Five Sheets of a Huge Roll of a translation of Peter of Poiters, Compendium Historiae in Genealogia Christi, in French [France (Paris), c.1400-10]

5 large sheets, each c.635–715 x 565–600mm, vellum, imperfect at beginning and end, 12 ILLUMINATIONS (mostly in roundels), some additional roundels left unfinished, largely stained with traces of water damage, some tearing at edges with no loss of text or illustration

Provenance

The manuscript was probably begun c.1400, but the project was perhaps abandoned soon after, to judge by the fact that some of the drawings are incomplete, and others are only partially coloured, while large spaces for decorated initials remain blank. The entire surface of the written side (only) has a quality typical of a lifted pastedown: this suggests that the sheets may have been pasted to a wooden surface, with the blank face outwards, perhaps to serve as a lining. (One is reminded of the Westminster Retable, which was used for two centuries as the lid of a chest, with the painted side facing downward). The manuscript was perhaps re-discovered when someone noticed the show-through of the painted roundels, perhaps in 1993/4: the first sheet of the roll was sold in our rooms, 21 June 1994, lot 95 (ill.) and the present five were offered the following year in Les Enluminures, Catalogue 4, no.10 (ill.).

Text and Illumination

The text on the separate sheet starts with the rubric ‘Cy sensuit la genealogie de la bible qui comprent de adam iusques au deluge’.

This fragmentary roll contains a rare French translation of the Compendium Historiae in Genealogica Christi, a historical resume of the genealogy of Christ, composed in Latin sometime between 1168 and 1176 by Peter of Poitiers (d.1205). The originality of his treatise lies in its presentation of an abbreviated scriptural account in the form of a genealogical table from Adam to Christ. Three 13th-century versions of the Compendium are extant:1) the standard text 2) an expanded version with additions and interpolations from the Historia Scholastica, and 3) a version that includes sections from various universal chronicles. In this third version, the genealogy of Christ can go up to the end of the 14th century. Embedded in a universal Chronicle, the third redaction thus mingled the biblical narrative with French history, and witnessed the long-standing interest in French historiography, included in the Grandes chroniques de France, of tracing the ancestry of the French kings through the Trojan princes. With scenes of Aeneas’s flight from burning Troy and the founding of the city of Thebes, our roll belongs to this third redaction of Peter of Poitier’s text. Frequently recopied in Latin, Peter of Poitier’s work is rare in the vernacular.

The subjects of the completed illuminations are: (1) The Earth, with workers toiling the fields; (2) Expulsion of Adam and Eve from Paradise; (3) Adam and Eve work the fields as commanded by God; (4) Noah’s Ark; (5) Building of the Tower of Babel; (6) Abraham’s Sacrifice of Isaac; (7) City of Tyre (in the time of David and Solomon); (8) David Playing his harp; (9) Solomon’s Temple; (10) City of Jerusalem; (11) Flight of Aeneas from Troy, with Troy burning; (12) Founding of the City of Thebes.