*School of Paris, Heraclius, Byzantine Emperor (610-641), The Return of the True Cross to Jerusalem, silver repoussé impression after the famous gold medal once in the possession of Jean, Duc de Berry (1340-1416), Heraclius in a covered triumphal car drawn by three horses, holding the True Cross; at the far side of the horses is a diminutive figure holding a whip and turning back towards the emperor; four lamps hang from a rail above them; Latin and Greek inscriptions above and below and in five lines across field, 102mm and 97mm excluding the outer rim (Jones, BMC, 5-7, especially 6 (e) for the silver double-sided repoussé piece in Paris illustrated by Babelon, La Médaille et Les Médailleurs, 1927, pl. III; Arm. II, 8, 6; Kress 525 = Pollard II, 598; Scher in Currency of Fame, pp. 32-37; Syson & Gordon, Pisanello, 20, 3.29), an extremely fine image, small French import mark of “cygne” near top edge and small section of outer order missing at 12 o’clock, extremely rare as a silver repoussé version, thought to be the earliest type of copy made after the no-longer-existing original in the Duc de Berry’s collection [Clifford lot 422, see also inside front cover illustration including frame]. The following note borrows in part from the footnote written in the 1996 Clifford sale catalogue. Of the two large gold medals of Constantine and Heraclius recorded in the inventory of the collections of Jean Duc de Berry, the Constantine medal was purchased from a Florentine merchant Antonio Mancini on 2 November 1402 and it has generally been assumed that the Heraclius medal came from the same source. It is from these two pieces or indeed copies of them that were commissioned by the Duke himself that all later versions seem to be derived. The earliest known versions consist of silver repoussé plates joined at their rims (for which see Jones, BMC, 1 and 6 – and the present piece). The solid casts mainly in bronze are thought to be later. The original of the Heraclius medal was in gold and was evidently in the French Royal cabinet, stolen and melted down in 1831 (see Jones, BMC, I, p. 26, note 15). The original medals probably date from 1400-1402 when Manuel II Palaeologus visited Paris since the legends on both medals show a knowledge of the Byzantine chancery formulae in use at the time. Also the features of the emperors on both medals do not conform to the traditional iconography of either Constantine or Heraclius, but rather show a marked similarity to Manuel II himself (for portraits of Manuel II see Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris, MS Suppl. Gr. 309; Herrin, J, Byzantium,The Surprising Life of a Medieval Empire, London, 2008, fig. 40). The medals were almost certainly produced in Paris, possibly with the Duke in mind as a purchaser. It may not be a coincidence that in March 1402 the Duke purchased two other “antique” medals of Augustus and Tiberius, from another Florentine merchant established in Paris, Michele de’ Pazzi. It has been suggested that they may be the work of the Parisian artist Michelet Saulmon, who is mentioned as the maker of a gold jewel in the Duke’s final inventory of 1416. Pieces from the Duke’s collections were available to other artists, and the imagery of both medals clearly influenced the work of the Limbourg brothers. Both obverse images appear in the Trés Riches Heures of c. 1411-16 and the triumphal chariot of the present medal is represented as the chariot of the sun at the top of each of the illuminations showing the twelve months of the year. In the Belles Heures the illumination showing the triumphal return of Heraclius after recovering the True Cross from the Persians is in fact a faithful copy of the imagery on the present piece (see Tim B. Husband and Margaret Lawson, The Art of Illumination: The Limbourg Brothers and the Belles Heures of Jean, Duc de Berry, New York, 2009, folio 156r). And, as Syson and Gordon (op. cit) among others have noted, there can be little doubt that Pisanello himself knew of and was influenced by these medals of Constantine and Heraclius. For the most recent comment on the iconography of the Return of the New Cross see Dr. Robin O’Bryan’s article, “Pisanello, chivalric dwarfs and the princely condottiere medal” in The Medal 66, 2015, pp. 13-25. She identifies the diminutive figure leading the horses as a chivalric dwarf of a type found later on medals by Pisanello and others. However, her view that the scene is likely to represent the emperor’s triumphal entry into Constantinople rather than Jerusalem as recorded in the 12th century trouvère Gautier d’Arras’s Eracle seems untenable given that the Belles Heures itself identifies the scene as Heraclius bringing the True Cross to Jerusalem. Stephen Scher in Currency of Fame has written that Heraclius with the True Cross is about to enter Jerusalem according to the account of the 13th century Jacobus de Voragine’s Golden Legend when an angel appears and rebukes him for riding in comfort where before him Christ had entered Jerusalem on a lowly ass. See also Scher’s entry no 323 in Byzantium – Faith and Power (1261-1557), Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, exhibition catalogue, 2004 - “The story of these medals is extremely complex, however, and much that concerns their history, authorship and iconography remains obscure”. The present piece was bought by Timothy Clifford in Paris in the early 1970s. Aside from the complete silver repoussé example in Paris it appears to be the only other extant repoussé version (albeit one-sided), the others being solid casts. Of the companion Constantine medal, only two repoussé versions are recorded by Jones (BMC), one in the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris and the other in the British Museum.
