Western Manuscripts and Miniatures

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Lot 99
  • 99

Breviary, in Latin, illuminated manuscript on vellum [central or eastern France (perhaps Beaune), last decades of the fifteenth century]

Estimate
3,000 - 5,000 GBP
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Description

  • Vellum
321 leaves, 135mm. by 95mm., complete, collation: i-xviii8, xix10, xx-xxxix8, xl7 (last blank and cancelled), single column, 18-21 lines in dark brown ink in a number of spiky late gothic hands, rubrics in red, numerous one- and 2-line initials in red and blue, one 2-line initial in gold (fol.155r) on blue and pink grounds with two sprigs of foliage in the border (somewhat smudged), one 8-line initial in same (fol.1r; slightly worn) with foliate extensions in all four borders, enclosing two parrots, an owl and another bird, blank spaces left for initials on fols.33r, 46v, 51r, 82v and 110r, slight wear throughout, overall in good condition, tightly bound, nineteenth-century blind-stamped white vellum over pasteboards

Provenance

provenance

1. Apparently from the library of the Carthusian abbey of Beaune in Burgundy: nineteenth-century pencil inscription on front endleaf, "Ce manuscrit provient de la chartreuse de Beaune". This is credible. St. Hugh of Grenoble, who established the Grande Chartreuse in 1084, appears in the Sanctoral and Litany (fols.226v and 313v) alongside the local saint, Blandina, who was martyred by a bull at Lyons (fol.314r). The Carthusian house at Beaune was founded in 1328 by Duke Odo of Burgundy, and was suppressed at the French Revolution.

2. Sold at auction at Clermont, 6 December 1963, lot 67: pencil inscription on front pastedown.

3. Sold in our rooms, 7 December 1982, lot 95, to Alan Thomas.

4. Bergendal MS.42; bought by Joseph Pope from Thomas in June 1983: Bergendal catalogue no.42; Stoneman, 'Guide', p.183.

Catalogue Note

text

The manuscript comprises: the Psalms (fol.1r) without antiphons or lessons; the nine canticles, the Te Deum, the Magnificat and the Athanasian Creed (fol.110r); the Temporal (fol.151r) and the Sanctoral; the Common of the Saints (fol.262v); and a Litany (fol.315r).