Peter de Tarantaise, Commentaria in epistolam Pauli ad Romanos, in Latin, manuscript on vellum

40 leaves, 350mm. by 245mm., a few leaves missing from first gathering, remainder now loose), else complete, collation: i^{6 (loose leaves,), ii-iii12, iv10 (leaf wanting from beginning of gathering; i a singleton), horizontal catchwords, written space 255mm. 175mm., double column, 59 lines in light brown ink in a small round Gothic script, some initials touched in red, quotations from the Pauline epistles underlined in red, some staining at base of initial leaf, signs of minor water-damage to lower edge of leaves throughout, lower outer-corners missing from fols.14 & 27, discolouration and rust-stains on verso of last leaf indicating the volume was once bound between boards with large central and corner bosses, now disbound}

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Peter de Tarantaise (c. 1225-1276), was a Dominican preacher from south-eastern France who graduated from the University of Paris as a master of sacred theology in 1259, and won acclaim as a professor in that subject. He became archbishop of Lyons in 1272 and cardinal-bishop of Ostia in 1273, and while in that office he pronounced the funeral oration for St. Bonaventure. He was elected successor to Gregory X, whose intimate adviser he was, and took the name of Innocent V, becoming the first Dominican pope. He was essentially a scholarly peaceful man, who sought in his pontificate to reconcile the Guelphs and the Ghibellines in Italy, restore peace between Pisa and Lucca, and meditate between Rudolph of Hapsburg and Charles of Anjou; but unfortunately he reigned only a few months, dying on 22 June 1276.

The present text is his commentary on the Pauline epistles: Romans (erroneously published in 1478 as the work of Nicholas of Gorran; for incipits correctly attributed see Stegmüller, Repertorium, iv, nos. 6882-3, where he lists over 100 manuscripts; but not the present one). This manuscript appears too modest for a Parisian university copy, and is too large to be a volume for private devotion; much about it suggests it was made for public reading in a monastery in northern France.