Lot 52

Peter Lombard, Collectanea in Epistolas Pauli, the 'Great Gloss' on the Epistles of Paul, in Latin, manuscript on vellum [southern Netherlands (perhaps Aulne Abbey), third quarter of the twelfth century]

Estimate

8,000 - 12,000 GBP

bidding is closed

Description

Vellum

23 leaves in single leaves and bifolia, partly stitched, 370mm. by 264mm., two columns, 36 lines, romanesque textura (littera praegothica textualis libraria), capitals projecting slightly into the left-hand margins, scriptural lemmata in same script but indicated by 'diple' marks in margins, the author's patristic sources in the margins in red, often with quite detailed references to specific texts (including Ambrose, Augustine, Haimo, Origen, Hilary, Cassiodorus and others), running-titles in red, other marginal notes added in red including chapter numbers, some original repairs in green or white thread, a few marks and minor flaws, mostly excellent, hessian folder

Provenance

provenance

Probably from the copy recorded at Aulne Abbey, diocese of Liège, in 1632 (A. Sanderus, Bibliotheca Belgica Manuscripta, II, 1644, p.239, "Petrus Lombardus in Paulum"); bought disbound in Belgium in the 1820s by Sir Thomas Phillipps (1792-1872), his MS 29507, partly dispersed as palaeographical specimens in the twentieth century (see below); from the residue of the Phillipps library bought in 1977 by H.P. Kraus; sold in April 1978 to Bernard Rosenthal; Quaritch, Bookhands III, cat.1088 (1988), no.23 (as English); Schøyen MS 94.

Literature

literature

J. Griffiths, 'Manuscripts in the Schøyen Collection Copied or Owned in the British Isles before 1700', English Manuscript Studies, 5, 1995, p.38; C. de Hamel, 'Phillipps Fragments in Tokyo', The Medieval Book and a Modern Collector, Essays in Honour of Toshiuki Takamiya, ed. Matsuda, Linenthal and Scahill, 2004, p.43, no.24(b); C. de Hamel, Gilding the Lilly, A Hundred Medieval and Illuminated Manuscripts in the Lilly Library, 2010, p.48.

Catalogue Note

text

Like lot 51, this is a glossed text written as a continuous commentary. The Bible text is distinguished only by adjacent 'diple' marks in the margins. The commentary covers large parts of the Epistle to the Romans, from 1:1 to 15:14, with gaps. These are represented by loose leaves removed by the Robinsons for sale in sets of palaeographical specimens. One set was sold in 1947 to George Poole, including the manuscript's opening leaf; now Bloomington, Lilly Library, Poole 98. Another was sold to Estelle Doheny, with the second leaf and the opening of Romans (immediately preceding the first leaf here); now Tokyo, Takamiya Collection, MS 45, no.24. A third set was bought by the Bodleian Library in Oxford in 1953, including a bifolium from Romans 6 and 8; now MS Lat.misc. a.3, fol.28. Four further leaves were sold in the Phillipps sale in these rooms, 28 June 1965, part of lot 22, three of which were bequeathed by Neil Ker to the Bodleian, with parts of chapters 1 and 5; now MS Lat.misc. b.25, fols.43-44. The present leaves represent the core of the manuscript in original condition, and still preserving parts of the twelfth-century binder's stitching. They are accompanied by a note by Bernard Rosenthal, "Must not be taken apart – ever! Sewing incl. thread are original, c.12!"