Domenico Cavalca, Vite dei Santi Padri, in Italian, manuscript on paper

Estimate

4,000 - 6,000 GBP

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Description

175 leaves (5 blank), 132mm. by 100mm., lacking one leaf after fol.99, another leaf lost or cancelled after fol.20, else complete, collation: i-ii^{8, iii^{7 [of 8, v lacking or cancelled], iv-ix^{8, x^{4, xi-xiii^{8, xiv^{7 [of 8, lacking i], xv-xxii^{8, xxiii^{5 [of 8, vi-viii cancelled, doubtless blank], with horizontal catchwords, pencil foliation (followed here) repeats ‘134’, 17 lines, ruled in pale ink, written-space c.94mm. by 72mm., written in brown ink in a neat rounded gothic bookhand, some flourished cadels, headings in red, 2-line initials throughout in red or blue, a few with decorative penwork in other colours, some larger initials up to 4 lines high with contrasting penwork, a few minor stains, a few wormholes in first page, old name (probably seventeenth-century) on first page “di Gio. Cusi”,}}}}}}}} contemporary binding of reversed leather (usually called ‘doe skin’) over pasteboards, probably originally coloured red, stubs (only) of two pairs of ties, later marbled pastedowns, binding worn but sound

Catalogue Note

The ancient legends of the early Christian hermits of Egypt were originally written in Greek, and rendered into Latin by Jerome, as the Vitae Patrum. The present translation into Italian is that attributed to the Dominican friar, Domenico Cavalca (1270-1342), the ‘father of Italian prose’, as Pietro Giordani called him. The text “is, strictly speaking, a closely derivative text rather than a translation, as far surpasses the quality of the Latin original and has always been admired by linguistic purists. It is actually difficult to withdraw from the magic of the fresh and animated prose which carries one over the frustration a modern reader may feel at the recurring accounts of the effortless ease with which the hermit heroes of the tale fight against melancholia, ebrietà, and the diletti carnali” (K. Dachs, ‘Domenico Cavalca, Vite dei Santi Padri, Italy, early fifteenth century’, Fine Books and Book Collecting, A.G. Thomas festschrift, ed. C. de Hamel and R. Linenthal, 1981, p.15). Manuscripts vary immensely in their selection of texts. A total of 191 manuscripts containing some or all of the Vite dei Santi Padri are known, mostly in Italian libraries, listed by C. Delcorno, La tradizione delle ‘Vite dei santi padri’, 2000. There are only four manuscripts in England and two in North America (the Bancroft Library at Berkeley and the Houghton Library at Harvard). Only one other is known to be in private hands, Holkham Hall MS.130, dated 1468. The last on the market was probably lot 41 in the sale in these rooms, 9 December 1974, now Munich, Staatsbibliothek, Cod. ital.691. See also, A. Cioni, Bibliografia de ‘Le Vite dei Santi Padre’ volgarizzata da Fra Domenico Cavalca’, 1962 (Biblioteca degli eruditi e dei bibliofili, 73), and R. Lotti, ed., Contributi su Domenico Cavalca (c.1270-1342), 1987.

The present manuscript is in two parts. It opens with the life of Saint Eufronia, in two chapters, beginning on fol.1r, “Fu ne la cita de Alexandria uno grande gentile homo …”, with an account of her birth to elderly parents helped by the prayers of a friendly monk who eventually took her into his monastery where she passed herself off as a monk; followed by short accounts of the lives and miracles of various desert fathers and hermits, including Hypertio, Isach, Apolo, Theodoro, Acerbio, Cypriano Cuculla, Patriarch Gregory of Theopoli, and many others, with accounts of conversions, miracles, ascetic life and holy living, a long account of the hermit Abraam (“Lo sanctissimo Abraam essendo figliolo de parenti richissimi …”, fol.48r). The second part comprises the much longer lives and miracles of Saint Paul the First Hermit and Saint Anthony. Folio 76r starts, “Incomenza el primo libro de la vite di sancti padri compilato da sancto Hyeronimo …”, chapters 1-4 on Paul (“Nel tempo de Decio e de Valeriano …”) and chapters 5-23 on Anthony, opening “Antonio nato de nobili e religiosi parenti …” (fol.92v), ending on fol.174v, “… come de proprio padre”.