refers to the institutions that governed Venetian life, in order of importance from top to bottom: piety, the state, the doge, and nobility. The Serenissima's power is conveyed by the military motifs in the border. The male saints are the patrons and namesakes of the doge and Vincenzo Gritti, who received this book for his election as Lieutenant of Udine, a city in north-east Italy. The miniature is by the most skilled and fashionable illuminator of commissioni in sixteenth-century Venice. He takes his name from another illumination with equally graceful figures and luminous bold colors, which is signed 'T.° Ve. painted this 1528'. The signature, however, was added later as a ploy to attribute the splendid work to the most celebrated painter of the period, Tiziano Vecellio, called Titian (about 1488-1576).

Source: Anne-Marie Eze, Illuminating the Serenissima: Books of the Republic of Venice, special exhibition on view in the museum's Long Gallery, May 3 through June 19, 2011.

See the related artworks for a masterpiece by Titian and another illumination by Master T.° Ve. in the collection.