拍品專文
PROVENANCE:
Inscribed on front pastedown:
Portio mea dne sit in terra viventium
facile contemnit omnia qui semper
cogitat se moriturum
Initium sapientiae timor domini
The first line, a variation on Psalm CXLII,6, was Jean Grolier's motto as inscribed in some of his books and tooled on most of his bindings. The continuation as it is found here is apparently not recorded. The inscription resembles Grolier's hand, but the manuscript is much unlike anything that is extant from his library. The tools do not appear to belong to the kit of any of the binders known to have worked for Grolier. The book is unrecorded by Le Roux de Lincy, Portalis and Shipman, and Austin included it neither among the genuine Grolier survivors nor among the later forgeries. France's greatest bibliophile and binding patron died in 1565 and a number of individual books quickly found new owners (such as J.-A. De Thou and Pierre Pithou), but the largest part on the collection remained intact until 1676. This thirteenth-century Vulgate, which is of a type that has survived in relatively large numbers, was bought in Paris on 20th July 1566 by De Masso (Dumas?), who recorded the purchase and inscribed his own motto on the same pastedown: In manibus dni sortes meae.
CONTENTS AND DECORATION:
1-1512 164 (Genesis - Job, 16/3v and 16/4 blank); 17-2212 2312 (-4) 24-3312 346 (Proverbs - Apocalypse); 35-3612 374 (Hebrew Names). Psalms has been omitted. The quality of both the penwork decoration and the illumination is very fine; the grotesque initials appear to be unrelated to any Parisian atelier described and illustrated by Branner and the manuscript is more likely to have been produced in a provincial centre.
Inscribed on front pastedown:
Portio mea dne sit in terra viventium
facile contemnit omnia qui semper
cogitat se moriturum
Initium sapientiae timor domini
The first line, a variation on Psalm CXLII,6, was Jean Grolier's motto as inscribed in some of his books and tooled on most of his bindings. The continuation as it is found here is apparently not recorded. The inscription resembles Grolier's hand, but the manuscript is much unlike anything that is extant from his library. The tools do not appear to belong to the kit of any of the binders known to have worked for Grolier. The book is unrecorded by Le Roux de Lincy, Portalis and Shipman, and Austin included it neither among the genuine Grolier survivors nor among the later forgeries. France's greatest bibliophile and binding patron died in 1565 and a number of individual books quickly found new owners (such as J.-A. De Thou and Pierre Pithou), but the largest part on the collection remained intact until 1676. This thirteenth-century Vulgate, which is of a type that has survived in relatively large numbers, was bought in Paris on 20th July 1566 by De Masso (Dumas?), who recorded the purchase and inscribed his own motto on the same pastedown: In manibus dni sortes meae.
CONTENTS AND DECORATION:
1-1512 164 (Genesis - Job, 16/3v and 16/4 blank); 17-2212 2312 (-4) 24-3312 346 (Proverbs - Apocalypse); 35-3612 374 (Hebrew Names). Psalms has been omitted. The quality of both the penwork decoration and the illumination is very fine; the grotesque initials appear to be unrelated to any Parisian atelier described and illustrated by Branner and the manuscript is more likely to have been produced in a provincial centre.