Breviary, in Latin, manuscript on vellum

Estimate

4,000 - 6,000 GBP

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Description

214 leaves, 147mm. by 111mm., lacking several gatherings at the beginning, and single leaves from 2 further gatherings, collation: i^{11(of 12, lacks i), ii-xii^{12, xiii^{11(of 12, lacks iii), xiv^{11(of 12, lacks xii), xv^{13(xiii a singleton; vii & viii trimmed vertically to remove outer column), xvi-xix^{8, xx^{4, with numeric signatures in near contemporary hand on first folio of each gathering (missing from first gathering, and then 'xxiiii-xlii'), written space 115mm. x 78mm., double column, 26 lines, written in a dark brown ink in a late gothic bookhand, rubrics in red, capitals in alternate red or blue, chapters beginning with 2- to 6-line initials in alternate red and blue with contrasting pen flourishes in green, blue, purple and red extending up and down margins (often several per page), some near contemporary additions, most pages in good condition and with wide margins, but stains to first and second leaves, and water damage to edges of fols.155 & 164-76, leaving vertical edge of leaves frayed and a little faded on outermost edge of text, fifteenth-century limp vellum binding (from a re-used land document and list of saints) now as pastedowns, blind stamped quarter-calf over thin wooden boards, bevelled on inner edges, stubs of clasps on lower cover, corresponding catches on upper cover}}}}}}}

Provenance

provenance

(1) Written in northern France, (probably Paris) in the late thirteenth century.

(2) Owned by an Italian ecclesiastic (perhaps resident in Milan) in mid-fourteenth century.

(3) Eighteenth century ownership inscription on first paper pastedown of 'M. Ani T Pavo di *bielo Ronier / Monte Uiuvilla Riolo' (now defaced).

(4) Superseding inscription (of much the same date) of 'Biagio Prasfiera'.

Catalogue Note

text

The text is missing a number of gatherings at the beginning, and to judge from the quire signatures this may be as many as 22 (perhaps as a lost accompanying volume). The substantial part which survives includes the Temporal with accompanying readings for the saints. The presence of St. Geneviève (fol.38v) among these is suggestive of a Parisian origin, and consistent with the northern French appearance of the script and illumination.

Additions by Italian hands of perhaps only a few decades after the main text was written, indicate that the book then travelled to Italy (perhaps by a returning student who had undertaken his studies in Paris), and remained there. The early additions concentrate on St. Barnabas, drawing attention to the reading for him on fol.58v, and adding a short text entitled de sco barnaba on fol.59v, pointing to the city of Milan, which claimed the saint as its founder.

The manuscript is of particular interest for another fourteenth-century addition made on blank leaves at the end of the volume. Among general exhortations to God regarding health and safety in this life and the next, apparently prepared for preaching purposes, the Italian owner introduced an item contra mortalitatem in which he, depicting himself as a "most true servant of Christ", beseeched God to spare his community from the mortifera peste, just as the entire state of Lumbardie (Lombardy) has been recently spared. At such a date, in such a context, this prayer must refer to the arrival of the 'Black Death', which reached the shores of Europe in 1347 when Genoese trading ships put into the harbour of Messina in Sicily with infected passengers and crew. From there trade-routes transported the contagion to the rest of Europe, and within a few years, between one third and one half of the population of Europe had died. Terrifying descriptions of the ensuing breakdown of social order in the Italian cities can be found in the writings of Boccaccio, who set the Decameron within the context of refugees fleeing plague-stricken Florence. In his preface, he describes how "such terror was struck into the hearts of men and women by this calamity, that brother abandoned brother, and the uncle his nephew, and the sister her brother, and very often the wife her husband ... Many ended their lives in the streets both at night and during the day; and many others who died in their houses were only known to be dead because the neighbours smelled their decaying bodies". Interestingly, Milan was one of the few places in Europe that was almost completely spared by the epidemic, and was unique among the Italian cities in this respect. However, this was not due to public prayer of the form found in this manuscript, but to the rather extreme measures taken by the city authorities, who sealed the city gates during the worst ravages of the outbreak, and who ordered the houses of any citizens who showed signs of infection to be walled up with the families inside. The present manuscript is a grim record of the fear which inspired the inhabitants of Milan to instigate such draconian measures.