Arnauld de Bonneval, De Ultima Verba Christi, De Laudibus Beatae Mariae Virginis, and other works by Rufinus of Aquileia and Jerome, in Latin with single words in Greek, decorated manuscript on vellum [France or Low Countries (perhaps the Ardennes), mid-twelfth century]

Estimate

18,000 - 25,000 GBP

bidding is closed

Description

Vellum

60 leaves, 255mm. by 160mm., wanting a few leaves from end, else complete, collation: i-vi^{8, vii-viii^{6, main text with 41 lines in brown ink in a number of small and neat early gothic bookhands, twenty-three large red or purple initials (8 with ornate painted flourishes),}} large initial 'U' (opening "Ultima Christi uerba ...") in purple with red and faded yellow geometric infill, all on angular yellow grounds, much of initial text marked up with inflections for early public reading, spaces left in last few gatherings for initials, some small natural flaws to vellum, first leaves slightly discoloured, else excellent condition, eighteenth-century green vellum over pasteboards (back board slightly bowed), split along spine with uppermost compartment missing

Provenance

provenance

(1) Perhaps from the medieval library of the monastery of Sedan in the Ardennes: fourteenth- or fifteenth-century ex libris "Ecclesiae Sydon" at head of fol.1r.

(2) Pietro Francesco di Rossi (d.1673), the seventeenth-century Papal jurist: his inscription "Ex dono R.P.D. Petri Francisci de Rubeis". Other volumes from his library passed after his death to the library of the Sapienza University, Rome (cf. A. Maier, 'Zu einigen Handschriften der Biblioteca Alessandrina in Rom', Rivista di storia della Chiesa in Italia, 18, 1964, pp.1-12).

Catalogue Note

text

This elegant Romanesque manuscript contains a collection of texts written for public reading in a monastery. It includes three of the principal works of Arnauld de Bonneval (c.1100-56), the biographer of St. Bernard of Clairvaux: De Ultima Verba Christi (fol.1r, Migne, Pat.Lat.189, cols.1677-1726); De Laudibus Beatae Mariae Virginis (fol.42v, ibid., cols.1726-34); and his account of the Creation, De operibus sex dierum (ibid., cols.1515-70, Stegmüller, Repertorium Biblicum, no.2251). These are followed by an extract from one of Augustine's epistles (ep.118, fol.55r), and short treatises either by the early theologian, Rufinus of Aquileia (c.340-410) or related to his writings, including part of his preface to the books of Origen, the Peri archon, opening "Scio quam plurimos fratrum ..." (fol.55v, E. Dekkers, Clavis Patrum Latinorum, 1995, 198e); his Apologia ad Anastasium (fol.56r, ibid., 198); followed by Jerome's Epistola ad Rufinam (fol.57v, ibid., 620) and his Liber tertius adversus libros Rufini (ibid., 614, ending imperfectly).