Lot 77

Johannes Andreae's Gloss on the Constitutiones Clementinae, in Latin, illuminated manuscript on vellum [probably southern France (perhaps Avignon), mid fourteenth century]

Estimate

6,000 - 8,000 GBP

bidding is closed

Description

Vellulm

36 leaves, 368mm. by 255mm., complete, collation: i^{10, ii-iii^{8, iv^{10, horizontal catchwords, double column, 84 lines in brown ink in a round gothic bookhand, 2-line initials in red (with occasional penwork extensions into margins), text opening with a}}}large historiated initial 'I', of a yellow and blue column on a brown foliate ground, surrounded by five human heads, coloured intricate border extensions in two borders enclosing two human-headed drollery creatures, contemporary sketches in red pen touched in blue or green wash on bas-de-page on some leaves: fol.7v, a detailed hand pointing to the text, a human face picked out in red penwork at side of text column, fol.27r, a shaggy-haired grotesque creature standing over a bound book, fols.28v and 29r, a dragon's head and a floral spray, slight cockling of first few leaves, else very good condition, modern red leather over pasteboards

Provenance

provenance

1. The Franciscan convent of San Nicolò, Sulmona, central Italy, founded in 1443: partially erased inscription on fol.1r of sister codex, Bergendal MS.5, "Iste liber est librarie sancti Nicolai de sulmone".

2. Bergendal MS.47; bought by Joseph Pope from Fogg in October 1993 (Fogg, cat.15, 1992, no.9, then bound together with Bergendal MS.5, lot 76 here): Bergendal catalogue no.47; Stoneman, 'Guide', pp.172-73.

Catalogue Note

text

Johannes Andreae is notable for being the only layman among the great writers on canon law in the Middle Ages (S. Kuttner, 'The Apostillae of Johannes Andreae on the Clementines' in Études d'histoire du droit canonique, 1965, I:195-201). He studied in Bologna, receiving his doctorate c.1298 and taking up a teaching position there soon after. He composed glosses on Pope Boniface's Liber sextus decretalium in 1298 and Clement V's Constitutiones Clementinae shortly after 1317. Both were accorded the high status of glossa ordinaria. He died of the plague in 1348, and it is reported that his beautiful daughter, Novella, continued to lecture after his death.