Details
[SEQUENTIAE cum commento]. -- Textus sequentiarum, cum optimo commento. [Cologne: Heinrich Quentell, 1494].
Chancery 4o (202 x 142 mm). Gothic types 10:155 (title, headlines, etc.), 7:80 (text), 6:63 (commentary). Two- to five-line initial spaces. Unrubricated. (Dampstain to upper blank corner of ca. 12 leaves, occasional slight browning.) 19th-century half vellum, paste-paper sides. Provenance: Ned Nakles (sold Christie's New York, 17 April 2000, lot 37).
Sequences came into being in the ninth century as the custom arose of fitting words to melodies formed by prolonging the final note of the Alleluia of the Mass. "The creation of the regular Sequence, a symmetrical structure in which the rhythm is based on the correspondence of word-accent and verse-accent, and the rime is consistent and regular, was the work of the eleventh and twelfth centuries. Yet Sequences of the irregular transitional type continued to be composed until the end of the Middle Ages" (F.J. Raby, Christian Latin Poetry). Sequences, like hymns, were an integral part of the medieval liturgy. This anonymous collection gives the texts in the order of the church year, and the commentary, which surrounds the text, explains their allegorical meanings. The present edition was set from Quentell's 1492 edition, with which it agrees page for page, even to the irregularities of foliation. It was probably printed consecutively with its companion volume, Quentell's 1494 Expositio hymnorum. BMC I, 283 (IA. 4894); Pr 1422; Voulliéme Köln 1080; Goff S-458.
Chancery 4
Sequences came into being in the ninth century as the custom arose of fitting words to melodies formed by prolonging the final note of the Alleluia of the Mass. "The creation of the regular Sequence, a symmetrical structure in which the rhythm is based on the correspondence of word-accent and verse-accent, and the rime is consistent and regular, was the work of the eleventh and twelfth centuries. Yet Sequences of the irregular transitional type continued to be composed until the end of the Middle Ages" (F.J. Raby, Christian Latin Poetry). Sequences, like hymns, were an integral part of the medieval liturgy. This anonymous collection gives the texts in the order of the church year, and the commentary, which surrounds the text, explains their allegorical meanings. The present edition was set from Quentell's 1492 edition, with which it agrees page for page, even to the irregularities of foliation. It was probably printed consecutively with its companion volume, Quentell's 1494 Expositio hymnorum. BMC I, 283 (IA. 4894); Pr 1422; Voulliéme Köln 1080; Goff S-458.