.jpg?w=1)
Details
JOHANNES NICOLETTUS DE IMOLA (c.1372-1436). Lectura in librum secundum Decretalium, in Latin, DECORATED MANUSCRIPT ON PAPER
[?Padua, 1431-1447]
2°, 424 x 287mm. 332 leaves (later foliation in ink omits f.11): 1-1910, 20-218, 22-3210, 346(of 10, vii-x cancelled blanks), COMPLETE, catchwords written horizontally, most in banderoles, in lower margins of final versos, signatures, vellum sewing guards, written in black ink in a cursive gothic bookhand in two columns of 65 lines between 4 verticals and above 65 horizontals ruled in plummet, justification typically: 300 x 73-35-76mm, some headings in red, paragraph marks alternately in red and blue, numerous large initials alternately in red with blue or purple penwork infills or in blue with red penwork infills, some with marginal extensions, THREE HISTORIATED INITIALS, two with acanthus extensions with birds and a putto forming borders, one with penwork extensions in red and green, ONE LARGE MINIATURE across both columns, running headings added to upper right corners of rectos, perhaps in the 15th-century hand that accompanies the marginal annotations, with sketches on ff.4, 168, 196, 246, 281, 302 and 316v (profile heads), 16 (Franciscan tertiary), 101 (wolf), 102v (open book), 268 (horse), slips of paper with 15th-century notes at ff.308 and 310 (cropped into some catchwords and signatures, lower corner of f.285 folded and so untrimmed by binder, discolouration of some margins, a few wormholes, repair to edge of f.333). Eighteenth-century mottled calf, spine gilt in compartments with gilt lettering-piece, red edges (slightly rubbed, wormholes to spine).
PROVENANCE:
1. The arms of Eugenius IV, f.1, date the manuscript's completion and decoration to 1431-1447. The three men praying at the feet of St James and the man in the initial below wear similar clothes: gowns of red or deep pink, two with chaperons in the contrasting colour, with brown-grey sideless surcoats. They are presumably lawyers and members of a confraternity dedicated to St James. It was common for official books in Bologna, part of the Papal States, to bear the papal arms but the style of the decoration, with the free interpretation of Bolognese forms, suggests that this copy might have been made in Padua, where colour-washed drawings were more favoured. Johannes de Imola taught in both Padua and Bologna and a Paduan copyist might have preserved the papal reference as a compliment to the author, since Imola was also officially part of the Papal States, or as a reference to the highest ecclesiastical authority. The Guild of Notaries in Padua generally revered the local patrons, Sts Prosdocimus and Giustina, but the cult of St James had achieved great prominence in the city during the lordship of the Carrara, who dated the establishment of their rule from his feast-day.
2. Library shelf mark Tab 22 at top of f.1.
CONTENT:
Johannes de Imola. Lectura in II librum decretalium, opening Incipit secundus liber decretalium. De iudiciis: Rubrica. Circa Rubricam adde quod diffinicio actionis...De quo vult. Casus pactum de non declinando..., f.1, and ending Sic ob hoc nomen domini benedictum ex hoc nunc et usque in seculum. Amen. f.333. The colophon gives the date of Johannes de Imola's completion of the lecture series in the morning of 26 June 1425.
Pope Gregory IX issued the Decretals in 1234 as a revised and updated compilation of canon law, the authorised version to be taught in the universities of Bologna and Paris. The organisation of the Decretals in five books was followed in the commentary by the great canon and civil jurist, Johannes de Imola, 'famous throughout the world', as the colophon of the present manuscript states, where the date of 1425 is given for the completion of Book II, On Judgements. When Johannes died in 1436, Books IV and V were still to write as reference works, although their content must have been embodied in lecture notes. The colophon here seems to refer to the completion of the original lectures: it was standard university practice for lectures on Books I and II to be given de mane, in the morning, with Books III-IV providing the substance of the afternoon lectures. In 1425 Johannes was teaching at Bologna, where he had studied and where he principally lectured from 1399 until his death in 1436, with brief intervals in Padua (1400-02, 1407, 1430-2), Ferrara (1406-7) and Siena (1408-9). He was enticed back to Padua in 1430 at a specially enhanced salary to lecture on Books I and II of the Decretals, (see A. Belloni, Professori giuristi a Padova nel secolo XV, 1986, pp. 63, 236-242).
The Decretals remained a fundamental text, attracting many glosses and commentaries, despite the continuing growth and development of canon law -- Johannes also wrote a commentary on the laws promulgated by Clement V (1305-1314). At Bologna, the standard gloss on the Decretals had been completed by Johannes Andreae in 1304: when this volume was bound in the 18th century, the text was wrongly credited to Andreae on the spine. The commentaries became ever longer as each new author had to consider the contributions of his predecessors.
Perhaps because of its unfinished state, manuscripts of Johannes de Imola's Lectura are rare: a 15th-century Sienese lawyer owned all three books of which Book II and Book III, in two volumes, survive (Siena, Bibl. Comunale degli Intronati, Ms G IV 28-30, see E. Mecacci, La biblioteca di Ludovico Petrucciani, Milan, 1981, pp.85-90). Belloni mistakenly lists one of Johannes works on civil law as a second copy of this text (Madrid, Bib. Nac. Ms 1915, commentary on the Digestum novum). An imperfect copy of Book II, interspersed with sections from the commentary of Prosdocimus de Comitibus (d.1438), is in the British Library (Royal Ms 9 C. VIII). Incunables show that the greatest demand was for Book III, on the conduct and duties of the clergy, which appeared in two editions in 1485 in Bologna by Henricus de Colonia and two in Venice in 1489 and 1500 by Bernadinus Stagninus de Tridino, who published Book I in 1500; Book II was printed in Venice in 1500. Books I-III were published in Lyon in 1525.
ILLUMINATION:
The miniature on f.1, a colour-washed drawing using neither white nor black, shows supplicants at the feet of St James enthroned, who holds a book in one hand and his pilgrim's staff, on which rests his pilgrim's hat, in the other. Above are the arms of Eugenius IV and the papacy. A similar supplicant appears in the initial. The initial on f.36v, not marking a major division of the text, seems to contain a very generalised male bust and that on f.327v, introducing the section on pilgrimage, perhaps an angel, from the costume, hair-style and head ornament.
The alternating red and blue initials are typical of Italian canon law texts. Their flourishing, and the decoration in general, has an energy and quirkyness not typical of the highly systematised book production of Bologna. The watermarks are of the 'three hill' type, widely used in the 14th and 15th centuries. Stylistic connections can be found with Padua, in the use of colour-washed drawings and in the free interpretation of Bolognese forms (see G. Canova Mariani ed., La miniatura a Padova dal medioevo al settecento, 1999, esp. pp.209-231). Johannes de Imola was evidently highly regarded in Padua, where he himself could have made Bolognese manuscripts of his works available for copying.
[?Padua, 1431-1447]
2°, 424 x 287mm. 332 leaves (later foliation in ink omits f.11): 1-1910, 20-218, 22-3210, 346(of 10, vii-x cancelled blanks), COMPLETE, catchwords written horizontally, most in banderoles, in lower margins of final versos, signatures, vellum sewing guards, written in black ink in a cursive gothic bookhand in two columns of 65 lines between 4 verticals and above 65 horizontals ruled in plummet, justification typically: 300 x 73-35-76mm, some headings in red, paragraph marks alternately in red and blue, numerous large initials alternately in red with blue or purple penwork infills or in blue with red penwork infills, some with marginal extensions, THREE HISTORIATED INITIALS, two with acanthus extensions with birds and a putto forming borders, one with penwork extensions in red and green, ONE LARGE MINIATURE across both columns, running headings added to upper right corners of rectos, perhaps in the 15th-century hand that accompanies the marginal annotations, with sketches on ff.4, 168, 196, 246, 281, 302 and 316v (profile heads), 16 (Franciscan tertiary), 101 (wolf), 102v (open book), 268 (horse), slips of paper with 15th-century notes at ff.308 and 310 (cropped into some catchwords and signatures, lower corner of f.285 folded and so untrimmed by binder, discolouration of some margins, a few wormholes, repair to edge of f.333). Eighteenth-century mottled calf, spine gilt in compartments with gilt lettering-piece, red edges (slightly rubbed, wormholes to spine).
PROVENANCE:
1. The arms of Eugenius IV, f.1, date the manuscript's completion and decoration to 1431-1447. The three men praying at the feet of St James and the man in the initial below wear similar clothes: gowns of red or deep pink, two with chaperons in the contrasting colour, with brown-grey sideless surcoats. They are presumably lawyers and members of a confraternity dedicated to St James. It was common for official books in Bologna, part of the Papal States, to bear the papal arms but the style of the decoration, with the free interpretation of Bolognese forms, suggests that this copy might have been made in Padua, where colour-washed drawings were more favoured. Johannes de Imola taught in both Padua and Bologna and a Paduan copyist might have preserved the papal reference as a compliment to the author, since Imola was also officially part of the Papal States, or as a reference to the highest ecclesiastical authority. The Guild of Notaries in Padua generally revered the local patrons, Sts Prosdocimus and Giustina, but the cult of St James had achieved great prominence in the city during the lordship of the Carrara, who dated the establishment of their rule from his feast-day.
2. Library shelf mark Tab 22 at top of f.1.
CONTENT:
Johannes de Imola. Lectura in II librum decretalium, opening Incipit secundus liber decretalium. De iudiciis: Rubrica. Circa Rubricam adde quod diffinicio actionis...De quo vult. Casus pactum de non declinando..., f.1, and ending Sic ob hoc nomen domini benedictum ex hoc nunc et usque in seculum. Amen. f.333. The colophon gives the date of Johannes de Imola's completion of the lecture series in the morning of 26 June 1425.
Pope Gregory IX issued the Decretals in 1234 as a revised and updated compilation of canon law, the authorised version to be taught in the universities of Bologna and Paris. The organisation of the Decretals in five books was followed in the commentary by the great canon and civil jurist, Johannes de Imola, 'famous throughout the world', as the colophon of the present manuscript states, where the date of 1425 is given for the completion of Book II, On Judgements. When Johannes died in 1436, Books IV and V were still to write as reference works, although their content must have been embodied in lecture notes. The colophon here seems to refer to the completion of the original lectures: it was standard university practice for lectures on Books I and II to be given de mane, in the morning, with Books III-IV providing the substance of the afternoon lectures. In 1425 Johannes was teaching at Bologna, where he had studied and where he principally lectured from 1399 until his death in 1436, with brief intervals in Padua (1400-02, 1407, 1430-2), Ferrara (1406-7) and Siena (1408-9). He was enticed back to Padua in 1430 at a specially enhanced salary to lecture on Books I and II of the Decretals, (see A. Belloni, Professori giuristi a Padova nel secolo XV, 1986, pp. 63, 236-242).
The Decretals remained a fundamental text, attracting many glosses and commentaries, despite the continuing growth and development of canon law -- Johannes also wrote a commentary on the laws promulgated by Clement V (1305-1314). At Bologna, the standard gloss on the Decretals had been completed by Johannes Andreae in 1304: when this volume was bound in the 18th century, the text was wrongly credited to Andreae on the spine. The commentaries became ever longer as each new author had to consider the contributions of his predecessors.
Perhaps because of its unfinished state, manuscripts of Johannes de Imola's Lectura are rare: a 15th-century Sienese lawyer owned all three books of which Book II and Book III, in two volumes, survive (Siena, Bibl. Comunale degli Intronati, Ms G IV 28-30, see E. Mecacci, La biblioteca di Ludovico Petrucciani, Milan, 1981, pp.85-90). Belloni mistakenly lists one of Johannes works on civil law as a second copy of this text (Madrid, Bib. Nac. Ms 1915, commentary on the Digestum novum). An imperfect copy of Book II, interspersed with sections from the commentary of Prosdocimus de Comitibus (d.1438), is in the British Library (Royal Ms 9 C. VIII). Incunables show that the greatest demand was for Book III, on the conduct and duties of the clergy, which appeared in two editions in 1485 in Bologna by Henricus de Colonia and two in Venice in 1489 and 1500 by Bernadinus Stagninus de Tridino, who published Book I in 1500; Book II was printed in Venice in 1500. Books I-III were published in Lyon in 1525.
ILLUMINATION:
The miniature on f.1, a colour-washed drawing using neither white nor black, shows supplicants at the feet of St James enthroned, who holds a book in one hand and his pilgrim's staff, on which rests his pilgrim's hat, in the other. Above are the arms of Eugenius IV and the papacy. A similar supplicant appears in the initial. The initial on f.36v, not marking a major division of the text, seems to contain a very generalised male bust and that on f.327v, introducing the section on pilgrimage, perhaps an angel, from the costume, hair-style and head ornament.
The alternating red and blue initials are typical of Italian canon law texts. Their flourishing, and the decoration in general, has an energy and quirkyness not typical of the highly systematised book production of Bologna. The watermarks are of the 'three hill' type, widely used in the 14th and 15th centuries. Stylistic connections can be found with Padua, in the use of colour-washed drawings and in the free interpretation of Bolognese forms (see G. Canova Mariani ed., La miniatura a Padova dal medioevo al settecento, 1999, esp. pp.209-231). Johannes de Imola was evidently highly regarded in Padua, where he himself could have made Bolognese manuscripts of his works available for copying.
Special notice
This lot will not be subject to VAT either on the hammer price or the buyer's premium.