Master of 1328

The Master of 1328 was an Italian illuminator active in the area around Bologna from about 1320 until 1340. His name is derived from the date on a tradesman's register, the Matricola dei merciai, now in the Civic Museum in Bologna; his hand may also be discerned in a set of choir books which were painted for the Dominican convent in that city; this group of works is earlier, and can be dated to the first half of the 1320s, as can a copy of Gratian's Decretals now in Madrid. At the same time the Master participated in the creation of the Rhetorica [ad Erennium]'' now held at Holkham Hall in Norfolk. Stylistically, while he bears the influence of his local contemporaries, he was evidently also aware of the later paintings of Giotto; he was also the first to apply Giotto's new rules of painting to Bolognese manuscript illumination in anything approaching a regular pattern. Like the Illustratore, with whom he worked on occasion he reached the height of his career in the 1330s, concentrating on the decoration of legal texts.