Statuts de l’Ordre de Saint-Michel, in French, illuminated manuscript on vellum [Northern France, first few decades of sixteenth century]

Estimate

4,000 - 6,000 GBP

bidding is closed

Description

Velllum

40 leaves (plus a nineteenth-century vellum endleaf at front), 265mm. by 185mm., text complete, collation: i⁷ (last leaf a singleton), ii-iv⁸, v⁶, vi³ (last leaf a cancelled blank), single column, ruled in pink for 27 lines of a fine lettre bâtarde in black ink, rubrics in red, 2-line initials in liquid gold on burgundy and blue grounds heightened with scrolling foliage, dots and floral sprigs in liquid gold, one large initial, in blue on burgundy ground, heightened with liquid gold, some spots to first few leaves and small stains to upper edges of some leaves, else excellent condition with wide and clean margins, nineteenth-century gilt-tooled black leather over pasteboards incorporating earlier purple velvet binding as panels within each board (some splits to spine and small scuffs to velvet)

Provenance

provenance

(1) Perhaps from a series of twelve copies of the text recorded as having been commissioned by the François Ier (1515-47), king of France, for distribution to knights of the Order. The present copy contains the statutes for the Office of the Prevost, Master of Ceremonies of the Order (fol.33r).

(2) From the library of the Barons Monson in Burton: their MS.CLXVII. Most probably acquired by William John Monson, 6th Baron Monson (1796-1862), and by descent.

Catalogue Note

text

Following the foundation of the Order of the Golden Fleece by Philip the Good, duke of Burgundy, King Louis XI of France founded the Order of Saint Michel in 1469. It was a royal order assuring the loyalty of its original thirty-six members to the king above all other agencies, and its knights were drawn from the king’s relatives and immediate court.

Manuscripts of the Statutes are rare outside of institutional ownership, and almost all of the copies from the reign of François Ier identified by Durrieu as “exemplaires de série officielle” (‘Les manuscrits des Statuts de l’Ordre de Saint-Michel’, Bulletin de la Société française de reproduction de manuscrits à peintures, 1911, p. 31) are in public institutions: Paris, BnF., mss.fr.14361, 14365, 19815, 19816 and 19818; St-Germain-en-Laye, Bib. municipale, ms.4; London, British Library, Harl. MS.4485; Milan, Trivulziana, ms.1394 (the others being Phillipps MS.4314, sold in our rooms, 15-18 June 1908, lot 490; Phillipps MS.1323, later Kraus’ catalogue for 1953, no.87; and MS.Turin, L.V.39 which was lost in a fire in 1904).