Image Trouble in Vernacular Commentary: The Vacillations of Francesco da Barberino

In the fourteenth century, some innovative thinkers began to treat vernacular texts - as written either by themselves or their contemporaries - with the same sort of respect that for generations had been the prerogative of Latin ‘set texts’, as studied in medieval schools. My essay explores the part manuscript illumination played in one such project: the Documenti d’Amore of Francesco da Barberino (1264-1348). Here theorization lags far behind sophisticated practice, as Francesco denigrates the figurae which he himself designed - and which are vital to his ambitious commentarial enterprise - as having low epistemological status and hence suitable for the ‘vulgar’ rather than the learned.