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Details
COLLECTION OF HOMILIES, Homiliae Capitulares, in Latin, manuscript on vellum [Italy, Montecassino, 2nd half 11th century]
Exceptionally fine examples of Beneventan script on nearly-complete leaves, perhaps made for use at Montecassino itself under the famed Abbot Desiderius.
Two bifolia, each leaf c.330×220mm or c.325×200mm, blind-ruled for two columns of 24 lines written in a very fine Beneventan minuscule script, ruled space c.240×145mm, rubrics in red; the text is not consecutive and the sequence of the two bifolia should be reversed, it comprises the 1st to 3rd Sundays in Advent (December) (f.3), the Sundays after Epiphany (6 January) (f.4), the 24th to 26th summer Sundays (f.1), and the feasts of Sts Philip and James (1 May), James (25 July), the Transfiguration (6 August), and the Assumption (15 August) (f.2), capitals stroked in red and often with green wash, enlarged calligraphic initials in red with yellow, blue, or green wash (recovered from a bookbinding, with consequent typical damage, the first bifolium lacking its (blank) outer corners and with some sewing-holes in the text area, the first leaf of the second bifolium more stained than the others, but still mostly very legible). Bound in grey buckram at the Quaritch bindery.
Provenance:
(1) Each bifolium was used as the wrapper of a book, apparently in the early 17th century: one has the later spine-title ‘Regolaria 1611’.
(2) Private collection; acquired in February 1962 and October 1963 by:
(3) Bernard Rosenthal: his ‘I/144’ and ‘I/163’ respectively.
(4) Bernard Quaritch, Beneventan Script, cat. 1128 (1990), no 3; acquired with the rest of the catalogue by:
(5) Schøyen Collection, MS 54.
Script:
This is the first of several Beneventan items in this catalogue (cf. lots 420-22), and is a classic example of the script. It was used on the front and back covers of a Quaritch catalogue devoted to twenty-five specimens of Beneventan script. To modern eyes this is one of the more difficult medieval scripts to read, because so many of the letter-forms are unfamiliar: ‘e’ looks like a figure ‘8’ with an open lower bowl, ‘a’ is shaped similar to a Greek alpha (‘a’), which in turn can be confused with the letter ‘t’ which looks like an ‘oc’ ligature, the ‘ci’ ligature appears like a reversed Greek beta (‘ß’), and so on.
‘From a deluxe manuscript produced at Montecassino under the Abbot Desiderius [abbot 1058–87]’. It contains a series of homilies, probably those that would be read daily in the chapter-house. The third leaf, as currently bound, would doubtless have been the first of the parent volume: it has the largest decorated initial and the text for the beginning of Advent, the start of the Church year.
Bibliography:
Virginia Brown, ‘A Second New List of Beneventan Manuscripts, I’, Mediaeval Studies, 40 (1978), p.272 nos v (‘Lectionarium. Saec. XI2’) and vii (‘Liturgica. Saec. XI ex.’).
Exceptionally fine examples of Beneventan script on nearly-complete leaves, perhaps made for use at Montecassino itself under the famed Abbot Desiderius.
Two bifolia, each leaf c.330×220mm or c.325×200mm, blind-ruled for two columns of 24 lines written in a very fine Beneventan minuscule script, ruled space c.240×145mm, rubrics in red; the text is not consecutive and the sequence of the two bifolia should be reversed, it comprises the 1st to 3rd Sundays in Advent (December) (f.3), the Sundays after Epiphany (6 January) (f.4), the 24th to 26th summer Sundays (f.1), and the feasts of Sts Philip and James (1 May), James (25 July), the Transfiguration (6 August), and the Assumption (15 August) (f.2), capitals stroked in red and often with green wash, enlarged calligraphic initials in red with yellow, blue, or green wash (recovered from a bookbinding, with consequent typical damage, the first bifolium lacking its (blank) outer corners and with some sewing-holes in the text area, the first leaf of the second bifolium more stained than the others, but still mostly very legible). Bound in grey buckram at the Quaritch bindery.
Provenance:
(1) Each bifolium was used as the wrapper of a book, apparently in the early 17th century: one has the later spine-title ‘Regolaria 1611’.
(2) Private collection; acquired in February 1962 and October 1963 by:
(3) Bernard Rosenthal: his ‘I/144’ and ‘I/163’ respectively.
(4) Bernard Quaritch, Beneventan Script, cat. 1128 (1990), no 3; acquired with the rest of the catalogue by:
(5) Schøyen Collection, MS 54.
Script:
This is the first of several Beneventan items in this catalogue (cf. lots 420-22), and is a classic example of the script. It was used on the front and back covers of a Quaritch catalogue devoted to twenty-five specimens of Beneventan script. To modern eyes this is one of the more difficult medieval scripts to read, because so many of the letter-forms are unfamiliar: ‘e’ looks like a figure ‘8’ with an open lower bowl, ‘a’ is shaped similar to a Greek alpha (‘a’), which in turn can be confused with the letter ‘t’ which looks like an ‘oc’ ligature, the ‘ci’ ligature appears like a reversed Greek beta (‘ß’), and so on.
‘From a deluxe manuscript produced at Montecassino under the Abbot Desiderius [abbot 1058–87]’. It contains a series of homilies, probably those that would be read daily in the chapter-house. The third leaf, as currently bound, would doubtless have been the first of the parent volume: it has the largest decorated initial and the text for the beginning of Advent, the start of the Church year.
Bibliography:
Virginia Brown, ‘A Second New List of Beneventan Manuscripts, I’, Mediaeval Studies, 40 (1978), p.272 nos v (‘Lectionarium. Saec. XI2’) and vii (‘Liturgica. Saec. XI ex.’).
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