De situ orbis, housed at the Albi library [fr] (Ms. 77), is an illuminated manuscript of Strabo's Geography, of Italian provenance, dated 1459.

This text by Strabo was translated from Ancient Greek into Latin by Guarino of Verona on the orders of Venetian general Jacopo Antonio Marcello and presented as a diplomatic gift to René of Anjou on September 13, 1459.

It constitutes part of a collection of books sent by the Italian military officer to the French prince, both bibliophiles and enthusiasts of ancient culture.

The esteemed manuscript was presumably composed in Padua in a humanist style, embellished with exceptional faceted initials inspired by antiquity.

Guarino of Verona (1370-1460), an Italian humanist residing in Ferrara, was commissioned by Pope Nicholas V to translate the Geography of the ancient Greek author Strabo into Latin.

[ms 2] Upon completion and illumination of the copy, it was presented to René of Anjou, King of Naples, as evidenced by the dedication dated September 13, 1459.

The Republic of Venice, represented by the general, had temporarily endorsed René of Anjou's claim to the throne of the Kingdom of Naples.

In recognition of his support, Marcello was inducted into the Order of the Crescent, established by René in 1448, along with Francesco Sforza, who had also assisted the French prince.

[ms 3] Subsequently, upon assuming the governorship of Padua, the Venetian general dispatched another illuminated work to the Angevin prince on March 1, 1457.

De situ orbis appears to be the final manuscript in this series of diplomatic exchanges, which concluded with the death of Marcello's son and his relocation to Udine in 1461.

Jouffroy was a bibliophile known to have pillaged the libraries of the abbeys he oversaw as a commendatory abbot, extracting manuscripts containing rare and ancient texts.

In his study of the manuscripts, art historian François Avril [fr] determined that a group belonging to René of Anjou was preserved for a time in the chapter library of Albi Cathedral before being dispersed into foreign collections.

Following the replacement of the binding, the original cover was preserved separately; however, it was subsequently lost during a loan for study to the Library of the Arsenal in Paris in the 1960s.

Furthermore, in the same letter, Guarino compares Strabo's text and the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible commissioned by the Egyptian King Ptolemy II around 270 BC.

Ultimately, in Marcello's missive to René of Anjou, the Venetian enumerates the alternative gifts he could have sent instead of the book: birds, horses, dogs, or precious vases.

The titles are inscribed in polychrome, reminiscent of the handwriting of Bartolomeo Sanvito, a renowned Paduan humanist scribe active at the papal court in the latter third of the fifteenth century.

American art historian Millard Meiss put forth the hypothesis that this may be an early work by Andrea Mantegna, who was deeply interested in ancient epigraphy at the time,[12] to the extent that this type of initial was affectionately dubbed litterae mantiniane.

The first illustration (f.3v) depicts Guarino of Verona, the translator, on the right, attired in a voluminous red doctoral toga, presenting his work to Jacopo Antonio Marcello, the patron, who is positioned on the left.

The throne, inspired by Tuscan sculpture, is decorated with a bas-relief representing a rabbit and a lion, topped by the Latin inscription clementiae augustae ("August Clemency").

In addition, Meiss posited that this collaborator was also influenced by the early works of his brother-in-law, Giovanni Bellini, who was then engaged in the production of the altarpiece for the Gattamelata Chapel in the Basilica of Saint Anthony.

The second miniature contains a palm tree and surrounding architecture that recall the central column and buildings depicted in Mantegna's Martyrdom of Saint Christopher fresco in the Ovetari Chapel.

Additionally, the miniatures of the Albi manuscript have been attributed to other artists, with the names of Marco Zoppo[19] and Lauro Padovano [fr][20][21] proposed, though a consensus has not been reached.

Characters’ poses, features, and costumes are reminiscent of those in Three Stories of Drusilla and Saint John the Evangelist, a predella currently housed in the Royal Castle of Berchtesgaden [fr].

The initials of the aforementioned illuminator can be found in numerous subsequent manuscripts, including French works commissioned by René of Anjou.

It appears that the illuminators working for his court, particularly the Master of the Geneva Boccaccio [fr], were inspired by the Strabo models, as evidenced by their reproduction in manuscripts dating from 1470 to 1475.