Rare Book Auction
Friday, 22 July - Thursday, 11 August 2022

Breviary of Dominican use, in Latin, decorated manuscript on vellum [Italy, third quarter of the fifteenth century]

Lot Details

Breviary of Dominican use in Latin - decorated manuscript on vellum [Italy third quarter of the fifteenth century] 125 leaves, 157 x 110mm, text complete, collation: i,(6) ii-xii,(10) xiii, (9) (first leaf probably a singleton), single column, 28 lines in dark brown ink in a late gothic bookhand, with cadels in last part of book extending into upper margin and terminating in decorative shapes, a flower bud and a human face on fol.97r, music on a 4-line red stave, one-to 2-line initials in red or blue, larger initials in same with elaborate tracery in ornate colour wash, fol.1 a modern replacement (perhaps 19th century), small stains, else excellent condition. Contemporary binding of dark brown leather blind-tooled with ropework patterns over wooden boards, restored, two clasps, with 12 leaf fragment of fourteenth century sermons (once forming the endleaves of the breviary, but now bound separately in limp red leather as Bergendal MS.111) Provenance ; (1) Written and decorated for an Italian Dominican: Calendar with St. Dominic and his translation, SS. Thomas Aquinas, Peter Martyr and Vincent Ferrer (canonized in 1455) Contemporary addition of St. Catherine of Siena. (2) Bergendal MSS.66 and 111, bought by Joseph Pope, 3rd July, 1984, Lot 70, Bergendal catalogue no.66; Stoneman, Guide pp.191-92. The volume comprises: a Calendar (fol.1r); a Ferial Psalter (fol.7r) interspersed with music and antiphons, a Litany (fol.99r), and Hymns from the Temporal, Sanctoral, and Common of the Saints. Purchased by the current vendor, Sotheby's, London, Lot 93, 5th July, 2011.