INCREASING attention has been given in recent decades to issues of workshop practice in early Netherlandish paint- ing. With advances in infra-red photography and, more recently, reflectography, important information continues to emerge from beneath the painted surfaces of Nether- landish panels.  Archival research has revealed equally provocative evidence, evoking an ever-more complex pic- ture of the life within painters' ateliers in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.

A SERIES of rare and fascinating visual documents relating to the history of S. Maria Maggiore, Rome, in the early eighteenth century has recently come to light in the basil- ican archive: five illuminated manuscripts, choir books scored for the liturgy of Holy Week and dating from the pontificate of Clement XI Albani (1700-21).1 The five leather-bound volumes, bearing the titles Passio Domini Nostri Jesu Christi Secundum Lucam or Passio Domini Nostri Jesu Christi Secundam Matthaeum, are not profusely illus- trated. Within the texts themselves, in fact, the only dec- oration consists of seven historiated capitals, pen and ink drawings representing scenes from the Passion of Christ. Preceding the text of each of the five manuscripts, how- ever, is a richly coloured full-page illuminated frontispiece.