Illuminating the “Vitae patrum”: The Lives of the Desert Saints in Fourteenth-Century Italy by Denva Gallant centers on an illustrated manuscript copy of the Vitae patrum (Lives of the Desert Fathers), Morgan Library MS M.626. Produced in Naples during the first few decades of the fourteenth century, the manuscript emerged at a time of renewed interest in the Desert Fathers, which contributed to an increased emphasis on private prayer. While most medieval copies of the Vitae are minimally illustrated, the 272 narrative bas-de-page illustrations of Morgan MS M.626 differ in that they often add visual elements not mentioned in the Vitae (19). Thus, as Gallant argues, the manuscript “presents a unique opportunity to understand how the lives of the Desert Fathers were made engaging and accessible to the lay reader” (3). Illuminating the “Vitae patrum” offers a close reading of the relatively understudied manuscript’s illustrations and argues for their significance through a contextual, comparative study that draws on other manuscripts, contemporaneous frescoes, and a variety of religious texts.
The Introduction provides a brief overview of Morgan MS M.626 and its scholarship, the Vitae patrum and its late-medieval reception, and relevant interpretative concepts, including Bildkontemplation and imagines agentes. The subsequent chapters of Illuminating the “Vitae patrum” each mirror an element of the ascetic’s spiritual journey. The first chapter, “Contemplating Virtue in the Vitae patrum,” argues that MS M.626 distinctly presents eremitic contemplative practices (prayer, reading, and discernment) as virtues—in contrast to other manuscripts’ (comparatively minimal) illustrations of the Vitae, which coach the reader to focus on and receive the Vitae through their location (e.g., historiated initial) and subject matter (e.g., a monk reading). The main case study of the chapter is a comparison with Vatican Library, MS Vat.lat.375, which boasts 108 marginal and bas-de-page narrative images; Gallant contrasts 10 of its vignettes depicting characters’ physical actions in the harsh desert environment with 6 from MS M.626 to argue that the latter’s illustrations instead consistently show the figures in moments of isolation and contemplation. If I can make two brief asides here: the image of Malchus tending a flock of sheep (33, fig. 19) is likened to Christ by Gallant, but I would suggest it bears much closer iconographic resemblance to images of Moses as shepherd. Second, and in the same section, the author’s repeated use of the term “Saracen” (32–36) without definition, commentary, or problematization—while unfortunately a widespread practice in medieval studies—warrants further reflection (see, e.g., Shokoofeh Rajabzadeh, “The Depoliticized Saracen and Muslim Erasure,” Literature Compass (2019) 16:e12548). Chapter 2, “On Withdrawal,” treats the ascetic’s retreat into the desert, a foundational event in their narrative. Here, Gallant asserts that, in contrast to other manuscripts, which tend to depict the saints already in seclusion, the images of MS M.626 emphasize the process of withdrawal, which was then applicable to the analogous “deserts” of late-fourteenth century lay readers. Among its subjects, this chapter includes Saint Marinus, who, although not a desert monastic, was often included in the Vitae, apparently because of their social withdrawal to the monastery and subsequent penitential exile outside its walls. Once in the desert, the saints often endured various spiritual struggles, including encounters with demons, the representations of which are examined in the next chapter, “On Temptation.” The images of MS M.626 show the consequences of succumbing to temptation, but the Desert Fathers’ responses also served as models for returning to prayer and refocusing on God. The racialization of demons in the manuscript would be worth addressing, even in passing (see, e.g., Geraldine Heng, The Invention of Race in the European Middle Ages [New York: Cambridge University Press, 2018]). Chapter 4, “On Penance,” then turns to saints’ practices of repentance from sin. Once again, MS M.626 departs from its contemporaries by not just portraying one representative act of penance, but rather the whole process, including ascetical acts of renunciation, absolution, and miraculous healing; Gallant understands this illustrated narrative to again serve as a spiritual model for the fourteenth-century (lay) reader. The Conclusion outlines several possibilities for future study, namely, a more in-depth treatment of the numerous other manuscripts and frescoes mentioned briefly throughout the book. Of these, the author’s suggestion to analyze the Santa Marta Thebaid cycle for its visual interpretation of the Vitae for a female monastic audience is especially interesting.
The potential royal patronage of MS M.626 is mentioned briefly in both the Introduction and Conclusion, but the implications of an elite patron for the images’ reception go largely unremarked. Relatedly, one wonders who the “laity” are to whom MS M.626 makes the eremitic ideal “accessible,” and to whom the author refers throughout Illuminating the “Vitae patrum,” implicitly grouping together the range of identities that might encompass—from a literate merchant to the king himself. Gallant’s repeated characterization of the manuscript as “unique,” “singular,” and “remarkable” invites the unaddressed question: to what degree can one draw meaningful and broadly applied conclusions from a manuscript such as MS M.626?
Although it treats a relatively small portion of images from Morgan MS M.626, Illuminating the “Vitae patrum” offers a helpful portrait of an understudied manuscript and serves as a laudable example of what careful, focused study of a single object can yield—and, as Gallant rightly notes, there is yet more labor to be done.
