The artistic patronage of John Stuart, Duke of Albany 1518-19
the 'discovery' of the artist and author, Bremond Domat
manuscripts, John Stuart, Duke of Albany, Regent of Scotland, Medici family
medieval
Abstract
This paper examines two genealogical manuscripts, dating to 1518–19, connected to John Stuart, Duke of Albany: one currently in Paris, the other in the Hague. Examining these two works together demonstrates that some of the recent scholarship on the Hague Manuscript is inaccurate. A comparison shows that this manuscript is not the work, as frequently stated, of the Franco-Flemish rhetorician, Jean Lemaire de Belges, but rather both manuscripts are the work of the same artist/author: Bremond Domat. Domat was employed by Albany for over a decade in Albany’s home town of Mirefleurs in the Auvergne. These two manuscripts reveal a great deal about Albany’s ambitions and priorities at a time when he was still Regent of Scotland, but also when his prominence was growing in France due to connections to the powerful Florentine Medici family.