Western Manuscripts S/O

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Lot 46
  • 46

Vitae sanctorum, including Walafrid Strabo, Life of Saint Gall, in Latin, manuscript on vellum [northern Italy, second half of the twelfth century]

Estimate
3,000 - 5,000 GBP
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Description

  • Vellum
the upper half of a leaf, 228mm. by 283mm., two columns, 24 lines here, a graceful rounded late Carolingian minuscule (praegothica textualis), an opening word in uncials, large decorated initial (8-line) in leafy design in colours, partly formed of a dragon, on a coloured panelled ground, recovered from use as a flyleaf, recto rubbed, hessian binding

Provenance

provenance

Sold in these rooms, 13 July 1977, lot 10; Quaritch, Bookhands I, cat.1036 (1984), no.91; Schøyen MS 238.

Catalogue Note

text

The text on the recto is Walafrid Strabo (c.809-49, Carolingian scholar and biblical commentator), Vita sancti Galli, life of Saint Gall, dedicatee of the great Swiss abbey of St Gallen (16 October; book I, cap.xi; Migne, Pat.Lat., 114, cols.986-87; Bibl. Hag. Lat., p.486, no.3247); that on the verso is Vita sanctae Ursulae et sociarum, life of Saint Ursula of Cologne, here opening with her birth in Britain as the daughter of King Deonatus (21 October; Acta Sanctorum, October, IX, p.157; Bibl. Hag. Lat., p.1218, no.8428).

The manuscript was similar in style and decoration to the Vitae sanctorum, Bodleian Library, MS Canon. Pat. Lat. 145 (Pächt and Alexander, II, 1970, no.59, pl.VI).