Breviary, Use of Rome, in Latin, decorated manuscript on vellum [Lombardy (most probably Brescia), second half of the fifteenth century]

Estimate

4,000 - 6,000 GBP

bidding is closed

Description

Vellum

403 leaves, 110mm. by 85mm., complete, collation: i⁶, ii-xli¹⁰, xlii⁷ (last leaf a singleton), double column, 30 lines in a tiny gothic bookhand, occasional cadels to penwork (that on fol.85r enclosing a smiling human face), one- to 3-line initials in red or blue with penwork to contrast, larger initials in same with floral infill and penwork extensions the height of the border terminating in fleshy petalled flowerbuds, spaces left for some initials, some small spots and scuffs, slight cockling to last few gatherings, else good condition, marbled endleaves, nineteenth-century vellum over pasteboards

Provenance

provenance

(1) Written and decorated in second half of the fifteenth century, most probably in Brescia (principal saints of city in red in Calendar: SS. Appolonius, 7 July, and Philastrius, fourth-century bishop of the city, 18 July; and there are near-contemporary additions to the Calendar of other Brescian saint-bishops, such as the first-century Anatolius, the fourth-century Ursinus and Faustinus, the sixth-century Titianus, and so on, few of these actually canonised) .

(2) Frits Fasting of Rio de Janiero: his twentieth-century inkstamp on front pastedown, and “Ex-Libris No.4855”; sold in our rooms, 11 December 1979, lot 57, and Christie’s, 17 July 1985, lot 300.

Catalogue Note

text

The volume includes: a Calendar (fol.1r); a Ferial Psalter, with the Temporal (fol.87r) and the Sanctoral (fol.253r); the Common (fol.360v); and the Offices of the Trinity (fol.377r), and the Virgin (fol.388v), followed by various benedictions and the Order of Confirmation (fol.395v).