Search Results: Medieval Spirituality from Les Enluminures

DECORATED MEDIEVAL MANUSCRIPT IN LATIN AND ITALIAN ON PARCHMENT AND PAPER, Central or Southern Italy (Lanciano?), c. 1450-1475. 135 x 90 mm. 109 folios preceded and followed by single flyleaves, watermark in Piccard, complete (collation, i-vii10 viii5 [of 10; five leaves canceled with no loss of text] ix-x12 xi10), chiefly written in five semitextualis or hybrida hands on 26-31 lines, two hands on long lines and three in two columns (justification, 95 x 65-70 mm.), red rubrics and underlining, 2- to 4-line red initials, 4- to 5-line initials in blue and red, three 7-line initials in blue and red (ff. B 1, 1v, 5). BINDING: Late fifteenth-century Italian blind-stamped brown leather over wooden boards, sewn on three cords with remnants of blue endbands, clasps removed, remnant of upper clasp on front fore-edge visible, parchment pastedowns, originally blank. TEXT: This small-format Franciscan miscellany is an example of a mendicant pocket-book, designed for easy portability. This one is still preserved… Read More

BOOK DESCRIPTION: classic example of an illuminated Gothic Psalter from Paris. In Latin, illuminated manuscript on parchment, France (Paris), c. 1230-1250. Dimensions: 122 x 84 mm., 211 folios, lacking two leaves from the calendar, otherwise apparently complete, written in a good gothic bookhand in eighteen long lines by two scribes. SIXTEEN CALENDAR ROUNDELS depicting zodiac signs and occupations of the months and EIGHT HISTORIATED INITIALS by the Soissons Atelier. BINDING: bound in old red velvet, flat spine, green silk doublures, blue speckled edges. TEXT: this manuscript is an example of an illuminated Gothic Psalter from Paris, from the calendar with vignettes of the Labors of the Month and Zodiac and the historiated initials illustrating the major liturgical divisions of the Psalms, to the exuberant penwork line fillers and playful marginal decoration, replete with fish, dogs, dragons, and birds. PROVENANCE: Although written and illuminated in Paris in the second quarter of the thirteenth… Read More

MEDIEVAL SERMON MANUSCRIPT IN A FIFTEENTH-CENTURY CHAINED BINDING, CHAIN INTACT, decorated manuscript on parchment, in Latin, Austria (Vienna?) or Southern Germany, c. 1275-1300. 182 x 127 mm. 190 folios, complete, written in a rapid Gothic hand with cursive influence in two columns of thirty-two to thirty-seven lines (justification, 141-143 x 96-100 mm.), parchment ruled in brown ink, quire signatures, guide notes for rubrication, red rubrics, capitals and names of cited authorities stroked in red, rhymed phrases underlined in red, red paraphs, two- to three-line plain red initials, two-line red initial with pen flourishing in red (f. 131v), occasional scribal corrections and marginalia. BINDING: Fifteenth-century blind-tooled and -stamped red calf with eight engraved and bossed cornerpieces, intact fore-edge clasp, and chain hasp with intact chain, with two manuscript fragments serving as front flyleaf and lower pastedown. Chained libraries were a late medieval solution to the problem of providing… Read More