Lot 103

Thomas Aquinas, Summa contra gentiles, and other texts, Al-Kindi, De unitate, De intellectu and De somnio et visione ad imperatorum dolium, in Latin, decorated manuscript on paper [France (probably Burgundy), dated 1464]

Estimate

6,000 - 8,000 GBP

bidding is closed

Description

Vellum

221 leaves, 395mm. by 255mm., wanting first leaf, else complete, collation: i^{9 (wanting first leaf), ii^{8, iii-xxi^{10, xxii^{14, double column, 60 lines in brown ink in a semi-humanistic script, rubrics and paragraph marks in red, 4-line initials in red or blue (the latter touched in red penwork),}}}} eight large coloured initials (7- to 9-line; fols.27v, 72r, 139v, 191v, 195v, 197r, 217v and 219r) with acanthus-leaves, on gold grounds, space left for initial on fol.221r, offset of coat-of-arms on fol.1r; significant water damage with the paper quite woolly and the ink washed out from a number of leaves (mostly affecting front of codex, but with slight discolouration to text-block throughout), repair to fol.221, dirt stains to fols.122v-23r, pen trials to fol.43v-44r, small folds to leaves, else fair condition, seventeenth-century blind-tooled calf over pasteboards, restored and rebacked

Provenance

provenance

1. Written by the scribe Anthony le Bysse in the period 1464-66, most probably in Burgundy: colophons on fol.220v, "Ego Anthonius le bysse de N. gallicus scripsique complevi hec presens opus Anno domini 1464. Vive Bourgogne" and 221v, "... 1466 Aprilis die 3". The offset coat-of-arms (gules with 3 bands alésée argent) in the bas-de-page of fol.1r are identifiable as those of the L'Espagnol family of Maine.

2. Bergendal MS.19; bought by Joseph Pope from Sam Fogg in February 1993: Bergendal collection no.19; Stoneman, 'Guide', pp.173-74.

Catalogue Note

text

This manuscript contains a highly personal collection of texts made for a pious patron with an interest in philosophy and humanistic studies. The volume opens with the Summa de veritate catholicae fidei contra gentiles (treatise on the truth of the Catholic faith, against unbelievers), one of the principal works of the great philosopher-theologian and doctor of the Church, Thomas Aquinas (1225-74). It was written at Rome in 1261-64 at the behest of Raymond of Pennafort, who wished to use its defence of the Christian Faith against the Jews and Moors in Spain. There follows three of his minor works, the De ente et essentia (fol.191v), the De motu cordis (fol.195v) and the De spiritualibus creaturis (fol.197r).

Three works of the Muslim philosopher and scientist Al-Kindi (more properly Yaqūb ibn Ishāq al-Kindī; c.801-73) follow: his De unitate (fol.217v), De Intellectu (fol.218v) and De somnio et visione ad imperatorem dolium (fol.219r). He was appointed by a succession of Abbasid Caliphs to oversee the translation of Greek scientific and philosophical texts into the Arabic language, and subsequently he was in charge of the so-called House of Wisdom, a library in Baghdad famed for the translation of Greek texts. Thus during the Renaissance his writings came to be of equal interest to Western Europe as they were in the Arabic world, as storehouses of valuable commentaries and reinterpretations of long-lost Greek philosophy.

To these the scribe added two works of St. Bernard of Clairvaux, Ad Canonicos Lugdunienses and the De Conceptione Virginis Mariae.