Lot 72

Marco Vigerio, Liber de Dignitate Vestimentorum Iesu, in Latin, illuminated manuscript on vellum

bidding is closed

Description

76 leaves (including single blanks at each end), 223mm. by 160mm., complete, collation: i-vii^{10, viii^{5 [of 8, blank vi foliated ‘75’ now bound as front flyleaf, blank vii and viii cancelled], quire signatures and vertical catchwords, old foliation in brown ink at bottom of rectos omits one after ‘16’, ruled in light brown ink, 21 long lines, written-space 142mm. by 75mm., written in brown ink in a round, very elegant formal humanistic bookhand, headings in liquid gold with the first capital in purple, marginal headings in red, titles and openings of ‘salutatio’ and texts in lines of epigraphic capitals alternately in liquid gold, blue and purple,}}decorated initials throughout, up to 4 lines high, in liquid gold on square grounds of blue, red green with liquid gold tracery, occasionally outlined in contrasting blue or green, a large historiated initial ‘q’ of the Crucifixion and full illuminated and historiated border on frontispiece (fol.7r), the initial 4 lines high (27mm. by 30mm.), of liquid gold on a square ground of red with liquid gold tracery outlined in black, the border in renaissance design of red, purple, blue, yellow and green flowers and acanthus leaves on a ground of liquid gold outlined in blue and brown ink, including eleven medallions with the Instruments of the Passion in grisaille and a roundel with the Loredan arms, the coat-of-arms surmounted by the doge’s hat on a violet ground with liquid gold tracery surrounded by a wreath of green laurel, some marks and dampstains along extreme edges, in very fresh condition, late eighteenth-century Italian red morocco gilt, floral printed paper pastedowns, paper endleaves, gilt and gauffered edges, green morocco title label gilt, binding slightly worn, in a modern full red morocco fitted case, title label gilt

Provenance

(1) The presentation copy for Leonardo Loredan, doge of Venice 1501-21, with his arms and doge’s hat on fol.7r (per fess, or and azure, six roses counterchanged). In his introductory letter to the Doge (fols.1r-4r), Vigerio explains that he has already dedicated this treatise to the king of Spain and had offered it to Julius II but was persuaded by Giovanni Badoer, a Venetian orator close to the Papacy, to present it to the Doge. The dedication to Ferdinand the Catholic (fols.4r-6v) praises his war efforts against the infidels. Doge Loredan was portrayed shortly after his election in majestic serenity by Giovanni Bellini, now in The National Gallery in London.

(2) Jacopo Soranzo (d.1760): his manuscript no.172 with his foliation and binding; sold to Canonici together with all his library (cf.J.B. Mitchell in the Bodleian Library Record, II, 1969, pp.125-35).

(3) Matteo Luigi Canonici (1727-1805), Venetian Jesuit and collector of some 3550 manuscripts. Canonici died intestate and his collection passed first to a brother and thence to Giovanni Perisinotti, who sold over 2000 of them to the Bodleian Library. A portion of the residue was sold in our rooms in one of Celotti’s sales, 26 February 1821.

(4) Walter Sneyd (1809-1888), who bought the remaining 915 manuscripts relating to Venice from the Canonici library; his sale in our rooms, 16 December 1903, lot 815.

(5) Charles Fairfax Murray (1849-1919), bought in the Sneyd sale.

(6) J.R. Ritman, of Amsterdam, designated BPH 165, bought from S. Fogg, his catalogue 14 (1991), no.33; his sale our rooms, 6 July 2000, lot 53, £32,000 to H.P. Kraus; ticket of the Kraus stock and reference library; their sale in our New York rooms, 4 December 2003, lot 621.

Catalogue Note

text

Marco Vigerio della Rovere (1446-1516) was a Franciscan priest from Savona and apparently a relative of an early teacher of Sixtus IV della Rovere (pope 1471-84). By 1492 he was bishop of Senigallia and he was elected cardinal by Julius II della Rovere in December 1505. He taught theology in Padua and Rome, and was a member of the circle of writers and propagandists around Julius II, which included Giles of Viterbo, Girolamo Vida and Pietro Bembo. Vigerio wrote several religious treatises in Latin which appear in various sixteenth-century printed editions, but manuscript copies of his works appear to be very rare. Only one other manuscript of the present treatise is known to us, Vatican Library, Vat.Lat. MS 3637. The first printed edition was published in Rome in 1508. Another manuscript treatise by Vigerius, the Super Verba Christi Heli heli Lama, on last words of Christ spoken on the Cross, is now Warsaw, Biblioteka Narodowa, MS 3032.

The present manuscript contains Vigerio’s most famous work. In it he discusses the relics of the Passion, and aims to show the superiority of the Lance of Longinus, which pierced the side of Christ, over the loincloth worn by Christ. It was a singular occasion that brought about the writing of this work. In 1489, Innocent VIII became the first pope to enter into relations with the Ottoman Empire, by agreeing to detain the Sultan’s fugitive brother and potential rival in return for 40,000 ducats yearly and the gift of the Holy Lance of Longinus. However, the Sultan retained the relic of the loincloth, and a great dispute arose in Italy as to whether or not the pope had been sent the more important relic. Vigerio, as he states in his introduction, was charged by his fellow bishops to write a treatise to settle the matter. He argues for the superiority of the Lance because it penetrated Christ’s body right to the heart, and to his precious blood, whereas the Cloth touched the exterior parts only. He also points out that the Sultan, being an infidel, was no judge of such matters.

The gift from the Sultan was made in 1489. Vigerius states that he began writing the text in 1492 as soon as the relic had arrived in Ancona. The dedication to Ferdinand II Cattolico must date from after 1492, the year in which the Church revoked its excommunication of the Spanish king. The present manuscript was written after Vigerio was made a cardinal in 1505, as he refers to this event in his dedication to Doge Loredan. The text begins on fol.7r, “Liber de dignitate vestimentorum D. Iesu et sancti lanceae ferri quo latus eius apertum est, Qvemadmodum ad naturae opera …”, and it ends on fol.73v, “… existimandum opera comprobavisse videntur.”

script and illumination

The style of the handwriting is very close to the elegant and highly formalised humanistic script developed by Pierantonio Sallando and Girolamo Pagliarolo in Bologna around 1500, especially in manuscripts dated or datable to the first years of the sixteenth century (for example, the Book of Hours in the Victoria and Albert Museum, Reid MS.64, and the Hours of Bonaparte Ghisleri, BL. Yates Thompson MS.29, both by Sallando; and the De Albornotii Cardinalis vita, Imola, Bibl.Comunale, cod.59, by Pagliarolo). Their script was the precursor of the formal writing first published in Venice in 1523 by Ludovico Arrighi, Il modo de temperare le penne, and in 1524 by Giovanantonio Tagliente, La vera arte delo excellente scrivere, where he called it littera antique tonda for the first time. Sallando started his long career as a calligrapher in Padua by 1483 and moved to Bologna in 1489 where he worked as a calligrapher and taught at the university until his death in 1540. The illuminated frontispiece is in the style of Matteo da Milano and Tommaso da Modena (cf. the Missal for Cardinal Ippolito I d’Este, datable c.1505, now Innsbruck, Universitätsbibl., MS.43). There are black historiated medallions in the illuminated frame in the style of Matteo da Milano and Tommaso da Modena. These classical cammei were first introduced in book illumination by the Pliny Master and Girolamo da Cremona in the 1470s and then frequently employed by Boccardino il Vecchio in Florence (an interesting unfinished example of his work is the Statues of the guild of San Salvi, sold in our rooms, 23 June 1998, lot 56) and by Francesco Marmitta in Bologna; on Pierantonio Sallando, Francesco Marmitta and in general on the Bolognese school of illumination, cf. A. Bacchi et al., Francesco Marmitta, 1995.