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PSEUDO-JOACHIM DE FIORE. Vaticinia Pontificum, in Latin, ILLUSTRATED MANUSCRIPT ON VELLUM
Rhodes, 1421
220 x 160mm. 16 leaves: 18, 28, COMPLETE, written in brown ink in single column in a small gothic bookhand, one rubric in red (f.8v), two-line initials alternately red and blue, THIRTY LARGE ILLUSTRATIONS IN PEN AND BROWN INK AND WASH, colours predominantly pink, green and blue (smudging or pigment loss affecting most pages, dampstain at gutters, some spotting). Reused wrapper for limp vellum binding (worn and spotted).
AUTOGRAPH MANUSCRIPT OF CRISTOFORO BUONDELMONTI, AUTHOR OF THE LIBER INSULARUM ARCHIPELAGI
PROVENANCE:
A colophon on f.16 reads 'Ego presbitus cristoforus de bondelmontibus de florencia scripsi hunc librum et depinsi in civitate rodi mcccxxi', followed by 'magno studio'. The scribe and artist of this 'painstaking work' is Cristoforo Buondelmonti, author of the Liber Insularum Archipelagi, the great renaissance treatise on the geography and history of the Greek islands. From a distinguished Florentine family, Cristoforo had a good humanistic education and was certainly in contact with the circle around Niccolò Niccoli. Fervently enthusiastic about Greek antiquity and seeking to further the knowledge he had gained from classical literature, Cristoforo left for Rhodes in 1414 and the island remained his principal base during years of travelling around the Aegean. It is thought that on leaving Florence he was charged by Niccoli with acquiring Greek books and his first work, Descriptio Insulae Cretae, completed in 1417 was addressed to the humanist. His second, and greatest work, the Liber Insularum was produced in three redactions, all completed on Rhodes between 1420 and 1422 and all dedicated to Cardinal Giordano Orsini. A third work, the Nomina virorum illustriam was composed for Janus, king of Cyprus, and was completed, also on Rhodes, in 1423. (DBdI, 15, pp.198-200).
It was in the middle of the period when Cristoforo was working on the Liber Insularum that he signed and dated the present manuscript and it seems feasible that he copied the manuscript for his current patron Cardinal Giordano Orsini. The opening prophecy is in fact identified with the Orsini pope, Nicholas III. The survival of his autograph copy is in marked contrast with the Liber insularum, of which the author's original is apparently lost, despite the existence of about sixty-five manuscripts, see A. Campana, 'Da codici del Buondelmonti', Studi Bizantini e Neoellenici, 1957; H.L. Turner, 'Christopher Buondelmonti and the Isolario', Terrae incognitae, XIX, 1987, pp.11-28.
Cardinal Orsini (c.1360-1438) spent most of his life in direct service of the popes at a time of great instability; he took part in the councils of Basel and Constance and saw the end of western schism. Beside his curial duties he had especial importance as a book collector, forming his own library during the period when members of the papal court were undertaking manuscript explorations north of the Alps. He employed Nicholas of Cusa from 1425, and it was for him that Nicholas rediscovered the manuscripts of Plautus and Tertullian.
Given the relationship between Buondelmonti and Orsini and the relevance of papal prophecies for a member of the Curia, it seems very likely that the present manuscript was destined for Orsini's collection. In his will, written at Bracciano in 1434, Orsini listed the books which he intended to bequeath to St Peter's, Rome and which were, at that time, housed with custodians in both Nerula and Formello. Among the books in Formello in domo Petracchini was an 'Item Johacchin'. It may well have been this book. C. Celenza, 'The will of Cardinal Giordano Orsini (ob.1438)', Traditio, 51 (1996), p. 282.
The manuscript contined to be consulted and updated. Additional prophetical writings, some of them related to events up to 1460 are added on the final verso, and the the popes relevant to the later entries of the Vaticinia are identified in the same 16th-century hand as the paragraph concerning Joachim added below the colophon.
The manuscript was in Rome at the beginning of the 20th century when it was sent to the Biblioteca Casanatense for an opinion on its authenticity and worth. In a letter of 18 July 1903 it was confirmed as 15th century but the writer refused to give an opinion on its price.
TEXT AND ILLUSTRATION:
Knowledge of the circumstances of its production makes this is an extraordinarily suggestive copy of one of the most intriguing and recondite image/text combinations of the Middle Ages. The Vaticinia is a series of mystical prophecies concerning the papacy. As it appears in the present copy - and as it was most commonly distributed in 15th-century manuscripts - it combines two prophetical works: the Genus nequam series of 15 prophecies (in the present manuscript ff.8v-15v), essentially a Latin version of the Oracles of Leo the Wise that was circulating from around 1304 and was falsely attributed to the Calabrian mystic Joachim da Fiore (c.1130-1202), and the Ascende Calve series of a further 15 prophesies (ff.1-8), currently attibuted to various dates in the second half of the 14th century: B. Degenhart and A. Schmitt, Corpus der italienischen Zeichnungen 1300-1450, I, 1968. The two series were probably combined in the second decade of the 15th century and this combination was not only the model for manuscripts but was also reproduced in printed editions into the 17th century. R. Lerner, 'On the Origins of the Earliest Latin Pope Prophecies: A Reconsideration, Falschungen im Mittelalter' MGH, Schriften 33, 5 (1988), pp.611-635 and O.Schwartz and R. Lerner, 'Illuminated Propaganda: The Origins of the Ascende calve Pope Prophecies', Journal of Medieval History, 20 (1994), pp.157-91.
An earlier copy, dated between 1410 and 1415, in Kremsmünster (Stiftsbibliothek, CC Cim. 6), is so close in text, compositions and iconography to the present lot that it is clear that Buondelmonti had access in Rhodes to some such manuscript. The prophecies were interpreted as referring to specific popes, identified in the original hand of the present manuscript as far as Martin V (1417-1431) on f.11, the incumbent of the Holy See when Cristoforo Buondelmonti made this copy. The entry was modified by the hand that subsequently matched unallocated prophecies to successive occupants of the throne of St Peter.
The Lawrence Schoenberg database records only eight 15th-century copies of the Vaticinia on the art market from 1824. Only two were as early in date as the present manuscript and neither has been offered for sale in the past 50 years.
The subjects of the illustrations are as follows:
f.1 A pope seated on a bench flanked by two trees, on the right a starry cosmos with a bird against it, the pope holding a palm and feeding one of the two bears at his knees; title identifying the pope with Giovanni Orsini, Pope Nicholas III.
f.1v A pope standing between two trees prodding a bird at this feet with the end of his upturned cross: title identifying the pope with Martin IV.
f.2 A pope holding the keys of St Peter about to be struck by a club-wielding man, a severed head at their feet; title identifying the pope with Honorius IV.
f.2v A pope with the Virgin on his left, handing a chalice to a woman standing on his right, a dragon biting and hanging from his wrist; title identifying the pope with Nicholas IV.
f.3 A pope kneeling in prayer before a tree from which issues a blessing hand, the standard of St Peter behind him and a dog hanging from his tiara; title identifying the pope with Celestine IV.
f.3v A standing pope holding the keys of St Peter in his left hand, with a bird pecking and hanging from the wrist, and a trident in his right hand with which he stabs and wounds a cockerel, another cockerel flying beside him, to the right a monk seated beneath a tree from which a hand surrounded by rays and stars points towards the pope; title identifying the pope with Boniface VIII.
f.4 A pope holding a book with his other hand raised towards a dragon leaping in front of a tree, on the right a flying dove; title identifying the pope with Benedict XI.
f.4v A pope on horseback, a hawk on his wrist, riding away from a haloed woman standing in the doorway of a church; title identifying the pope with Clement V.
f.5 A pope, with a sword hilt at his mouth the point wounding the Lamb of God, holding a plant in his left hand and in his right hand the keys of St Peter with a dove perched on top of them, beside him a hovering winged figure half-pope and half-serpent; title identifying the pope as John XXII.
f.5v A pope with his hand outstretched towards a group of stars over the dove of the Holy Spirit on the ground, on the right a crown with the papal tiara above it: title identifying the pope with Bendict XII. f.6 A pope, flanked by two trees, with an upturned cross in his right hand pointing to the severed head of a sheep on the ground, in his left hand the keys with a snake hanging from his sleeve, a cockerel at his feet; title identifying the pope as Clement VI.
f.6v A pope standing within a crown, a tree to either side, holding the keys and a blade, an animal to the right supporting himself on a standing sword; title identifying the pope as Innocent VI.
f.7 A seated pope holding a plant and the keys, a peacock at his feet and a blessing hand coming from a cloud on the left and an angel flying in from the right; title identifying the pope as Urban V.
f.7v A pope on the left, hovering above the ground as he is threatened by the raised sword of a man in armour, the sword hilt touched by a hand emerging from a cloud and stars, three upturned bloodied spears and two upturned bloodied swords; title identifying the pope as Gregory XI.
f.8 A human-headed horned dragon wearing a crown, with stars within the coil of his tail, standing in fire and water and holding a sword in the head at the tip of his tail, a moon and five stars above; title identifying the pope as Urban VI.
f.8v A pope with a bear behind his head and two bears standing against him all flanked by two trees; rubric'd Incipit papaliu[m] rabane de cruce and title identifying the pope with Boniface IX .
f.9 A pope holding a palm and the standard of St Peter to his right a serpent on its tail being fed by a bird; title identifying the pope with Innocent VII.
f.9v A seated pope with a bird on his tiara, his hand on the head of a child on his right and with a unicorn rampant on his left; title identifying the pope with Gregory XII.
f.10 Three columns with the capitals supporting the bust of a king, the bust of monk and an arm holding a scimitar to the head of the monk; title identifying the pope with Alexander V.
f.10v A monk holding a sickle and a flower, flanked by two trees one behind leg irons and the other beside a detached leg; title identifying the prophecy with John XXIII.
f.11 A pope, his arms folded, with a cow reaching up to him, the busts of a king and queen level with his head; replacement title identifying the pope with Martin V.
f.11v A pope, his arms folded, with a bear reaching up to him, flanked by two trees; added title identifying the pope with Eugenius IV.
f.12 A walled city filled with spear-carrying soldiers.
f.12v A pope looking down at a wolf carrying two papal standards and a key, flanked by two trees; later title identifying the pope with Nicholas V.
f.13 A walled city with two churches with dismembered hands between them; title erased.
f.13v A near-naked tonsured man seated on a rock, ?coins falling from his hand towards a flask and money-filled chest on the ground, two trees behind him and a child approaching; later title identifying the prophecy with Calixtus III.
f14 A standing saint holding a papal tiara with three sheep in a heap beside him; later title the prophecy with Pius II.
f.14v A pope being crowned by an angel, flanked by two trees: later inscription identifying the pope with Paul II.
f.15 A seated pope holding a book with angels raising a cloth of honour behind him, flanked by two trees; later title identifying the pope with Sixtus IV.
f.15v A pope holding his tiara above the human-faced head of a horned, woolly beast, flanked by two trees; later title identifying the prophecy with Innocent VIII.
Rhodes, 1421
220 x 160mm. 16 leaves: 1
AUTOGRAPH MANUSCRIPT OF CRISTOFORO BUONDELMONTI, AUTHOR OF THE LIBER INSULARUM ARCHIPELAGI
PROVENANCE:
A colophon on f.16 reads 'Ego presbitus cristoforus de bondelmontibus de florencia scripsi hunc librum et depinsi in civitate rodi mcccxxi', followed by 'magno studio'. The scribe and artist of this 'painstaking work' is Cristoforo Buondelmonti, author of the Liber Insularum Archipelagi, the great renaissance treatise on the geography and history of the Greek islands. From a distinguished Florentine family, Cristoforo had a good humanistic education and was certainly in contact with the circle around Niccolò Niccoli. Fervently enthusiastic about Greek antiquity and seeking to further the knowledge he had gained from classical literature, Cristoforo left for Rhodes in 1414 and the island remained his principal base during years of travelling around the Aegean. It is thought that on leaving Florence he was charged by Niccoli with acquiring Greek books and his first work, Descriptio Insulae Cretae, completed in 1417 was addressed to the humanist. His second, and greatest work, the Liber Insularum was produced in three redactions, all completed on Rhodes between 1420 and 1422 and all dedicated to Cardinal Giordano Orsini. A third work, the Nomina virorum illustriam was composed for Janus, king of Cyprus, and was completed, also on Rhodes, in 1423. (DBdI, 15, pp.198-200).
It was in the middle of the period when Cristoforo was working on the Liber Insularum that he signed and dated the present manuscript and it seems feasible that he copied the manuscript for his current patron Cardinal Giordano Orsini. The opening prophecy is in fact identified with the Orsini pope, Nicholas III. The survival of his autograph copy is in marked contrast with the Liber insularum, of which the author's original is apparently lost, despite the existence of about sixty-five manuscripts, see A. Campana, 'Da codici del Buondelmonti', Studi Bizantini e Neoellenici, 1957; H.L. Turner, 'Christopher Buondelmonti and the Isolario', Terrae incognitae, XIX, 1987, pp.11-28.
Cardinal Orsini (c.1360-1438) spent most of his life in direct service of the popes at a time of great instability; he took part in the councils of Basel and Constance and saw the end of western schism. Beside his curial duties he had especial importance as a book collector, forming his own library during the period when members of the papal court were undertaking manuscript explorations north of the Alps. He employed Nicholas of Cusa from 1425, and it was for him that Nicholas rediscovered the manuscripts of Plautus and Tertullian.
Given the relationship between Buondelmonti and Orsini and the relevance of papal prophecies for a member of the Curia, it seems very likely that the present manuscript was destined for Orsini's collection. In his will, written at Bracciano in 1434, Orsini listed the books which he intended to bequeath to St Peter's, Rome and which were, at that time, housed with custodians in both Nerula and Formello. Among the books in Formello in domo Petracchini was an 'Item Johacchin'. It may well have been this book. C. Celenza, 'The will of Cardinal Giordano Orsini (ob.1438)', Traditio, 51 (1996), p. 282.
The manuscript contined to be consulted and updated. Additional prophetical writings, some of them related to events up to 1460 are added on the final verso, and the the popes relevant to the later entries of the Vaticinia are identified in the same 16th-century hand as the paragraph concerning Joachim added below the colophon.
The manuscript was in Rome at the beginning of the 20th century when it was sent to the Biblioteca Casanatense for an opinion on its authenticity and worth. In a letter of 18 July 1903 it was confirmed as 15th century but the writer refused to give an opinion on its price.
TEXT AND ILLUSTRATION:
Knowledge of the circumstances of its production makes this is an extraordinarily suggestive copy of one of the most intriguing and recondite image/text combinations of the Middle Ages. The Vaticinia is a series of mystical prophecies concerning the papacy. As it appears in the present copy - and as it was most commonly distributed in 15th-century manuscripts - it combines two prophetical works: the Genus nequam series of 15 prophecies (in the present manuscript ff.8v-15v), essentially a Latin version of the Oracles of Leo the Wise that was circulating from around 1304 and was falsely attributed to the Calabrian mystic Joachim da Fiore (c.1130-1202), and the Ascende Calve series of a further 15 prophesies (ff.1-8), currently attibuted to various dates in the second half of the 14th century: B. Degenhart and A. Schmitt, Corpus der italienischen Zeichnungen 1300-1450, I, 1968. The two series were probably combined in the second decade of the 15th century and this combination was not only the model for manuscripts but was also reproduced in printed editions into the 17th century. R. Lerner, 'On the Origins of the Earliest Latin Pope Prophecies: A Reconsideration, Falschungen im Mittelalter' MGH, Schriften 33, 5 (1988), pp.611-635 and O.Schwartz and R. Lerner, 'Illuminated Propaganda: The Origins of the Ascende calve Pope Prophecies', Journal of Medieval History, 20 (1994), pp.157-91.
An earlier copy, dated between 1410 and 1415, in Kremsmünster (Stiftsbibliothek, CC Cim. 6), is so close in text, compositions and iconography to the present lot that it is clear that Buondelmonti had access in Rhodes to some such manuscript. The prophecies were interpreted as referring to specific popes, identified in the original hand of the present manuscript as far as Martin V (1417-1431) on f.11, the incumbent of the Holy See when Cristoforo Buondelmonti made this copy. The entry was modified by the hand that subsequently matched unallocated prophecies to successive occupants of the throne of St Peter.
The Lawrence Schoenberg database records only eight 15th-century copies of the Vaticinia on the art market from 1824. Only two were as early in date as the present manuscript and neither has been offered for sale in the past 50 years.
The subjects of the illustrations are as follows:
f.1 A pope seated on a bench flanked by two trees, on the right a starry cosmos with a bird against it, the pope holding a palm and feeding one of the two bears at his knees; title identifying the pope with Giovanni Orsini, Pope Nicholas III.
f.1v A pope standing between two trees prodding a bird at this feet with the end of his upturned cross: title identifying the pope with Martin IV.
f.2 A pope holding the keys of St Peter about to be struck by a club-wielding man, a severed head at their feet; title identifying the pope with Honorius IV.
f.2v A pope with the Virgin on his left, handing a chalice to a woman standing on his right, a dragon biting and hanging from his wrist; title identifying the pope with Nicholas IV.
f.3 A pope kneeling in prayer before a tree from which issues a blessing hand, the standard of St Peter behind him and a dog hanging from his tiara; title identifying the pope with Celestine IV.
f.3v A standing pope holding the keys of St Peter in his left hand, with a bird pecking and hanging from the wrist, and a trident in his right hand with which he stabs and wounds a cockerel, another cockerel flying beside him, to the right a monk seated beneath a tree from which a hand surrounded by rays and stars points towards the pope; title identifying the pope with Boniface VIII.
f.4 A pope holding a book with his other hand raised towards a dragon leaping in front of a tree, on the right a flying dove; title identifying the pope with Benedict XI.
f.4v A pope on horseback, a hawk on his wrist, riding away from a haloed woman standing in the doorway of a church; title identifying the pope with Clement V.
f.5 A pope, with a sword hilt at his mouth the point wounding the Lamb of God, holding a plant in his left hand and in his right hand the keys of St Peter with a dove perched on top of them, beside him a hovering winged figure half-pope and half-serpent; title identifying the pope as John XXII.
f.5v A pope with his hand outstretched towards a group of stars over the dove of the Holy Spirit on the ground, on the right a crown with the papal tiara above it: title identifying the pope with Bendict XII. f.6 A pope, flanked by two trees, with an upturned cross in his right hand pointing to the severed head of a sheep on the ground, in his left hand the keys with a snake hanging from his sleeve, a cockerel at his feet; title identifying the pope as Clement VI.
f.6v A pope standing within a crown, a tree to either side, holding the keys and a blade, an animal to the right supporting himself on a standing sword; title identifying the pope as Innocent VI.
f.7 A seated pope holding a plant and the keys, a peacock at his feet and a blessing hand coming from a cloud on the left and an angel flying in from the right; title identifying the pope as Urban V.
f.7v A pope on the left, hovering above the ground as he is threatened by the raised sword of a man in armour, the sword hilt touched by a hand emerging from a cloud and stars, three upturned bloodied spears and two upturned bloodied swords; title identifying the pope as Gregory XI.
f.8 A human-headed horned dragon wearing a crown, with stars within the coil of his tail, standing in fire and water and holding a sword in the head at the tip of his tail, a moon and five stars above; title identifying the pope as Urban VI.
f.8v A pope with a bear behind his head and two bears standing against him all flanked by two trees; rubric'd Incipit papaliu[m] rabane de cruce and title identifying the pope with Boniface IX .
f.9 A pope holding a palm and the standard of St Peter to his right a serpent on its tail being fed by a bird; title identifying the pope with Innocent VII.
f.9v A seated pope with a bird on his tiara, his hand on the head of a child on his right and with a unicorn rampant on his left; title identifying the pope with Gregory XII.
f.10 Three columns with the capitals supporting the bust of a king, the bust of monk and an arm holding a scimitar to the head of the monk; title identifying the pope with Alexander V.
f.10v A monk holding a sickle and a flower, flanked by two trees one behind leg irons and the other beside a detached leg; title identifying the prophecy with John XXIII.
f.11 A pope, his arms folded, with a cow reaching up to him, the busts of a king and queen level with his head; replacement title identifying the pope with Martin V.
f.11v A pope, his arms folded, with a bear reaching up to him, flanked by two trees; added title identifying the pope with Eugenius IV.
f.12 A walled city filled with spear-carrying soldiers.
f.12v A pope looking down at a wolf carrying two papal standards and a key, flanked by two trees; later title identifying the pope with Nicholas V.
f.13 A walled city with two churches with dismembered hands between them; title erased.
f.13v A near-naked tonsured man seated on a rock, ?coins falling from his hand towards a flask and money-filled chest on the ground, two trees behind him and a child approaching; later title identifying the prophecy with Calixtus III.
f14 A standing saint holding a papal tiara with three sheep in a heap beside him; later title the prophecy with Pius II.
f.14v A pope being crowned by an angel, flanked by two trees: later inscription identifying the pope with Paul II.
f.15 A seated pope holding a book with angels raising a cloth of honour behind him, flanked by two trees; later title identifying the pope with Sixtus IV.
f.15v A pope holding his tiara above the human-faced head of a horned, woolly beast, flanked by two trees; later title identifying the prophecy with Innocent VIII.
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