Bartolomaeus de Rinonico, Liber conformitatum, Thomas a Kempis, De Imitatione Christi, Augustine of Hippo, De Dignitate Sacerdotum, and two further texts, in Latin and Italian, decorated manuscript on vellum and paper [Italy, c.1450]

109 leaves (plus one original vellum flyleaf at front and back; last 5 leaves blank), foliated 1-75 and 1-29 in an eighteenth -century hand, 134mm. by 92mm., text complete, collation: i-vii¹⁰, viii⁵ (5 leaves cancelled, most probably blank); ix-x¹², xi¹⁰, the first work written in 26 lines in brown ink in a small gothic bookhand with influence from secretarial script (written space: 95mm. by 70mm.), catchwords, capital letters touched in red, rubrics, initials and paragraph marks in red, the following works written in two columns, 31 lines (written space: 93mm. by 62mm.), initials in red or blue with pen-flourishing, some stains and small scuffs, last endleaf loose, else in good condition, contemporary blind-stamped brown leather binding over wooden boards, tooled with palm branches, ropework designs and quadrilobed stars with circles at their apexes, worn and scuffed, with occasional wormholes, remains of two clasps

Written c.1450, most probably for a Franciscan, perhaps the Brother Tomasso de Lanzano, who adds a contemporary or near-contemporary Italian inscription on last endleaf, “Questo libro sie dello loro de lanzano lo q[u]ale libro fo de frate tomasso de lanzano’. Perhaps  then passed to another member of the same community: the inscription continued in a later hand “et pertinet ad lor[perhaps for Lorenzo] eius”.

text

Franciscan books are commonly pocket-sized, presumably as they had to travel with mendicant friars, and this contemplatory volume is no exception. The first text here is Bartolomaeus de Rinonico’s Liber conformitatum (fols.1-75), which draws parallels between the lives of Christ and St. Francis. It was written between 1385-90, and was approved by the general chapter of Assisi in 1399. It proved extremely popular in the fifteenth and early sixteenth century as it brought together the most important parts of Franciscan hagiography, history and spirituality. This is followed by the De Imitatione Christi, which with the sole exception of the Bible was the most widely read devotional work in Western history. It is often erroneously ascribed in manuscripts to a number of theological writers (here to “Beatus Bernardus”, most probably Bernard of Clairvaux, the founding abbot of Clairvaux Abbey who died in 1153), but is now recognised as the work of Thomas a Kempis (c.1380-1471), and was composed between 1418 and 1427. The third text is one of the lesser known works of Augustine of Hippo (354-430), his De Dignitate Sacerdotum (fols. 16-17). This is followed by two anonymous works, the De Officio et tempore septuagesime and Chy vuole andare allo sacramento.