Lot 79

SECOND VOLUME OF A TWO VOLUME BIBLE, IN LATIN, ILLUMINATED MANUSCRIPT ON VELLUM

bidding is closed

Description

172 leaves, plus medieval flyleaves, 219mm. by 147mm., complete, collation: i8, ii-xiii10, xiv-xv8, xvi10, xvii8, xviii10, modern pencil foliation, double column, 57 lines, ruled in brown ink, written in dark brown ink in a small gothic bookhand, capitals touched in red, running titles and chapter numbering in alternately red and blue letters, one-line initials alternately red and blue, forty-six large illuminated initials (up to 26-line but mostly 3- to 8-line) in pink, blue and green with white tracery, on burnished gold grounds, in gothic designs of curling foliage, dragons and biting heads sometimes inhabited by grotesques, small lions and fish, and foliage extensions from finials, forty-seven large historiated initials (up to 28-line but mostly 5- to 8-line), in pink and blue with white tracery, with burnished gold grounds and frames, many with foliage extensions sometimes extending the full length of the margin, numerous marginal notations in medieval hands, a number of original flaws in the vellum, some smudging of a few initials, some staining and darkening of vellum and spotting of margins, general signs of use, a few wormholes at beginning and end, otherwise in good condition with wide margins, in a late medieval binding of dark brown leather over bevelled wooden boards, sewn on six raised bands, sides divided by fillets into an outer frame and a central diamond, with foliage and other stamps, rather worn and wormed, rebacked, traces of clasps, edges red

Provenance

(1) Written and illuminated in Paris in around 1220, to judge from the style.

(2) Owned in the sixteenth century by the bibliophile prior of mont st.michel, sebastianus ernault (d.1570): his ownership inscription in red in the upper margin of fol.1r, ‘Sebastianus Ernault me possidet’ (for Ernault see Dom. J. Laporte, ‘Le crépescule de l’ancien monachisme au Mont Saint-Michel’, in Millénaire monastique du Mont St-Michel, I, Histoire et vie monastiques, J. Laporte, ed., 1967, p.216-6 and 281. Ernault signed his name in a number of incunables and manuscripts which he consulted in the library at Mont St-Michel (including two manuscripts, now Avranches, mss.37 and 210), and also signed a breviary which he had repaired in 1556 (now BnF ms.n.a.lat.424, cf. G. Nortier, Les bibliothèques médiévales des abbayes bénédictines de Normandie, 1971, p.78-9). Ernault appears to have given the present manuscript to the library: there is a partly legible seventeenth-century ‘ex libris’ of the library in the lower margin of fol.1r, referring to the congregation of St.Maur, who were installed in the abbey in 1622. According to Maurists' catalogues, the monastery had around 280 volumes in the seventeenth century, for which a new library was constructed in 1646 (cf. Nortier, p.80). The monks guarded these volumes jealously: Du Molinet describes how he was unable to touch the manuscripts which were kept in locked bookcases, for which the key fortuitously could not be found on the day of his visit (L. Delisle, Le Cabinet des manuscrits de la bibliothèque nationale, I, 1868, p.463).

In addition to products of its own scriptorium, the library included a number of manuscripts made elsewhere, but either bought or donated to the monastery, including a large illuminated two-volume Bible, Avranches, Bibl.mun. mss.2 and 3, made in Normandy in c.1200-15, under the influence of the earliest Parisian lay workshops (cf. Leservoisier, op.cit., p.30 and Le livre saint en Normandie, ex.cat., M. Dosdat and J.-L. Leservoisier, eds., 1995, no.11) and a glossed Gospels produced in Paris in c.1240-50 (cf. M. Dosdat in Le Mont-Saint-Michel Histoire et Imaginaire, M. Baylé et al., 1998, p.94).

There are around two hundred manuscripts from Mont St-Michel at Avranches, whence they passed at the Revolution (see J.-P. Martin, ‘La Bibliothèque d’Avranches. Ses origins et ses richesses’, Normannia, IV, 1933, pp.551-64, and more recently J.-L. Leservoisier, Les manuscripts du Mont-Saint-Michel, 1996). Aside from these, only around twenty Mont St-Michel manuscripts are known, all in public collections (cf. M. Bourgeois-Lechartier, ‘A la recherche du scriptorium de l’abbaye du Mont Saint-Michel’, in Millenaire monastique, II, Vie montoise et rayonnement du Mont Saint-Michel, R. Foreville, ed., 1967, pp.171-202; Nortier, op.cit., pp.83-8; M. Delalonde, Manuscrits du Mont Saint-Michel, 1981, p.28). this is the only manuscript from the library of mont st-michel known to us in private hands.

(3) Schøyen Collection, Oslo and London, the present owners, MS.16, acquired from Heribert Tenschert, Rotthalmünster, in 1987.

Catalogue Note

TEXT

Thirteenth-century Paris Bibles in two volumes are extremely uncommon. In general, large romanesque Bibles were often in two or more volumes and glossed Bibles continued to be produced in multi-volume sets during the thirteenth century. By about 1220-30, however, unglossed Bibles were predominantly in a small, single-volume format. Branner (R. Branner, Manuscript painting in Paris during the Reign of St.Louis, 1977, pp.201-39) lists only eleven un-glossed Bibles that were apparently made as more than one volume (as opposed to being bound as several volumes at a later phase), and these are generally large-scale codices. (These include: Avranches mss.2 and 3, in two volumes; Chartres ms.139, in two volumes; Reims mss.34-6, in three volumes; BnF mss.lat.16719-22, in four volumes, 11539-41, in four volumes, 16748-9, in two volumes and 14234-7, in four volumes; Le Mans ms.262, in four volumes; Munich BSB Clm.10001-2, in 2 volumes and possibly Mazarine Mss.38 and 39). Only one, Vat.Reg.lat.1+2 (p.213) is comparable in size to the present volume. There is no sign that the present manuscript was ever intended to be bound as part of a single volume, and, although the text follows the standard order of books in the Paris Bible, it lacks the Interpretation of Hebrew Names which was usually grafted onto the books of the Bible from about 1230. It is perhaps best understood as dating from around 1220, before the Bible had finally settled into the single volume format which is recognisable as the basis for the modern printed edition.

ILLUMINATION

The style of this richly illuminated manuscript is close to that of magister alexander, the earliest French professional illuminator whose name can be associated with a definite body of work. This name appears in an inscription in burnished gold at the top of the Genesis page of a handsome Bible of c.1220 (BnF ms.lat.11930-11931), ‘Magister Alexander me fecit’. His hand has been identified in around two dozen manuscripts, nearly all Bibles, dating from 1215-30 (see Branner, pp.202-3 for a list of manuscripts, not including the present volume). A very similar figure style and facial features to those in this manuscript are found in a number of manuscripts attributed to the Magister Alexander atelier, including a small bible of c.1215-1225 (Lisieux, bibl.mun. ms.18, cf. Le livre saint en Normandie, Bibles manuscripts et enluminées VIIIe-XIIIe siècles, ex.cat., 1995, no.12).

Alexander was perhaps responsible for more than just the illumination of the manuscripts linked with his name, and appears to have been running one of the first truly commercial workshops, working with other painters, reusing figures and scenes in different manuscripts, relying on mnemonic sketches and written instructions, even signing his work as if as an advertisement. It has recently been tentatively but plausibly proposed that he should be identified with Alexander the parchmenter (d.1231), and that he should be seen as an early counterpart of the libraire-illuminators of the later thirteenth, fourteenth and fifteenth centuries (cf. R.H. and M.A. Rouse, Manuscripts and their Makers: Commercial Book Production in Medieval Paris 1200-1500, I, 2000, pp.44-6). This Alexander appears to have run a flourishing business: at his death he left his widow Aveline a house on the south side of the ‘new street in front of the great church in Paris’, i.e. the rue Neuve Notre-Dame, an area strongly associated with the booktrade.

Two features of the iconography of the present manuscript might support an early dating. The depiction of the vision of Isaiah at the beginning of the Book of Isaiah, rather than the more standard martyrdom is unusual, but a precedent is found in a bible of c.1210-15, attributed to the Almagest atelier (BL Add.MS.15253) and in a Bible of c.1220 produced by the Amiens Atelier (Baltimore, Walters Art Gallery W.60; cf. L. Randall, Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts in the Walters Art Gallery, I, France, 875-1420, 1989, p.39).

Also uncommon is the depiction of a battle in the initial at Maccabees I, in place of the usual theme of the beheading of the idolatrous Jew. A related theme is found in two Bibles in the Walters Art Gallery, W.60 mentioned above, and W.61, although these simply show a knight on horseback not a full combat.

The subjects of the historiated initials are:

1.Folio 1r, Proverbs, historiated initial P, 26mm. by 28mm. (62mm. with extension), King Solomon teaching, the king enthroned with a green switch, pointing at a book held by the tonsured Rehoboam, who is seated on the ground.

2.Folio 6v, Ecclesiastes, historiated initial V, 21mm. by 22mm., King Solomon addressing two men.

3.Folio 8r, Song of Songs, historiated initial O, 25mm. by 25mm., the bride and bridegroom as Christ and Ecclesia, seated side-by-side, Christ placing a crown on Ecclesia’s head.

4.Folio 9v, Wisdom, historiated initial D, 19mm. by 20mm., Solomon enthroned, debating with a man holding a staff over his shoulder.

5.Folio 14r, Ecclesiasticus, historiated initial O, 26mm. by 25mm., Solomon and a second man standing behind an altar, debating with two men.

6.Folio 23r, Isaiah, historiated initial V, 24mm. by 24mm., the prophecy to Isaiah, with the prophet in bed, beside him three kings, the hand of God appearing from a cloud above.

7.Folio 37v, Jeremiah (and Lamentations), historiated initial V, 21mm. by 20mm., a bust of God bending down from Heaven towards the standing prophet (somewhat rubbed).

8.Folio 55v, Baruch, historiated initial E, 20mm. by 20mm., the prophet pointing up to heaven and addressing two men.

9.Folio 57r, Ezekiel, historiated initial E, 18mm. by 19mm., Ezekiel’s vision of a tetramorph, the prophet seated, looking up at the heads of the four beasts.

10.Folio 70v, Daniel, historiated initial A, 21mm. by 21mm., two mounted knights galloping towards a city gate.

11.Folio 76v, Hosea, historiated initial V, 20mm. by 20mmm., Hosea and Gomer heeding the word of God, standing beside an altar with God’s hand appearing from a cloud.

12.Folio 78v, Joel, historiated initial V, 20mm. by 20mm., the prophet admonishing two men, who tear their hair.

13.Folio 79v, Amos, historiated initial V, 19mm. by 19mm., the prophet addressing two men.

14.Folio 81r, Obadiah, historiated initial V, 15mm. by 15mm., two prophets in discussion.

15.Folio 81v, Jonah, historiated initial E, 17mm. by 17mm., Jonah swallowed by the whale.

16.Folio 82r, Micah, historiated initial V, 13mm. by 15mm., the standing prophet listening to God, whose hand appears from a cloud.

17.Folio 83v, Nahum, historiated initial O, 20mm. by 20mm., the kneeling prophet listening to God, whose hand appears from a cloud.

18.Folio 84r, Habakkuk, historiated initial O, 20mm. by 20mm., the standing prophet listening to God, whose hand appears from a cloud.

19.Folio 85r, Zephaniah, historiated initial V, 16mm. by 19mm., the kneeling prophet and the Holy Ghost.

20.Folio 85v, Haggai, historiated initial I, 60mm. by 8mm., the hand of God reaching down from heaven to take the prophet by the hand.

21.Folio 86v, Zachariah, historiated initial I, 55mm. by 6mm., the standing prophet pointing to his words, the hand of God above.

22.Folio 88v, Malachi, historiated initial O, 26mm. by 26mm., the hand of God reaching down from heaven and seizing the prophet by the arm.

23.Folio 89v, Maccabees I, historiated initial E, 20mm. by 20mm., Antiochus besieging Egypt, two knights in combat.

24.Folio 104v, Matthew, historiated initial L, 90mm. by 21mm., the Tree of Jesse, with the sleeping Jesse at the base, with a tree growing from his loins supporting three kings and culminating in Christ.

25.Folio 113r, Mark, historiated initial I, 75mm. by 7mm., containing the evangelist’s symbol of a lion battling a dragon.

26.Folio 118v, Luke, historiated initial F, 20mm. by 18mm., St.Luke asperging an altar.

27.Folio 128r, John, historiated initial I, 100mm. by 8mm., St.John seated with a book, his symbol of an eagle above.

28.Folio 135r, Romans, historiated initial P, 23mm. by 35mm. (172mm. with extension), St.Paul at a writing desk, the Holy Ghost whispering in his ear.

29.Folio 138r, Corinthians I, historiated initial P, 19mm. by 19mm. (60mm. with extension), St.Paul debating with a man in a green tunic (smudged).

30.Folio 141v, Corinthians II, historiated initial P, 20mm. by 21mm. (123mm. with extension), St.Paul holding a book, debating with a man in a blue tunic, leaning on a stick.

31.Folio 144r, Galatians, historiated initial P, 23mm. by 23mm. (116mm. with extension), St.Paul standing in a battlemented tower, holding a book, and debating with a man outside the tower.

32.Folio 145r, Ephesians, historiated initial P, 23mm. by 23mm. (70mm. with extension), St.Paul seated at a table, writing in a book and debating with a man in a tall hat.

33.Folio 146r, Philippians, historiated initial P, 18mm. by 21mm. (59mm. with extension), St.Paul and a young man in conversation holding a book between them.

34.Folio 147r, Colossians, historiated initial P, 21mm. by 24mm. (64mm. with extension), St.Paul and a man, holding a scroll between them.

35.Folio 148r, Thessalonians I, historiated initial P, 21mm. by 25mm. (78mm. with extension), St.Paul seated behind a desk pointing to an open book, addressed by a man.

36.Folio 148v, Thessalonians II, historiated initial P, 20mm. by 24mm. (76mm. with extension), St.Paul seated behind a desk pointing to an open book, and addressing a young man.

37.Folio 149r, Timothy I, historiated initial P, 19mm. by 23mm. (69mm. with extension), St.Paul holding a book, in discussion with a man in brown leaning on a stick.

38.Folio 150r, Timothy II, historiated initial P, 20mm. by 26mm. (86mm. with extension), St.Paul holding a book, in discussion with a man in blue leaning on a stick.

39.Folio 150v, Titus, historiated initial P, 25mm. by 26mm. (121mm. with extension), St.Paul writing, seated at a desk.

40.Folio 151r, Philemon, historiated initial P, 21mm. by 23mm. (81mm. with extension), St.Paul seated, holding a book, in discussion with a man in brown.

41.Folio 151v, Hebrews, historiated initial M, 22mm. by 30mm., St.Paul talking to two Jews, one holding a book.

42.Folio 154r, Acts, historiated initial P, 22mm. by 23mm. (75mm. with extension), the Ascension (smudged).

43.Folio 165r, Peter, historiated initial S, 25mm. by 22mm., the saint seated a desk, writing in an open book and holding his key in his left hand.

44.Folio 166v, John II, historiated initial S, 21mm. by 23mm., the saint seated at a desk (smudged).

45.Folio 167r, John III, historiated initial S, 25mm. by 25mm., the saint and a second man (smudged).

46.Folio 167r, Jude, historiated initial I¸62mm. by 10mm., the saint and second man (smudged).

47. Folio 167v, Revelations, historiated initial A, 22mm. by 26mm., St.John seated beside the Heavenly Jerusalem.