Lot 40

Augustine of Hippo, Confessiones, and a substantial excerpt from Hugh of St-Victor, In Salomonis Ecclesiasten, in Latin, decorated manuscript on vellum [probably Italy, mid twelfth century]

Estimate

12,000 - 18,000 GBP

bidding is closed

Description

Vellum

104 leaves, 310mm. by 218mm., complete, collation: i-xiii^{8, double column, 39-40 lines in brown ink in a number of precise and angular early gothic bookhands, rubrics in red,} nineteen large ornate red initials (5- to 9-line) with simple penwork tracery and flourishes, and lines of ornamental capitals in alternate red and black, small number of medieval corrections, medieval repair to fol.78, small stains and discolouration of first leaf, trimmed (with fol.83 folded in and showing original extent of outer margin, else excellent condition, modern red leather over wooden boards

Provenance

provenance

1. Produced in a monastic scriptorium in Italy , probably Cistercian, in the mid twelfth century. A partially erased inscription in bas-de-page of fol.1r, apparently "Venerabilis conventus syon' ...".

2. Guglielmo Libri (1803-69); his sale in our rooms, 28 March 1859, lot 105, to Henry Stevens of Vermont (1845-86); slipped by Stevens into his sale of the library of Edward A. Crowninshield of Boston, Puttick and Simpson, 12 July 1860, lot 252, to Willis for £2,7s.

3. Sir Thomas Phillipps (1792-1872); his MS.16066, acquired from Willis in 1861; his sale in our rooms, 15 June 1908, lot 43.

4. Bergendal MS.31 (once bound with sister codex, Bergendal MS.86, lot 35 here); bought by Joseph Pope from John Fleming of New York in November 1982: Bergendal catalogue no.31; Stoneman, 'Guide', p.179.

Catalogue Note

text

The Confessiones of St. Augustine (354-430) is a cornerstone of Western philosophical thought, and one of the most influential works of the Middle Ages. It is a vast and detailed account of the author's wayward and sinful early life, filled with great psychological perceptiveness, which culminates in his dramatic conversion to Christianity and realisation of the virtues of a moral life. It was written in 397-98, and is almost certainly the first Western autobiographical work, providing a model for Christian writers throughout the Middle Ages. The text here occupies fols.1r-75r.

This is followed by the first eleven chapters of the In Salomonis Ecclesiasten of Hugh of St-Victor (1096-1141), the most important theologian of the twelfth century. This is a remarkably early copy, probably made within the lifetime of the author or in the decades immediately following.