An album of cuttings, predominantly from illuminated manuscripts from the Sistine Chapel, all on vellum [mostly Rome, early sixteenth century]

412 illuminated initials on cuttings and 17 small borderpieces, laid down in an early nineteenth-century album (a number now detached), the initials varying in size from 15mm. by 10mm. to 62mm. by 65mm., 281 from Italian books with brightly coloured Renaissance initials on burnished gold grounds enclosing the Medici arms (4), the Medici motto "Semper" or emblem of three feathers within a gold ring (4), the name of Pope Clement VIII, both as pope (3) and as cardinal ("Iulius M. Card.": 1), ornamental Roman shields (2: one with the Medici arms), books (5), a cardinal's hat with a tablet (1), purple tablets with the motto "Spes mea deus" in liquid gold (2), a scroll with "Spes" (1), a turreted castle (2), a mitre (1), a bishop's crozier in liquid gold (1), and a copy of a Roman intaglio (1), the others with sprays of foliage, fruit and detailed medieval jewels and pearls; a further 131 initials from Flemish books in colours or liquid gold on contrasting grounds, enclosing a monogram topped by a cross (3), arms identified as those of Navarre (1) and numerous medieval jewels; plus 17 small borderpieces from a number of manuscripts, one with a scroll bearing "Salamanca"; some smudged and discoloured and with some paper adhering from album, but overall in fair and presentable condition; flyleaf with nineteenth-century '67' in pencil, other notes throughout most probably those of W.Y. Ottley, apparently English dark olive morocco over pasteboards, profusely gilt, with "Ancient Paintings & c." on spine, spine now partly peeled away with some losses

This album contains cuttings from the service books kept in the Sistine Chapel, which were seized by Napoleonic troops and dismembered for their miniatures, initials and decorated borders, when they stormed the Vatican in 1798. The archbishop of Toledo managed to secure some of the volumes, but the majority were cut up and acquired by the cleric-turned-collector, Abbé Luigi Celotti (c.1768-c.1846). His collections of miniatures and fragments of illuminated manuscripts were dispersed in the sale of 26 May 1825, catalogued by the scholar-collector William Young Ottley (1771-1836), and since then have been scattered far and wide. These cuttings here are not the great full-page miniatures which have made the Sistine Chapel books so sought after, but not since the nineteenth century have so many pieces from these volumes been offered together, and nor are they likely to be again.

The Italian cuttings here are principally from the Missal made for Pope Clement VII (1478-1534) by Matteo da Milano (fl.1492-1523; cf. Alexander, 'Italian Illuminated MSS in British Collections', in Studies in Italian MS. Illumination, 2002, pp.33-4, fig.8, and 'Matteo da Milano, Illuminator', ibid., pp.285-88, figs.9-15), and Cardinal Antoniotto Pallavicini (1442-1507; Alexander, 'Illumination for Cardinal Antoniotto Pallavicini', ibid., in particular the initial with the open book in fig.10). The largest two initials are from another equally important lost papal volume, and add considerably to our knowledge of it. The verso of the first contains a breathtakingly opulent fragment of an ornamental text page with gold script on a sky-blue background, as well as a border with moldings and putti which identify it as from the lost service-book made in 1562 for Pope Pius IV (1499-1565) by the celebrated artist Apollonio de' Bonfratelli (fl.1523-72), hailed as one of two master craftsmen (alongside Giulio Clovio) of the sixteenth-century Papal court, "the last true home of the art known as book illumination" (D.H. Turner in The Eric Millar Bequest, 1968, p.36). Previously, only a small number of fragments from this volume have come to light. The cuttings in British Library, Addit. MS. 21412, include a handful of dismembered leaves and borders from this volume (with the crucial inscriptions identifying the patron and artist); R.S. Wieck has traced a further miniature in his 'Papal Fragments at the Rosenbach', Tributes to Jonathan J.G. Alexander, 2006; and another 2 miniatures are recorded by E. de Laurentiis as in the Biblioteca Capitular, Toledo (El Cardenal Lorenzana, Arzobispo de Toledo, 2004). For more initials apparently from this same volume, or series of volumes, see also the following lot.