Vincent of Beauvais, Speculum historiale, manuscript on vellum, 8 leaves, [Paris, early 15th century]

VINCENT OF BEAUVAIS

Speculum historiale. [France (Paris?), early fifteenth century]

A complete quire of 8 leaves, 370×263mm, decorated manuscript on vellum, written in two columns of 46–48 lines in bâtarde script, chapter headings and running titles in red, chapter initials in red or blue with penwork in the other colour, in good condition; in a modern buckram box with gilt title

TEXT

‘L[iber]. XXX’ appears across each opening in the upper margin, surrounded by ‘Tempora Philippi secundi’ (the fifth recto with ‘Tempora Henrici primi’); the text comprises Book XXX, chapters 90–109 (from ‘Et malleis vel lapidibus confringentes distrahebant …’ to ‘qui primos impetus in [catchword:] expugnandis’).

PROVENANCE

Parent volume

(1) “The quality of script and minor decoration suggests that this was an expensive commission. The repeated half fleurs-de-lys device in blue and gold in the borders occurs in manuscripts made for Charles V and the Duc de Berry, and in other books for the French royal family in whose inventories it is mentioned as “enluminé tout au long des colombs de fleur de lis d’or et d’assur”’ (Sotheby’s, 7 Dec. 1982, lot 53).

(2) Guglielmo Libri (1803–1869): his sale in our rooms, 1 June 1864, lot 71; bought by Boone for £12 10s.

(3) Sir Thomas Phillipps (1792–1872), his MS 24654: his sale in our rooms, 6 June 1899, lot 367, presumably not sold, and re-offered in another Phillipps sale in our rooms, 24 June 1935, lot 74.

(4) H.R. Creswick (1902–1988): his sale in our rooms, 7 December 1982, lot 53, to:

(5) Laurence Witten, Catalogue 18, A Mirror of Manuscripts (Southport, CT, 1983), no. 17 (full-page col. ill.).

(6) Helmut Teppler: sold in our rooms 20 June 1995, lot 87 (ill.), bought by:

(7) Lawrence J. Schoenberg (1932–2014): given in 2010 to:

(8) Penn University, MS LJS16.

Present quire

H.R. Creswick, Librarian of Cambridge University Library 1946–67, seems to have given leaves to friends including A.N.L. Munby (1 leaf sold in our rooms, 5 April 1976, part of lot 658; see A.S.G. Edwards, ‘A.N.L. Munby’s Collecting of Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts’, Transactions of the Cambridge Bibliographical Society, 15 (2014), pp. 57–72, at pp. 70–71 no. 30); Irving Masson (1 leaf sold in our rooms, 16 Dec 1957, lot 32b); one leaf was sold in our rooms, 17 June 1997, lot 1(a), and has joined the parent manuscript at Penn, as LJS124; a bifolium (‘probably made for a member of the French royal family’) was Bloomsbury Auctions, 4 December 2018, lot 19 (£1,900 hammer). The present quire was sold in our rooms, 11 December 1972, lot 13, bought by D.S. Owen.

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