( fl c. 1465). Italian illuminator. He was recognized by Alexander and De La Mare as the illuminator of a Book of Hours formerly in the Abbey Collection (MS. J.A. 6960) that bears the coat of arms of the Birago family. He illuminated all the pages of the manuscript except for folio 125r, which is attributed to Belbello da Pavia. The Master’s hand is also clearly recognizable in some pages of another Book of Hours (Paris, Bib. N., MS. fond. Smith-Lesouëf 22) and in a manuscript containing a treatise by the jurist Girolamo Mangiaria, Opusculum de impedimentis matrimonii ratione consanguinitatis et affinitatis (Paris, Bib. N., MS. Lat. 4586), which was read at Pavia University in 1465. The frontispiece (fol. 1r) depicts Galeazzo Maria Sforza, Duke of Milan, to whom the manuscript is dedicated, receiving the book from the author. In both the Birago and the Smith-Lesouëf Hours the Master collaborated with BELBELLO DA PAVIA, and he may have been trained in Belbello’s workshop. This would explain the accentuated expressiveness of some of his figures, the strong and brilliant colouring and, above all, the use of certain decorative motifs, such as branches of leaves and flowers against a gold background, which is typical of Belbello and his workshop.

Part of the Masters, anonymous, and monogrammists family