Antiphoner with polyphonic music and Lectionary, in Latin, manuscript on vellum

Estimate

5,000 - 7,000 GBP

bidding is closed

Description

102 leaves, 264mm. by 215mm., some individual leaves excised and entire gathering at end wanting, fols.26-8 added in early sixteenth century, collation: i^{8 (i is a stub), ii-iii^{8, iv^{7 (ii a singleton, v & vi an added bifolium), v-viii^{8, ix-x^{4, xi^{11 (xi a singleton), xii^{7 (i a singleton), xiii^{6, xiv^{4, xv^{2, xvi^{1 (ii missing), written space 175-65mm. by 150-40mm., 22-8 lines in dark brown or black ink in a number of liturgical bookhands, initial section with eight 4-line red staves with numerous small initials in alternate red or blue (often many per page), rubrics in red, numbers in margin in red and blue, second section with numerous 2- and 4-line initials in red and blue, those on last leaf with dark brown penwork (probably later), leaves at front and back discoloured and dampstained, those at front frayed at edges (the second with a medieval repair), strongly sewn on three double thongs, front and back boards missing, large fragments of a letter written in 1504 and related land-documents reused as wrapper}}}}}}}}}}}

Catalogue Note

An unknown and apparently unrecorded medieval manuscript containing mensural polyphonic musical notation

This is a working liturgical manuscript from an Italian Franciscan community. Fols.1-67 contain an antiphoner, including antiphons for the Virgin, St. Mary Magdalene and St. Clare; fols.68-102 contain a lectionary evidently used for public reading in a monastic community. As the letter which was re-used as a wrapper is that of the Franciscan friar Nicolas de Utino (Udine, north-eastern Italy) we might presume that the Franciscan community which created the present manuscript was that of nearby Cividale, on the left bank of the River Natisone, where there had been a community of Franciscan friars within twenty years of the death of St. Francis. They moved to the right bank in the mid-thirteenth century, but found themselves uncomfortably close to the sanctuary of St. Maria in Valle, and so the Patriarch Raimondo gave them a new location opposite San Lazzaro, and laid the first stone of their new monastery in person on 4 February 1285. The monastery today faces onto the piazza of San Francesco. In recent years a number of fragmentary leaves from this monastery with polyphonic musical notation have been discovered in the holdings of the Civico Museo in Cividale, and appear remarkably similar to those in the present manuscript.

The manuscript is chiefly of interest because it contains musical notation in a polyphonic setting. Fols.82v and 101v contain contemporary musical additions to blank spaces at the end of the eleventh and fifteenth gatherings. The former has a part of a "Benedicamus Domino" and a troped "Virgo Mater Ecclesie" on seven 5-line staves in black ink with mensural notation in a polyphonic setting; the latter, the soprano and tenor parts of an Agnus Dei on five 4-line staves in red ink with polyphonic mensural notation. Both texts are apparently unique. The dots of division and downstemmed semibreves are Italian features, and the use of Trecento notation indicates that this music dates to the decade or so immediately after the generation of Francesco Landini (1325-1397).

Medieval manuscripts with polyphonic mensural notation are exceedingly rare, and rarely emerge on the market. As far as we are aware, only two more-or-less complete manuscripts including medieval polyphony have been offered at auction in the last century, both in these rooms. They are 21 October 1920, lot 124 (now Brit. Lib. Addit. MS.62132), and 9 July 1973, lot 41 (now Brit. Lib. Addit. MS 57950). Occasional fragments have emerged, including a wrapper around a Dominican Book of Hours (last sold in these rooms, 7 December 1992, lot 57); fragments once inserted inside the Stourton Psalter from the Dyson Perrins collection (now Brit. Lib. Addit. MS.54324); a fifteenth-century paper fragment 12 December 1967, lot 58 (now also British Library); and two half-leaves: 22 June 1982, lot 5 (now Bodleian Library), and 25 April 1983, lot 117 (now British Library).