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![SACRAMENTARY, a rubricated bifolium with Prefaces for Major Feasts, in Latin, manuscript on vellum [Italy, mid-12th century]](https://www.christies.com/img/LotImages/2019/CKS/2019_CKS_18152_0442_002(sacramentary_a_rubricated_bifolium_with_prefaces_for_major_feasts_in_l122938).jpg?w=1)
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Details
SACRAMENTARY, a rubricated bifolium with Prefaces for Major Feasts, in Latin, manuscript on vellum [Italy, mid-12th century]
An exceptionally elegant specimen of 12th-century Italian script.
A bifolium, each leaf c.315×215mm, blind-ruled for 26 lines written above top line in brown ink in a very fine Romanesque bookhand, ruled space 245×140mm, rubrics in half-uncials in bright red, initials and ‘Vere Dignum’ monograms also in red, the repeated incipits ‘eterne deus’ and ‘et iustum est’ also in half-uncials, the text is consecutive (thus this was the central bifolium of a gathering), yet is bound in reverse order foliated 45 and 46 in a 19th- or early 20th-century hand (slight darkening of the margins, a few later scribbles, not affecting legibility, the margins slightly trimmed, with the loss of parts of added marginalia, a five-line added medieval inscription in the lower margin of the first page has been erased). Bound in grey buckram at the Quaritch bindery.
Provenance:
(1) Domenico Manni (1690–1788), Florentine antiquary, inscribed ‘di domenico Maria Manni’ (f.1).
(2) Alessandro ‘Aldo’ Olschki (d.1963), Florentine bookseller (who in the 1940s and ‘50s owned many leaves from Manni’s collection); sold in 1959 to his nephew:
(3) Bernard Rosenthal, his ‘I/71’.
(4) Bernard Quaritch, cat. 1088 (1988), no 43.
(5) Schøyen Collection, MS 241.
Text:
The text comprises the preface and, as appropriate, the prayer(s) ‘Infra actionem’, which usually beginning ‘Communicantes et diem[/noctem] sacratissimum[/am] […]’; the leaves contain Masses for the feasts of Christmas, Epiphany, Lent, Maundy Thursday, Easter (f.2), and the Ascension, Pentecost, Trinity, Holy Cross, the Assumption, and Apostles (f.1).
Script:
The script is regular and exceptionally elegant. Abbreviations are infrequent, the letter ‘f’ descends slightly below the line, the letters ‘pp’ do not touch (e.g. ‘apparuit’, ‘supplici’), e-caudata (‘e’) is used regularly for ‘æ’, and ‘et’ is always written in full (the one tironian ‘et’ appears to be added).
An exceptionally elegant specimen of 12th-century Italian script.
A bifolium, each leaf c.315×215mm, blind-ruled for 26 lines written above top line in brown ink in a very fine Romanesque bookhand, ruled space 245×140mm, rubrics in half-uncials in bright red, initials and ‘Vere Dignum’ monograms also in red, the repeated incipits ‘eterne deus’ and ‘et iustum est’ also in half-uncials, the text is consecutive (thus this was the central bifolium of a gathering), yet is bound in reverse order foliated 45 and 46 in a 19th- or early 20th-century hand (slight darkening of the margins, a few later scribbles, not affecting legibility, the margins slightly trimmed, with the loss of parts of added marginalia, a five-line added medieval inscription in the lower margin of the first page has been erased). Bound in grey buckram at the Quaritch bindery.
Provenance:
(1) Domenico Manni (1690–1788), Florentine antiquary, inscribed ‘di domenico Maria Manni’ (f.1).
(2) Alessandro ‘Aldo’ Olschki (d.1963), Florentine bookseller (who in the 1940s and ‘50s owned many leaves from Manni’s collection); sold in 1959 to his nephew:
(3) Bernard Rosenthal, his ‘I/71’.
(4) Bernard Quaritch, cat. 1088 (1988), no 43.
(5) Schøyen Collection, MS 241.
Text:
The text comprises the preface and, as appropriate, the prayer(s) ‘Infra actionem’, which usually beginning ‘Communicantes et diem[/noctem] sacratissimum[/am] […]’; the leaves contain Masses for the feasts of Christmas, Epiphany, Lent, Maundy Thursday, Easter (f.2), and the Ascension, Pentecost, Trinity, Holy Cross, the Assumption, and Apostles (f.1).
Script:
The script is regular and exceptionally elegant. Abbreviations are infrequent, the letter ‘f’ descends slightly below the line, the letters ‘pp’ do not touch (e.g. ‘apparuit’, ‘supplici’), e-caudata (‘e’) is used regularly for ‘æ’, and ‘et’ is always written in full (the one tironian ‘et’ appears to be added).
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Eugenio Donadoni