Alphabet          [2007]

Arrangement in Orange         [2008]

The drapery detail is from Benozzo Gozzoli's fresco of angels worshipping, in the apse of the Cappella dei Magi (1459), in the Palazzo Medici-Riccardi, Florence.

Cherrylet         [2011]

cherrylet    Obs. a little cherry; used fig. of a woman's lips, &c.

The silverpoint detail on the label is taken from a silverpoint of Leonardo da Vinci (Head of a Young Woman; c. 1483) in the Biblioteca Reale, Turin. The floral detail  is adapted from a 16th-century woodcut of a dwarf cherry shrub.

A Conjured Ubiety         [2009]

The central image is a detail from a predella panel, The Rescue of Saint Placidus and the Meeting of Saints Benedict and Scholastica, attributed to Fra Angelico and in the Galleria degli Uffizi. The ribbon pattern can be seen in groin vaults in the Bargello and elsewhere.

Ducciesco         [2009]

ducciesque    in the manner of Duccio

The architectural detail in the oculus comes from The Temptation of Christ on the Mountain (c. 1308–1311), a panel from the dismembered Maestà of Duccio di Buoninsegna, in The Frick Collection, New York. The wavy pattern is a variation on the heraldic partition line called rayonée, or radiant.

Eclogue         [2009]

The fruit tree comes from Benozzo Gozzoli's frescoes in the Cappella dei Magi (1459), in the Palazzo Medici-Riccardi, Florence. The drapery detail (now nearly invisible) was adapted from the Madonna of Humility (Workshop of Lorenzo Monaco, c. 1418), Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri.

Escarpment         [2007]

Both the gilded pastiglia—relief produced by the building up of gesso onto a rigid surface—of the quatrefoil surround and the fragmentary landscape come from a predella panel, Saint Benedict Meeting Saint Paul the Hermit in the Wilderness, thought to be an early work of Fra Angelico (c. 1411; Pinacoteca Vaticana).

Fiat Lux 2         [2009]

fiat lux    L., let there be light

The incised strapwork frame is from a late 16th-century German printer's mark.

Incunabulum         [2011]

incunabulum    a book printed before 1501

The book with hands on the right is a detail from the central image in a polyptych by Simone Martini, The Blessed Agostino Novello with Scenes of His Miracles (1320s), in the Pinacoteca Nazionale, Siena. The architectural detail on the left was adapted from a panel by Sassetta, A Miracle of the Sacrament, in The Bowes Museum, Barnard Castle, Durham, England. 

Mnemosynum         [2011]

mnemosynum    L., souvenir, memorial

The silverpoint profile inside the envelope is taken from a chalk drawing by Michelangelo (Ideal Head of a Woman) in the British Museum. The reed grass above the profile comes from the Mira calligraphiae monumenta, illuminated by Joris Hoefnagel (late 16th century).

Oblation         [2009]

The hand holding the palm frond is a detail from the Annunciation (1344) of Ambrogio Lorenzetti, now in the Pinacoteca Nazionale in Siena.

Parted Per Pale         [2007]

In heraldry, a pale is a band, or ordinary, placed vertically in the middle of a shield; "parted per pale" is the heraldic term which describes the division of the field into two equal parts by a vertical line. 

The view seen through the circular window is a detail from Piero della Francesca's Triumph of Federico da Montefeltro (c. 1465, Galleria degli Uffizi).

Posy         [2011]

The silverpoint detail on the label is taken from a red chalk drawing by Agostino Carracci (Portrait of His Son, Antonio Carracci; c. 1590s) in the Art Institute of Chicago. The floral detail is adapted from a 16th-century woodcut of a rosebush.

Prorsum         [2008]

prorsum    L., forwards

The figures in the center are a detail from Masolino's fresco Healing of a Cripple and the Raising of Tabitha (c. 1425) in the Brancacci Chapel, Santa Maria del Carmine, Florence.

Stem         [2011]

A Suggestion of Allegory         [2007]

The doorways in the center can be found in a predella panel of Giovanni di Paolo, A Franciscan Saint Receiving Pilgrims Led by Saint James the Great (private collection), while the clouds are loosely borrowed from Sano di Pietro's panel Saint Bernardino Preaching before the Palazzo Pubblico of Siena (c. 1448; Museo dell'Opera del Duomo, Siena).

Sursum Corda         [2008]

sursum corda    L, ‘lift up your hearts’—an incitement to courage, fervor, &c.

The hands are small details from the following works:

center: Bartolo di Fredi, The Virgin Returning to the House of Her Parents, side panel of the Coronation of the Virgin polyptych, 1388 (Montalcino, Museo Civico e Diocesano d'Arte Sacra).

left: Paolo di Giovanni Fei, The Birth of the Virgin with Saints, 1380s (Siena, Pinacoteca Nazionale).

top: Lorenzo and Jacopo Salimbeni, The Crucifixion (fresco), 1416 (Urbino, Oratorio di San Giovanni Battista).

right: Giotto, Presentation of Jesus in the Temple (fresco), 1303–05 (Padua, Cappella degli Scrovegni).

bottom: Francesco del Cossa, The Court of Borso d'Este under the Sign of Venus (fresco), after 1466–70 (Ferrara, Palazzo Schifanoia, Hall of the Months).

The Token         [2009]

The painting depicted on the postcard in the envelope is A Young Lady of Fashion (Paolo Uccello, early 1460s) in the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston. The treeline is from Leonardo da Vinci's Annunciation (c. 1473–75; Galleria degli Uffizi).

Variety & Glow         [2010–13]

The view through the oculus is a detail from Francesco d’Antonio’s Christ Healing a Lunatic and Judas Receiving Thirty Pieces of Silver, c. 1425; in the Philadelphia Museum of Art. The title comes from a letter Emily Dickinson wrote to her nephew, James Edward Austen-Leigh (“What should I do with your strong, manly, spirited Sketches, full of Variety & Glow?”).