Naples hosts first exhibition on codices with purple parchment sheets

Two rare and precious manuscripts go on display at the National Library in Naples from Dec. 1: they are two manuscripts in purple parchment and penned in silver and gold inks: a Gospel of Ravenna (ex Vindob. Lat. 3) containing fragments of the Gospels of Luke and Mark, among the oldest purple codices preserved in European museums and libraries, dating from the late fifth century CE, and a Lectionary (ex Vindob. Gr. 2) datable to the 9th or 10th cent. of Byzantine imperial commission, as the signum crucis with the name “Basilius” inscribed on it seems to suggest, probably a reference to Basil I the Macedonian or Basil II, both of which belonged to the convent of San Giovanni a Carbonara and, after various vicissitudes, came to the National Library of Naples.

They are the protagonists of an exhibition entitled Di porpora e di luce. Form and matter of antiquity in the codices of the National Library of Naples, the first ever dedicated to codices with purple parchment sheets, the result of a collaboration between the Department of Letters and Cultural Heritage of the University of Campania “Luigi Vanvitelli” (Teresa D’Urso and Giulia Simeoni) and the National Library “Vittorio Emanuele III” (Daniela Bacca). An exhibition made possible, stresses director Maria Iannotti, by the wealth of purple codices in the Neapolitan library, always prodigal in giving us beauty and opportunities for scientific research.

Also on display are other luxurious codices with purple-colored parchment folios, true objects d’art that testify to the fashion of the “old-fashioned” codex and the revival of the purpurei around the mid-15th century, which from the Veneto region to Rome, through the circulation of books, artists and patrons, also spread to Aragonese Naples (1443-1501). Exemplary witness to the circulation of artists and works is Cicero’s De Officiis (ms. IV.G.65), produced in the Urbe around 1470 by calligrapher Bartolomeo Sanvito and illuminator Gaspare da Padova for a member of the Gonzaga family of Mantua.

As many as five manuscripts can be traced back to the Renaissance season, and to Naples in particular. These are codices made in the second half of the 15th century for the famous Neapolitan Library of the kings of Aragon or for high-ranking southern patrons: the beautiful Breviary of King Ferrante of Aragon (ms. I.B.57), the Book of Hours (ms. XIX.27), Plutarch’s Sentences in the vernacular (ms. XII.E.34), the Collection of Grammatical Texts (ms. San Martino agg. 86) and finally theWork of Apuleius (ms. CF.3.7), a precious manuscript on loan from the Girolamini Library and Monumental Complex, the only specimen in the exhibition to bear an ochre-colored parchment sheet (called crocea from the color of saffron, or crocus), made for the refined bibliophile Andrea Matteo III Acquaviva (1458-1529), duke of Atri.

Through extraordinary codices with ancient, medieval and Renaissance purple sheets, the exhibition recounts the centuries-long adventure of a book product that has marked the history of Western culture, changing form, meaning and function over the centuries, but maintaining intrinsic symbolic values. The color purple, since antiquity associated with the idea of wealth and power and the figure of the emperor, with the advent of Christianity is related to the sacrifice of Christ, but also to the sovereignty of the Church, which will adopt the symbolism of imperial power. Visible, free of charge, until Feb. 6, the exhibition also includes a section displaying literary sources documenting the spread of purple codices and the use and significance of purple through the centuries; it closes with a section devoted to the dyeing of parchment and the dyes used to obtain the color purple in its different shades.

Finally, the exhibition is part of the ambitious multidisciplinary projectPURPLE - PURple Parchment LEgacy, funded by the Ministry of University and Research, based on a close collaboration between art-historical research and scientific investigation. Diagnostic analyses using advanced non-invasive techniques were carried out on the manuscripts displayed in the exhibition under the guidance of Prof. Maurizio Aceto (Department for Sustainable Development and Ecological Transition, University of Eastern Piedmont), Professor Angelo Agostino (Department of Chemistry, University of Turin) and Dr. Marcello Picollo (Institute of Applied Physics “Nello Carrara” - CNR). The scientific analyses, examining the technical and material peculiarities and analyzing the pigments, have shed new light on the life of these codices, unique witnesses of the ’purple thread’ linking Antiquity to the Renaissance, thus ensuring the preservation of these true art objects for future generations.

Naples hosts first exhibition on codices with purple parchment sheets

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