- 121
Processional, in Latin, decorated manuscript on vellum [Italy (perhaps Bologna), second half of the fifteenth century]
Estimate
3,000 - 5,000 GBP
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Description
- Vellum
32 leaves, 217mm. by 155mm., complete, collation: i-iv8, six lines of text in black ink in an angular gothic bookhand with music on a 4-line red stave, capitals with ornate penwork tracery and touched in yellow, one-and 2-line initials in red or blue (some variegated), 2-line initials on fols.4v, 9r, 11v, 14r, 16v with elaborate penwork tracery to contrast, large initial 'L', 60mm. high, in blue with penwork forming intricate tile-like background in red and blue, with foliate extensions into two borders, last five leaves originally blank apart from empty staves and added to in sixteenth or seventeenth century, smudge to text on fol.9r, else excellent condition, elaborately gilt-tooled sixteenth-century binding of dark red leather over pasteboards, tooling forming compartments around central lozenges on front and back boards with inscriptions of ownership: "S. MARIA STELLA / MEDICI", either a nun (Soror) of the Medici family, or possibly from a convent of Sancta Maria Stella in (for example) Medicina, near Bologna, skilfully rebacked
Catalogue Note
text
This volume was prepared for a nun who was perhaps resident in a community in the vicinity of Bologna. It includes the antiphons and responsories for the processions in the church for the Purification of the Virgin (fol.1r), the feast of Corpus Christi (fol.13v) and the Assumption of the Virgin (fol.16v), specifying in detail the parts to be sung by the abbess, the cantrix, two nuns together and the entire community at various points in the church, as well as their actions during the processions.