ANTONIUS DE AZARIO (fl. 1310-1323), Postillae de tempore, in Latin, DECORATED MANUSCRIPT ON VELLUM, [Germany, end 14th century]

184 x 131mm. 210 leaves, COMPLETE, modern foliation in pencil 1-210 followed here. Two columns of 37-40 lines written in a gothic bookhand in brown ink ruled in plummet, signatures survive throughout, capitals touched red, rubrics, paraphs and initials in red (some marginal staining). 18th-century mottled boards backed in calf (scuffed and peeling).

PROVENANCE:
1) 15th- and 16th-century annotations throughout. 2) ‘CARMELI LEONTINI’: inscription in an 18th-century hand on f1. The manuscript was part of the Carmelite Library in Lienz, Austria, which, according to the catalogue of Christian Drescher (d.1822), at the time of its dissolution in 1785 comprised 4835 books and 118 manuscripts. Part of the library was dispersed at auction in 1788 (see P. Lindner, 'Die Aufhebung der Klöster in Deutschtirol 1782-1787', Zeitschrift des Ferdinandeums für Tirol und Vorarlberg, 30 (1886) 54-55). 3) Weiss and Co., Codices, manuscripti, incunabula typographica, I, Munich, 1926, lot 2. 4) T.H. PLUMMER, his sale, Sotheby’s, 9 March 1931, lot 26.

CONTENT:
Postils and Sermons on the Gospels ff.1-210.

A Dominican author of the 13th century, Azarius (or Antonio da Parma — see T. Kaeppeli, SOPMA, 1970-1993, no 264) is a little-known figure in the history of Church literature. And yet the present text, dubbed Postilla Parmensis, became a popular and invaluable tool for priests and the religious throughout the 14th and 15th centuries, lending itself to practical application thanks to its clarity of language and ease of use (see J. B. Schneyer, ‘Repertorium der lateinischen Sermones des Mittelalters für die Zeit von 1150–1350’, Beiträge zur Geschichte der Philosophie und Theologie des Mittelalters, 1969-1990, 1, 291-295).

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