Lot 28

St. Ambrose, Hexameron (an encyclopaedic treatise on the history of the whole of creation) in Latin, illuminated manuscript on vellum

Estimate

4,000 - 6,000 GBP

bidding is closed

Description

233 leaves, 140mm. by 100mm., complete, collation: i-xxviii^{8, xxix^{9 (last leaf superfluous and cancelled), vertical catchwords and remains of original alpha-numeric foliation in lower right-hand corner throughout, written space 83mm. by 55mm., single column, 22 lines in brown ink in the fine humanistic hand of}} Antonio Crivelli whose coded signature in reverse appears on fol. 233r with the date 1446, seven decorated initials (fols. 32v, 49v, 64r, 83r, 97v, 124v, 180v, minor rubbing to a few initials), 5-7 lines in height in burnished gold with white-vine infill on green, red and blue grounds heightened with white penwork tracery, one 8-line historiated initial (fol. 1r) in burnished gold enclosing a half-length portrait of St. Ambrose wearing the robes and mitre of a bishop and holding a crozier and a book, all on blue ground heightened with red and white penwork (some minor rubbing to outermost right-hand side of initial), extensions of ivy-leaf foliage in green, red and gold into margins (some perhaps added later) enclosing a coat-of-arms (now damaged) in the bas-de-page, some later additions of colour to small initials on 49v, 61v, 63v & 77v, and devotional pictures of a spear draped in a blue banner and a burning heart within a wreath on 82v & 114v, else in excellent condition on high quality vellum with wide and clean margins, contemporary blind-stamped goatskin over wooden boards, panelled, stamped with repeated stamps of a tool of a lamb and flag and designs of ropework tools, two clasps and three metal catches, rebacked, some repairs

Catalogue Note

Text

St. Ambrose (338-97) was the thirteenth bishop of Milan and one of the most influential ecclesiastical figures of the fourth century. He was a prolific writer and is counted as one of the four original doctors of the Church. His Hexameron is a lengthy homiletic commentary on the whole of creation. Across the course of the first few books which discuss the creation of light, the firmament of Heaven, the separation of water and land, and the creation of plant life and the sun, the moon and the stars, much early medieval scientific knowledge is added, including discussions of the spherical nature of the Earth, and the inherent problems of the oceans and rivers not running off the convex surface of this sphere. In the last two books, which deal with the creation of marine life and birds, land animals and humans, the work adds many details gleaned from early medieval bestiary traditions, including extracts from the supposed habits of formica (ants, fol. 188v), serpens (the serpent, fol 190r), ecinus (the hedgehog, fol. 191r), camellus, equus and elephantus (the camel, the horse and elephant, fol. 198r), and adding on fols. 194v-5r the story about the potential uses of dogs in murder cases. The text explains that 'when a murder has been committed, dogs have produced clear evidence of the guilt of the accused. They say that at Antioch, in a distant quarter of the city at dusk, a man, who had his dog with him, was murdered. The deed was done by a soldier, with robbery as his motive. Under cover of the growing darkness, he fled. The corpse lay there, and the dog remained at his master's side as a crowd of onlookers gathered. The man who had committed the crime, in order to convince people of his innocence, joined the circle of onlookers and, feigning grief, approached the corpse. Then the dog took up the arms of vengeance, seized the man and held him', revealing his guilt to the crowd.

The scribe Antonio Crivelli, who signs and dates the manuscript in reverse code on fol. 233r is known elsewhere only from two other manuscripts (a tract on the movements of saints, now Florence, Bibl. Nazionale Centrale, Nuovi Acquisti 339, Kristeller, Iter Italicum I: 173b: and a copy of Cornelius Nepos' De viris illustribus, dated 1455, now Leiden, Univ. Bibl. ms. VLQ, 52: G. Lieftinck, Manuscrits datés conservés dans les Pays-Bas, Part I, 1962, no. 224). It may be possible to identify him with Antonio Crivelli, count of Lomello (about 30 miles southwest of Milan), who was granted Lomello by Francesco Sforza in 1450, and if not then he must be a close relative.

illumination

The historiated initial on the frontispiece is by a skilled follower of the Master of the Vitae Imperatorum, whose own work flourished in the Milanese court of the Visconti in the first half of the fifteenth century. The long thin shape of the saint's face and the delicate portrayal of his features closely echo other examples from mid-fifteenth century Milan, including the Lehmann collection cuttings catalogued by P. Palladino, Treasures of a Lost Art, 2003, pp. 107-8 & 110-11, and others illustrated in M. Bollati, The Olivetan Gradual, Its Place in Fifteenth-Century Lombard Manuscript Illumination, 2008.