Lot 34

Two manuscripts, in Italian and Latin, including a writing-master's pattern book on paper

Estimate

3,000 - 5,000 GBP

bidding is closed

Description

2 manuscripts, (a) booklet of 39 leaves containing 25 leaves of calligraphic studies and patterns either in the form of alphabet samples, poems or mottos in various scripts (many in cabochons or line drawn scrolls and frames) or large, often half-page calligraphic letters, notes on last leaf in Italian on the weather, contemporary binding of limp vellum from an Italian fourteenth-century bible, with 2 Kings, 14 & 15, 'Jesus Maria' on front in calligraphic script within frame with ornate flourishes, Italy, sixteenth century; (b) 8 leaves of an account book (one cut down and two more cut away) recording payments or debts to various people, such as to Jo. Battisto Ff. 2, 6, 24 & to Gabrielo di toto Ff. 0, 6, 18 (ff. doubtless standing for 'florin', which was in use in Italy from 1252 to 1523 with no significant change, containing 54 grains of gold, i.e. 3.5g), in a cursive hand, with scribbles on the front cover and some sketches of a cardinal's hat, with blank space on the recto of one leaf (now detached) containing Italian poetry, on coarse paper and in fair condition with crumbling edges and some discoloration through water damage, Italy, late fifteenth or early sixteenth century

Catalogue Note

Item (a) is a writing-master's pattern book, demonstrating its author's command of many gothic and renaissance scripts and a calligraphic alphabet. They are derived at least in part from the engraved writing books of the Roman scribe Giovambattista Palatino, probably his Compendio del Gran Volume de l'Arte del Bene et Leggiadramente Scrivere, Rome, 1566. The manuscript includes (fol. 14r) the sonnet in praise of Palatino by Tomasso Spica, for which cf. Stanley Morison, Calligraphy 1535-1885, A Collection of Seventy-Two Writing-Books, Milan, 1962, p.37. The poem ends here with a name, partly erased, apparently Francus francensius scribebat areti, i.e., in Arezzo, near Rome.

Item (b) contains three vernacular Italian poems, the first of which is entitled Per ser G., and begins, O diva pietra, o tu preciosa perna / o triunfante lume ay mie pensiere .... They have been cautiously attributed on the basis of the palaeography and the author's linguistic habits and dialect to the poet Antonio Tebaldeo (1463-1537). Following the practice of the humanists he changed his family name (Tebaldi) to the Latinised form Tebaldeo. He served as tutor to Isabella d'Este and secretary to the infamous Lucrezia Borgia, and eventually joined the scholars and artists at the court of Pope Leo X. He lost everything during the sack of Rome by mutinous troops of Emperor Charles V in 1527, and spent the remainder of his life in near-poverty. His verse in Italian is remarkable for diction and style, and foreshadows the extravagant versifiers who, in the seventeenth century, developed the movement called Marinism or Secentismo. If this poem can be firmly attributed to him, then this manuscript is of importance to the study of this author; it has numerous corrections and revisions in the form made only by an author at work.