Lot 55

St. Bonaventura, Commentaria in Quattuor Libros Sententiarum, in Latin, manuscript on vellum

Estimate

6,000 - 8,000 GBP

bidding is closed

Description

81 leaves, 320mm. by 216mm., a few leaves missing from the beginning and end, and a few leaves excised throughout, collation: i^{8(some leaves missing from first part of gathering), ii^{12, iii^{11(vii a singleton), iv^{10, v^{11(ix a singleton), vi^{10(2 leaves wanting after i), vii^{11 (a leaf excised after vi), viii^{8(2 leaves wanting from middle of gathering), horizontal catchwords, written space 221mm. by 150mm., double column, 50 lines in dark brown ink in an accomplished early Gothic hand, paragraph marks in red, titles in red and blue, ascenders of letters on top line extending high into upper margin with some decorative cadels, numerous 2- and 3-line initials in alternate red and blue with red or purple penwork extending up and down margin, fols. 77-80 with approximately 85mm. long horizontal cut into first column of text, a few leaves at front of volume somewhat stained and cockled, otherwise in good condition, eighteenth-century mottled sheep over pasteboards (worn), small portion of leather from bottom of spine loose}}}}}}}}

Provenance

provenance

1. Probably written in northern France, although the use of purple penwork may suggest a university context in the south, perhaps somewhere such as Toulouse or Montpellier.

2. Inscription of c. 1800 inside front board: Ce livre appartient a moi brutus levoir / Je l'ai fait dans l'abay des bénédictins ; the same hand adds on fol. 19r, ah que j'aime les antiquités, and other similar remarks elsewhere.

Catalogue Note

text

St. Bonaventure of Bagnoregio was born c. 1221, and by his own report was healed from a childhood illness by St. Francis of Assisi. About 1242, he entered the Franscican order, and travelled to the University of Paris to study under the founder of the Franciscan School there, the celebrated Alexander of Hales (obit 1245). In 1248 he received his licence to teach publicly as a Magister regens, and he continued to lecture at the university with great success until 1256, when the secular professors of Paris caused the expulsion of their peers in the Mendicant orders. He returned to teaching after the matter was resolved and was awarded the degree of Doctor on 23 October 1257, alongside St. Thomas Aquinas. He had already, on 2 February the same year, been elected the eighth Minister-General of the Franciscan order, and held this office during the turbulent times which surrounded the emergence and wide dissemination of Joachim da Fiore's works, which became very popular with the more 'spiritual' friars. During this time Bonaventure was a stabilising force within the Franciscan order, striking against any extremes, and embodying a scholarly and traditional leader. He died on the 15 July 1274 while in attendance of Pope Gregory X at the Great Council of Lyon (allegedly through poisoning). To his contemporaries he was principally a scholar, but after his death a popular saint's-cult developed around his tomb; first recorded by Dante Alighieri (1265-1321), when in his Paradiso he listed Bonaventure among the saints. When his remains were translated to a new church in 1434 his head was found in a perfect state of preservation and canonisation quickly followed.

The present text is that of his Commentaries on the Sentences of the scholar Peter Lombard, and is Bonaventure's greatest philosophical work. It was written at the command of his superiors when he was only twenty-seven, and traverses the entire field of Scholastic theology, methodically discussing the nature of God and the Trinity, the Creation and Fall of Man, the Incarnation and Redemption, Grace, the Sacraments, and the Last Judgment. The present manuscript includes a substantial part of Book I of the work, including: part of the Proemium (fols. 1rv); part of Distinctiones I (1v-3v); part of Dist. II (4r-5v); almost all of Dist. III (4v-9v); part of Dist. IV (9v-11v); Dist. V (11v-14r); part of Dist. VI (14r-15r); part of Dist. VII (15r-17r), all of Dist. VIII (17r-22v), part of Dist. IX (22v-24r), part of Dist. X (24r-26v), part of Dist. XI (26v-28r), part of Dist. XII (28r-29v), all of Dist. XIII (29v-32r), all of Dist. XIV (32r-33v), all of Dist. XV (33v-36v), all of Dist. XVI (36v-38r), part of Dist. XVII (38r-40v), part of XVIII (41r-42v), part of Dist. XIX (42v-45r), all of Dist. XX (45r-46v), all of Dist. XXI (46v-47v), all of XXII (47v-49v), all of Dist. XXIII (49v-51r), all of Dist. XXIV (51r-53r), part of Dist. XXV (53rv), part of Dist. XXVI (54r-55r), all of Dist. XXVII (55r-58v), all of Dist. XXVIII (58v-59v), all of Dist. XXIX (59v-61r), all of Dist. XXX (61r-63r), all of Dist. XXXI (63r-65v), all of Dist. XXXII (65v-67v), part of Dist. XXXIII (67v-68v), part of Dist. XXXIX (69r-70v), all of Dist. XXXV (70v-74r), all of Dist. XXXVI (74r-75r), part of Dist. XXXVII (75v-78r), part of Dist. XXXVIII (78r-79v), and part of Dist. XXXIX (79v-81v). The text is edited as Opera Omnia S. Bonaventurae, 1882, i, 1-697.