Manuscript on parchment (thick, but good quality) of a Collection of Texts on St. Barbara. With a miscellany of texts including patristic works, moralistic poems, and prophecies
Description:
In Latin., Script: Written in a regular heavy hybrida formata script with features of bastarda by a single scribe who placed small circular flourishes above the letter u., 10-line illuminated initial on f. 5r, blue and mauve with white designs and highlights on gold cusped ground, a blue and gold bar border extending into the left-hand margin and terminating in acanthus leaves in the lower margin; interior of initial in orange, blue and gold checkered pattern. Fine red and blue divided initials, 8- to 7-line, with parchment designs and extensive pale purple flourishes, for major texts. Smaller plain initials in red or blue with parchment designs. Headings and initial strokes in red. Some instructions to rubricator in outer margins., and Binding: ca. 1500, Belgium. Covered in brown calf with corner tongues over wooden boards, a central panel diapered with blind-tooled triple fillets. Center and corner fittings and title written in a careful gothic bookhand under a brass-framed window on the upper board: "liber gloriose uirginis et martyris christi barbare". Lower board cut in for the straps which are attached with metal plates. Hasps of a chain on the lower board. Rebacked.
Subject (Geographic):
Connecticut and New Haven.
Subject (Name):
Barbara, Saint.
Subject (Topic):
Christian martyrs, Christian poetry, Latin (Medieval and modern), Fathers of the church, Illumination of books and manuscripts, Medieval, Manuscripts, Medieval, and Prophecies
Manuscript on parchment of Ps.-Joachim da Fiore, Vaticinia Pontificum. With additional prophetic texts including a Sibylline tract entitled De imperatore; and a Version of the "Tripoli" prophecy, added by a late 15th- or early 16th-century hand, here recorded as a vision in a Cistercian monastery in 1346
Description:
In Latin., Script: Arts. 2-4 written in neat gothic bookhand. Art. 1 in a less formal bookhand and art. 5 in a notarial hand with various flourishes., 15 small miniatures, 12-line, within narrow ochre frames inserted into text column, one for each prophecy in art. 3, ff. 15r-22r. The miniatures depict a cycle of Popes and city scapes with emblematic attributes against pink, blue and ochre grounds with small white filigree designs along the edges. Numerous flourished initials, 2-line, alternate in red and blue with purple or red penwork designs. Headings in red. Paragraph marks alternate red and blue., and Binding: Fifteenth century (?). Tacketed through a limp vellum (palimpsest?) wrapper to thick leather pads with a basket weave around the sewing threads. Contemporary title in ink, on front: "De imperatore." Backs of quires cut in for sewing.
Subject (Geographic):
Connecticut and New Haven.
Subject (Name):
Joachim, of Fiore, approximately 1132-1202.
Subject (Topic):
Illumination of books and manuscripts, Medieval, Manuscripts, Medieval, Papacy, History, Prophecies, and Visions
