Lot 91

Jerome, Vita Pauli heremitae, Dialogi contra Pelagium, and Altercatio Luciferiani et Orthodoxi, in Latin, decorated manuscript on vellum [Italy, mid fifteenth century]

Estimate

5,000 - 7,000 GBP

bidding is closed

Description

Vellum

44 leaves, 234mm. by 160mm., two folios wanting from end of volume, else complete, collation: i^{1 (once the last leaf of the final gathering of Bergendal MS.39), ii-v^{10, vi^{3 (i a singleton), single column, 39 lines in a number of neat humanistic hands, 4-line initials in red with iridescent yellow infill,}}}two large multi-coloured initials (approximately 12-line) on fol.1r and 37r, with scrolling banners around central poles (the first with ends terminating in geometric patterns like eighth- and early ninth-century Insular initials, the second with flourishes to its ascender emulating Romanesque initials), central part of first quire coming loose, else excellent condition on fine vellum with wide and clean margins, modern quarter vellum over pasteboards

Provenance

provenance

1. Written and decorated in Italy, perhaps in Venice or the north-east.

2. St. Joseph's Seminary, Dunwoodie, N.Y.: their inkstamp on first leaf of sister volume, Bergendal MS.39 (see following lot).

3. Bergendal MS.38; bought by Joseph Pope from Sam Fogg in February 1996: Bergendal catalogue no.38.

Catalogue Note

text

This humanistic volume contains three of the least well-known and perhaps most interesting texts of Jerome (c.347-420). It opens on fol.1r with the Vita Pauli heremitae, written by Jerome c.377 during his first sojourn at Antioch. Its material was drawn from the Egyptian monastic traditions, and it tells how Paul the Hermit fled into the desert wilderness during the persecutions of Decius and Valerian to a mountainside cave once used as "a secret mint at the time of Antony's union with Cleopatra" as "Egyptian writers relate". He lived there until he was 115, receiving no visitors accept St. Anthony in his 113^th year. The Dialogi contra Pelagium follows on fol.4r, a refutation of the works of Jerome's contemporary Pelagius (c.354-420/40), who denied the concept of original sin and was declared a heretic by the Council of Carthage in 418. The last text, beginning on fol.37r, is the Altercatio Luciferiani et Orthodoxi, written c.382, again a refutation of a heretic, here a follower of Lucifer Calaritanus (d. 370/1), the fiery bishop of Cagliari, Sardinia, who refused to be reconciled with former Arian-Christians, writing incendiary and insulting letters to Emperor Constantius II (a supporter of Arianism), offering himself for martyrdom.