This deluxe sixteenth century manuscript was made for an administrative official of the Venetian Republic, outlining his oaths and duties as a Procurator of San Marco. The opening pages were illuminated by Benedetto Bordone, the leading Venetian miniaturist of the early 1500s.

After the Doge, the Procurators of San Marco were the most important officials of the Venetian Republic until its fall in 1797, responsible for the care of the basilica and the administration of wills and trusts in the city districts. Upon election, each procurator received a commissione, a deluxe manuscript containing a list of their duties and oaths they had sworn to obey. This commissione, made for Antonio Mocenigo (elected 1 March 1523), carries at the front a depiction of the procurator receiving his charge from St Mark, the patron saint of Venice. This particularly fine illumination has been attributed to Benedetto Bordone, the leading Venetian miniaturist of the early 1500s.

Antonio Mocenigo (d. 1557) came from a prominent patrician family that included three Doges by the time of his birth. He was young, probably less than 30 years old, when he sought procuratorship. But whereas procurators had traditionally been elected per meriti, typically on the basis of civic or religious service, the sixteenth century saw an increase in young noblemen applying per dinari, pledging vast sums of money to the Republic in exchange for high office. Mocenigo himself gave 8000 ducats—enough to buy a modest palazzo on the Grand Canal. The young man's high status is unambiguously proclaimed on the first page of his commissione, within a finely detailed cartouche: Ex ope virtutisquae praestantia in patriam praestitis (‘By wealth and noble virtue you are pre-eminent in your land’).

References
Helena Katalin Szépe, Venice Illuminated: Power and Painting in Renaissance Manuscripts (Yale University Press, 2018), pp.134-135