Leaf from Terence, Comedies, manuscript in Latin on vellum, [Italy (Florence), 15th century (c.1475)]

Property from the Albright-Knox Art Gallery

Leaf from Terence, Comedies

Manuscript in Latin on vellum. [Italy (Florence), 15th century (c.1475)]

Single leaf, c.250×175mm; blind-ruled, written in a very fine regular Humanistic bookhand with rubrics in epigraphic capitals, 30 lines per page (c.170×105mm), vertical catchwords, wide clean margins.

A handsome example of a Classical text written by a named scribe in fine Humanistic scripts.

LITERATURE:

A.C. de la Mare, ‘New Research on Humanistic Scribes in Florence’, in La miniatura fiorentina del Rinascimento, 1440–1525 (Florence, 1985), pp. 395–574, at 508–09.

Sotheby’s, Western Manuscripts and Miniatures, 26 November 1985, lot 78 and full-page plate.

Barbara A. Shailor, ‘Otto Ege: His Manuscript Fragment Collection and the Opportunities Presented by Electronic Technology’, Journal of the Rutgers University Libraries, 60 (2003), 1–22, figs. I.2, I.5

Scott Gwara, Otto Ege’s Manuscripts (Cayce, SC, 2013), Handlist no. 78, citing other leaves in nine American institutional collections.

PROVENANCE:

(1) WRITTEN BY THE FLORENTINE SCRIBE GIULIO D’ANTONIO.

(2) Ulrico Hoepli, 3 December 1928, p. 47 (no lot no.)

(3) E. P. Goldschmidt, Catalogue 23 (1930), no. 14.

(4) Sotheby’s, 28 May 1934, lot 100

(5) Ernest Dawson, Los Angeles; bought in 1935 by:

(6) Otto Ege (de Ricci, Census, II (1937), p. 1947 no. 65; with 103 leaves, still in original binding)

(6) Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, NY; Gallery Purchase, 1940 (1940:355.5)