Manuscript on paper of coats of arms of the Doges of Venice, on the verso pages, with biographical notes on the facing recto, two items per page; introduced by a short history of the founding of Venice, the beginning of which is missing
Description:
In Italian and Latin., Script: The main scribe writes a careful Humanistica Cursiva. The additions on ff. 46r and 47r are written in a rapid Humanistica Cursiva., Decoration: The biographical notes open with a large black initial in Capitalis. The coats of arms are largely drawn in brown ink and have red or yellow borders with colouring mainly in red, blue, and yellow., and Binding: 19th century parchment over cardboard, with a flat spine, and a gold-tooled title in Capitalis on the front cover.
Manuscript on vellum prepared by Sir Gilbert Dethicke for Queen Elizabeth I includes colorful drawings of the arms of all the knights elected or installed during the reigns of Richard III and Henry VII
Description:
Sir Gilbert Dethick (1499/1500-1584), herald and diplomat. Dethick became Garter king of arms on 20 April 1550 and was knighted on 14 April 1551. He was genealogist and heraldist, and a member of the original Society of Antiquaries., In English, with one French phrase., Bound in red velvet, the arms are beautifully balzoned in color., and Bound in red velvet. Bookplate 2 early state. Not in Manuscript Catalogue of 1763.
Manuscript fragment on parchment of the Ars Laureshamensis, Expositio in Donatum maiorem, an anonymous commentary on Donatus's Ars maior; the portion here is on part II of Donatus's grammar
Description:
In Latin., Script: written in Caroline minuscule., and Decoration: 1-line initials are brown rustic capitals; punctuated with the punctus and punctus interrogativus; double quotation marks are within the text.
Manuscript on paper of epistolary forms extracted from an unidentified Aurea gemma de arte dictandi
Description:
In Latin., Watermarks, in gutter: unidentified bull's head., Script: Written in hasty batarde script by a single scribe., Crude initials, 3- to 2- line, headings, underlining, paragraph marks, in red., and Binding: Nineteenth century, France. Semi-limp vellum case made from French document, with only dorse visible.
Subject (Geographic):
Connecticut and New Haven.
Subject (Topic):
Education, Humanistic, Latin letters, Medieval and modern, Manuscripts, Medieval, and Rhetoric
Manuscript on parchment of Apollonius, Ars notoria, sive Flores aurei. A text in which a direct approach to knowledge is sought by means of incantation. The text of the manuscript also includes numerous prayers, some of them consisting of exotic names
Description:
In Latin., Script: Neatly written in Gothica Textualis, mostly very regular and small, sometimes minute, with various additions by similar and later hands., Capitals in red, blue, or green at paragraph beginnings, mostly plain, but some with slight extensions; a large capital in red and blue with green tracery at beginning. Diagrams and drawings in red ink, mostly accompanied by text in brown, often with the text forming a part of the design, on parts or all of ff. 10v-17v., and Binding: Wrapper, probably modern, consisting of a piece of old parchment, perhaps cut from the blank portion of a large document with a fold and some slits, the modern sewing penetrating the back.
Manuscript on parchment (trimmed) of 1) Robert de Borron, Joseph d'Arimathie. 2) Robert de Borron, Lestoire de Saint Graal. 3) Robert de Borron, Lestoire de Merlin. Lestoire de Merlin was copied in 1357, by Jehan de Loles. The other two works are probably contemporary, but rubbing on the first folio of each work suggests that they were once bound separately
Description:
In French., Script: Written by five scribes in gothic textura. Scribe 1: ff. 1r-11r (Joseph d'Aramathie). Scribes 2: ff. 12r-83v and 3: ff. 84r-140r (Lestoire de Saint Graal). Scribe 4: ff. 141r-317v (Lestoire de Merlin), except ff. 149r-156v, the second gathering, written by Scribe 5. Scribe 4 is identified as Jehan de Loles from the colophon. Guides for rubrics written in lower or inner margin. Inscriptions adjoining miniatures in 14th-century cursive, brown or black ink, are possibly either later identifications or instructions to the minaturist., The decoration, the work of four hands, is of relatively poor quality. Three large miniatures, 11- to 13-line and two column, blue and/or red frames, gold squares in corners, surrounded by a thin gold band, with gold ivy leaves on black hair-lines at midpoints and corners. Miniatures accompanied by 3/4 bar borders, red, blue and gold, with white highlights; dragon and ivy terminals, with additional ivy extending from the gold segments. 182 small miniatures, 8-line, one column, most in bottom margin, suggesting execution after the original illumination had been completed: thin gold, red, and blue frames, single gold ivy leaf on hair-line stem at each corner; gold and diapered grounds., One historiated initial, f. 186v, 3-line, red against a blue and gold ground, knight and three men outside tent. Illuminated initials, 6- to 4-line, for books and chapters, red against irregular blue grounds with white highlights; gold dots in cusps at corners, infilled with blue and red ivy against gold. 2-line initials (guide-letters remain), gold, against irregular blue, orange, and red grounds with white highlights; black hair-lines at corners. Rubrics in red throughout, with guides for rubrics written in lower or inner margin., and Binding: Sixteenth century. Worn purple velvet over boards, with massive brass corner pieces and fastenings; plaque with arms removed from front cover. Made for Henri, comte de Clermont-Tonnerre.
Subject (Geographic):
Connecticut and New Haven.
Subject (Name):
Robert, de Boron, 13th cent.
Subject (Topic):
Arthurian romances, French literature, and Manuscripts, Medieval
Manuscript on parchment of 1) Le livre de Lancelot du Lac, part III. 2) La queste del Saint Graal. 3) La mort au Roy Artus
Description:
In French., Script: Written in elegant gothic textura by one scribe, with a few interlinear corrections in later hands (14th and 15th centuries)., The decoration of this lavishly illuminated manuscript consists of seventy-seven large column miniatures, fifty-one smaller miniatures, and thirty-six historiated initials. Miniatures and historiated initials by at least two artists, the scale and quality of whose work distinguish the manuscript from contemporary and most fourteenth-century Arthurian manuscripts., Large miniatures, 12- to 11-lines, one column, framed and usually divided into two registers by thin bands, gold, red and/or blue with white highlights, edged in black, sometimes with arched canopies, often with architectural elements protruding (a few frames composed of thicker bands); figures in black pen against burnished gold (occasionally with painted gold diaperwork), blue or black grounds; chief colors: light blue, dark blue, grey, light brown, white, maroon, with some orange, green and gold. Borders on folios with large miniatures of a variety and inventiveness that defy strict classification: gold, red, and blue bands, edged in black, also running between, below and/or above text columns, terminating in dragons, dragon or human heads, groteques or, most commonly, floral spirals, some with frets, blue and red with white highlights and orange and green dots, against gold, blue and/or maroon cusped grounds, often with pinwheel-like projections. The borders are populated with magnificent grotesques and marginalia in the same style as the miniatures, many of them of a narrative or satirical character; some of these incorporate coats of arms., Small miniatures, 5- to 6-line, 1/2 text column, often with a 2-line initial inserted in upper right corner, otherwise as above, with border decoration on a smaller scale and unattached to miniature. Historiated initials, 5-line (letters without ascenders or descenders) to 13-line, red and/or blue, with geometric motifs in paler shades of red and blue, white, with touches of orange, against gold grounds, edged in black, with long dragon and floral serifs, as above, against cusped gold grounds; figures in same style as miniatures, against gold grounds., Illuminated initials, 3- to 1-line, gold, with globular serifs, edged thickly in black, against irregular red and blue grounds, also edged in black, with white floral filigree or heraldic birds, in white; flowers touched in with orange. On folios without miniatures (except ff. 2v-8v), a thin gold band runs along the left side of each text column, interrupted by initials, with a thin red pen-line on either side; adjacent, to the left, a column of I's each 3-line and blue and red alternately, with small spiral and curlicue flourishes, terminating in large flourishes in red or blue on alternate openings, each with pinwheel-like arms projecting from a central spiral with small petals and flourishes in blue and red; design of the terminal flourishes varies from one gathering to another; some with naturalistic leaves and flowers or fleurs-de-lis; terminals on ff. 1v-2r by the same hand as penwork initials on those folios. Line-fillers of varying design: two pairs of blue and red tapering bands, heraldically arranged and joined at center by red flower; undulating red line with red and/or blue balls under and over each crest and trough; red zigzag with blue infilling and spiral flourishes at terminals; alternating red and blue flowers; red and blue dots, etc., Some folios stained; f. 253 slashed in margin; f. 361 cut right across and glued together., and Binding: 2003. Full alum-tawed goatskin. See conservation treatment report for full description. Former binding stored in separate box: 18th century. Light brown calf blind- and gold-tooled. Sewing holes in inner margins.
Subject (Geographic):
Connecticut and New Haven.
Subject (Topic):
Arthurian romances, Illumination of books and manuscripts, Medieval, and Manuscripts, Medieval
In Latin., Script: copied by one hand in small Gothica Hybrida Formata (Bastarda), with a tendency towards lengthening and making loops to the ascenders on the top line., Headings in red. The manuscript is richly decorated in a uniform style with paragraph marks, line fillers, 1-line versals and 2-5-line initials in liquid gold on a blue or red ground decorated with foliage in liquid gold. On f. 1r arch-topped half-page miniature in the style of Jean Bourdichon, as wide as the writing area, above 12 lines of text, showing King David praying in a landscape. Full paneled border, the panels alternately with uncoloured background and filled with acanths, or with liquid gold background and filled with flowers or fruit; one “acanth” panel in the outer border and two similar panels in the lower one contain each a hybrid animal, one of these wearing a hat., The manuscript contains: 1) Petrus de Alliaco (Pierre d'Ailly, 1350-1420), Meditationes super septem Psalmos paenitentiales. 2) Table of Contents. 3) Lotharius Count of Segni (1160-1216, 1198-1216 pope as Innocentius III), De miseria humanae conditionis. 4) Ps.-Bernardus Claraevallensis (Pseudo-Bernard of Clairvaux), De interiori homine (Meditationes). 5) Iacobus de Gruytrode (c. 1400-1475), Speculum aureum animae peccatricis, also attributed to Iacobus de Iuterbog (1381-1465), Dionysius Carthusianus (Dionysius de Ryckel, 1402/1403-1471) and Gerardus de Schiedam (d. 1442).c, and Binding: 19th century. Red silk over thin wooden boards. Gilt edges.
Subject (Geographic):
Connecticut and New Haven.
Subject (Name):
Ailly, Pierre d', 1350-1420?, Innocent III, Pope, 1160 or 1161-1216., and Jacobus, de Gruytrode, active 1440-1475.
Subject (Topic):
Asceticism, Christian literature, Latin (Medieval and modern), Illumination of books and manuscripts, Medieval, Manuscripts, Medieval, Repentance, and Christianity
