the figure of the Florentine illuminator Giovanni Boccardi, known as Boccardino the Elder, has remained largely confined to the framework established by twentieth-century scholarship. Despite his recognised importance within the history of Renaissance illumination, fundamental aspects of his life, family, and workshop have never been securely grounded in direct archival evidence.
Drawing upon previously unpublished documentary sources, this volume reconstructs the artist’s genealogy, identifies his baptismal record preserved in the archives of the Opera di Santa Maria del Fiore, and re-examines the documentary foundations of his biography. The study sheds new light on Boccardino’s family background, training, workshop organisation, and artistic activity within the broader context of Florentine manuscript production between the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.
At the same time, the book presents the first scholarly attribution of the Book of Hours preserved in the Biblioteca Guarneriana of San Daniele del Friuli (Ms. 198) to Boccardino the Elder and his workshop. Through detailed stylistic, codicological, and documentary analysis, the manuscript is placed within the corpus of one of the most accomplished illuminators of the Florentine Renaissance, revealing its close connections with other Books of Hours associated with his artistic circle.
Combining archival research, art-historical investigation, and a complete commentary on the manuscript, this volume offers a significant contribution to the study of Italian illumination and Renaissance book culture, while restoring to scholarly attention an overlooked masterpiece of Florentine manuscript production.