Manuscript on paper containing ascetic and devotional treatises, the Life of St. John Calybita, and Italian poetry in praise of the Virgin
Description:
In Latin and Italian., Script: copied by two similar hands: A, writing a rapid Southern Gothica Textualis Libraria, copied ff. 2r-56v and 69r-104v; B, writing a more formal version of the same script, under slight Humanistic influence, copied ff. 57r-68v. The Latin of both scribes is very defective., Red headings and paragraph marks. 2-line red and blue plain initials, with guide letters., The manuscript contains: 1) Ps.-Augustinus Hipponensis, Manuale (preface and chapters 1-24). 2) Pseudo-Augustine, Soliloquia animae ad Deum, large final part of chapter 2. 3) Arnulphus de Boeriis (ca. 1200 (?), Ps.-Bernardus Claraevallensis), Speculum monachorum. 4) Ps.-Bernardus Claraevallensis, Sermo de vita et passione Domini. 5) Vita S. Iohannis Calybitae or Vita S. Iohannis monachi. 6) Flores ex operibus S. Bernardi de dignitate et excellentia beatae virginis Mariae. 7) Bernardus Claraevallensis (Bernard of Clairvaux, 1090-1153), Epistola 111, written in the name of the monk Elias to the latter's parents. 8) Ps.-Bernardus Claraevallensis, Contemplationes de passione Domini secundum septem horas canonicas. 9) Ps.-Bernardus Claraevallensis, Formula honestae vitae. 10) Ps.-Bernardus Claraevallensis, Octo puncta perfectionis assequendae. 11) Ps.-Bernardus Claraevallensis, Varia et brevia documenta pie seu religiose vivendi. 12) Bonaventura OFM (1221-1274), Regula novitiorum, 3. 13) Bonaventura, Regula novitiorum, 4.1-3. 14) Matthaeus de Cracovia (c. 1335-1410; Ps.-Thomas de Aquino, Ps.-Bonaventura; here ascribed to Iohannes de Capistrano OFM, 1386-1456), De modo confitendi et de puritate conscientiae (Speculum munditiae). 15) F. Carboni, Incipitario della lirica italiana dei secoli XIII e XIV, v. 1, Studi e Testi, v. 277 (Vatican City, 1977), 863. 16) Carboni 212. 17) Carboni 96. 18) Religious poems in Venetian dialect. 19) Lamentatio Virginis Mariae ad Crucem, attributed to Philippus de Grevia (Philippus Cancellarius, Philippe de Grève, d. 1236). 20) Zeno Veronensis (d. before 380), Tractatus, 1.1.7.20-21. 21) Moral sentences and quotations by or ascribed to St. Bernard of Clairvaux. 22) Ps.-Bernardus Claraevallensis, Sermo 12., and Binding: the two covers and the spine are covered with a fragment from a large Italian choirbook in Southern Gothica Textualis Formata; parts of two 4-line red staves with notation in Nota Quadrata and two lines of text are preserved.
Subject (Geographic):
Connecticut and New Haven.
Subject (Name):
Mary, Blessed Virgin, Saint
Subject (Topic):
Devotion to., Asceticism, Christian hagiography, Christian poetry, Italian, Devotional literature, Latin (Medieval and modern)., and Manuscripts, Medieval
Manuscript on parchment (uneven quality, severely trimmed) of a Florilegium comprised of a series of meditations and prayers. The text, apparently a unicum, is a cento of biblical, liturgical, and patristic citations, with some additional material spuriously attributed to St. Bernard. The most important sources are the Song of Songs, the other Wisdom books, the Prophets, and, in the Trinitarian section, Augustine's De Trinitate
Description:
In Latin., Script: Written by three scribes. Art. 19 (ff. 189r-190r) written by Scribe 3 in an informal gothic bookhand, no later than ca. 1300. Scribes 1 and 2 collaborated on the rest of the manuscript: arts. 1, 3-5, 6 (ff. 124r-125r), 9-18 written by Scribe 1 in a neat, but somewhat irregular gothic bookhand, arts. 2, 6 (ff. 125v-132r), 7-8 written by Scribe 2 in an undisciplined gothic bookhand., The manuscript is outstanding for the quality and complexity of its program of illustration. In its original state it included at least fifty full-page miniatures, of which forty-six survive, one-hundred-and-sixty smaller miniatures, and forty-one historiated initials. Twenty-three tinted drawings were added on blank and added folios at a later date (between 1300 and 1350). The decoration is the work of at least three artists. The miniatures, initials, and marginal decoration are the work of two hands, one of whom contributed only two full-page miniatures (ff. 61r and 64r) that depend on the style usually associated with the name of Master Honore. The other, predominant hand works in a flatter, more linear style associated with Northeastern France. Full-page miniatures, in art. 1 only, some divided into two or three registers, in blue or orange frames, surrounded by a narrow gold band, with orange lozenges at the corners, each with an ivy spray, in black ink with five gold leaves; predominantly blue or vermilion tesselated or tooled gold grounds; two (ff. 25r and 55r) with fleurs-de-lis in lozenges. On each text page in art. 1 there is a smaller miniature, 9- to 5-line, with a witness who gesticulates towards the full-page miniature on the facing page; each miniature in a blue and/or pink frame with gold squares in the corners. Almost every folio in arts. 2-18 with at least one small miniature 10- to 5-line, framed as above. Arts. 11 and 14 illustrated almost exclusively with historiated initials, 6- to 4-line, blue, pink and/or orange against grounds of the same colors, with short ivy branches extending from the serifs, many with grotesque terminals., Illuminated initials, 2- to 1- line, in art. 1 only, gold against irregular blue or pink grounds, with white filigree, edged in black, some of the 2-line initials with ivy borders, as above. The borders, especially in arts. 2-18, are populated with grotesques and other marginal illustrations, the majority apparently non-narrative and without reference to the adjacent texts and miniatures, in the same style as the miniatures by the predominant hand. Names of Hebrew letters in art. 12 in red., Lower outer corners cut from ff. 167-192. Marginal decoration on many folios severely trimmed. Gold has flaked off considerably from the full-page miniatures on ff. 13r, 15r, 19r; some flaking of gold on ff. 6v, 18v, 25r, 34r, 44r, 51r., and Binding: ca. 1966. Bound in two volumes (I: ff. 1-96; II: ff. 97-192) in native tanned vermilion Nigerian goatskin, by J. Greenfield, without any adhesive touching the bookblock itself. Previously bound in brown leather in a single volume.
Subject (Geographic):
Connecticut and New Haven.
Subject (Name):
Catholic Church
Subject (Topic):
Devotional literature, Latin (Medieval and modern)., Exempla, Fathers of the church, Illumination of books and manuscripts, Medieval, and Manuscripts, Medieval
