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Hughes (Langston) I Wonder as I Wander, first edition, signed presentation inscription from the author "Especially for Ezra [?Pound], who first read the manuscript of this book (its full 780 pages before cutting) with my thanks for your most helpful comments - Sincerely, Langston. Publication day, November 8, 1956" to endpaper, original cloth, light fading to spine, spine ends a little bumped, dust-jacket, very light browning to spine, spine ends and corners a little chipped, light creasing to head, light rubbing to extremities, 8vo, New York, Rinehart & Company, [1956].⁂ An intriguing and potentially highly important association copy possibly inscribed to Ezra Pound. Pound and Hughes first began their correspondence in 1931 before breaking off in 1935. The two poets would have no direct communication until their first and possibly only meeting in person in 1950 when Hughes was invited to give a reading at the St. Elizabeth's Hospital in Washington DC where Pound was interned. Their correspondence subsequently resumed, with Pound eager to convey to Hughes that despite reports to the contrary he had never vilified the black community. Hughes would send Pound inscribed copies of his works although no letters from him appear to have survived.

Murdoch (Iris) Joanna Joanna, letter "G" of a small number of lettered copies, specially-bound and signed by the author, from an edition limited to 143 copies, original navy goatskin, spine lettered in gilt, slip-case, Colophon Press, 1994; A Year of Birds, one of 350 copies signed by the author and artist, illustrations by Reynold Stone, original cloth-backed boards, Compton Press, 1978 § Aldwinckle (Stella) Christ's Shadow in Plato's Cave. Foreword by Iris Murdoch. Biographical Postscript by Richard Leachman, number 11 of 24 copies signed by Murdoch, Leachman and Robin Waterfield and with 1p. of the author's manuscript notes inserted in pocket at rear, original cloth, Oxford, Amate Press, 1990; and 4 others, limited editions, signed by Murdoch, 8vo (7)⁂ A good group of limited editions signed by Murdoch. Curiously the first item lettered is "G" from a limitation of 6 copies lettered A-F.

NO RESERVE Puig (Manuel) Kiss of the Spider Woman, "To Burt, who liked the manuscript, hoping he won't mind the printer's job" Alfred A. Knopf, 1979; The Buenos Aires Affair, "To Larry, wishing that our Rio affair is as interesting to him as it is to me; I hope this is the beginning of a long friendship" fading to covers and spine, light toning to jacket, corners a little chipped, E. P. Dutton & Co., 1976, first editions in English, signed presentation inscriptions from the author, original boards, dust-jackets, light creasing to head and foot, excellent or near-fine otherwise, New York, 8vo (2)

Britten (Benjamin) Bertolt Brecht and Sidney Nolan. The Children's Crusade, one of 300 copies signed by the composer and artist, colour-printed illustrations, facsimile music score manuscript ff., original morocco-backed boards, gilt, a fine example, slip-case, (a little spotted, splitting to head), 8vo, Faber & Faber, 1973.

Two Islamic manuscript pages, double signed with Persian paintings 19th Century. P&P Group 3 (£25+VAT for the first lot and £5+VAT for subsequent lots)

Leaf from a copy of Gregory the Great, Moralia in Job, in pre-Caroline Germanic minuscule, in Latin, manuscript on parchment [southern Germany (perhaps Reichenau), last decades of the eighth century] Single large leaf, with single column of 30 lines (with parts of book 33, ch. 15) in a large and bold pre-Caroline Germanic minuscule (see below), tears and darkening to edges, small losses at head, and section of blank margin at foot missing through natural flaw in parchment, recto more darkened than verso, and slightly scuffed on inner vertical side of column, slight cockling, some small later scrawls (see below), but still in good and fresh condition, 257 by 156mm. A leaf from a fundamental early medieval text, in a rare and often overlooked pre-Carolingian script, perhaps from the founding library one of the most important monasteries in medieval Europe Provenance:1. Written in southern Germany, most probably in a region bordering Switzerland (probably vicinity of Lake Constance) in the last decades of the eighth century (see below). If this was in Reichenau (founded 724 on an island in Lake Constance), then it must have been part of that monastery's earliest book collection, significantly predating the grand expansion of the library there under Abbot Reginbert in the decades up to his death in 846, and used by the Carolingian scholarly luminary Walafrid Strabo (c. 808-49, abbot of Reichenau from 842). The house was closed during the Secularisation initially in 1757, then permanently in 1803, with a part of the library passing to the Landsbibliothek at Karlsruhe.2. This leaf reused at the close of the Middle Ages as a pastedown in the binding of a large book, and that book in French ownership in the seventeenth-century: scrawled French inscriptions of a 'Catherine de ...' interlineally and in outer upright margin of recto, and a single inscription in same hand at foot of verso: 'Constitué ...' (the remainder lost due to a missing section of parchment at foot).3. Mr de Coligny, a twentieth-century Parisian collector.4. Acquired by Roger Martin from European trade in 2016. The script and its rarity:When we think of pre-Carolingian local hands, we begin with the most distinctive, such as Insular, Luxeuil, Corbie ab, Rhaetian and Alemannic, as well as those that persisted well after Carolingian minuscule swept away all others, such as Visigothic and Beneventan. However, there are a few others, not quite so clearly defined from their neighbours or perhaps not so numerous in surviving examples, and as a result often forgotten or lumped in with those neighbours. The Germanic pre-Caroline hands fit into this group. They are far from numerous, with only twenty-three examples in the vast survey Codices Latini Antiquiores (1934-66; about ten of these probably from Freising, see K. Bierbrauer, Die vorkarolingischen und karolingischen Handschriften der Bayerischen Staatsbibliothek, 1990, pp. 15-24, for these) and its Supplement (1971), and surviving examples come from a wide geographic range, reducing how conclusive any findings can be, and perhaps deterring the same levels of scholarly study seen with other early scripts. While Michelle Brown's A Guide to Western Historical Scripts from Antiquity to 1600 (1993), is to be commended for including an example of these (her no. 14), it is notable that they are almost passed over by the new Oxford Handbook of Latin Palaeography (2020), where the closest we come to them is the chapter on 'St. Gall scripts'.The script here is a bold and fine pre-Caroline Germanic minuscule most probably of the last decades of the eighth century, with strong Swiss influence suggesting an origin in Reichenau. The numerous ligatures here are overwhelmingly pre-Carolingian and point strongly to the eighth century, with that in the 'rp' in 'serpens' (recto, line 16) producing a strange letterform in which the arch of the pen downwards from the preceding 'r' almost leaves the back of the 'p' undefined and produces a wedge-like tongue under its bowl jutting out towards the next letter. There is also a 'li'-ligature in which the second letter is mostly subscript and is joined to the first at its midpoint (this also reported for a binding fragment dated to 776-800 and located to south east Germany, now BSB, Clm. 29300/3, but rest of hand quite different: CLA Supplement 1799). These, as well as the clusters of compacted abbreviations (such as the first part of 'tergiversationis' in line 4 of the recto, the 'serpens' noted above, and 'rerum' in line 2 of the verso), point to the eighth century.For Swiss influence, there are apparent Rhaetian minuscule features in the open 'a' both like 'cc' and 'oc' (but the hand here favours the first of these), the use of 'r' with a slashed line through its tail for '-rum', and particularly the 't' with its left-hand crossbar curving down and around to close the loop with the main ascender (as here in line 22 of the verso: 'Et') and the open 'g' with a bowed top so it is shaped like a '3' distinctive to Rhaetian and Alemannic minuscule and sometimes used as a key identifying feature of Swiss hands. However, the closed 't' is not employed consistently, and half-curled (without closing the loop), and flat-topped examples abound here. Examples of these are found in Alemannic minuscule, centred on St. Gallen, as in Cod. Sang. 6 (Bible, last quarter eighth century), Cod. Sang. 44 (Bible c. 780), and Cod. Sang. 125 (Jerome, Gregory, Cassiodorus and others, c. 770-780, in which again all three forms of 't' are found together, as well as the 'o' formed like a 'u' with its two upwards strokes crossing, as here in 'vero' in line 28 of the recto: see pp. 7 and 22 of Cod. Sang. 125 for examples) and Cod. Sang. 567 (Vitae Patrum, second half of codex from last quarter of eighth century, and with same distinctive 'o': see p. 145 for example; all these manuscripts reproduced in full on the ecodices website).However, the hand here manages to avoid having the elongations and flows of Rhaetian as well as the heavy rotundity and wide spacing of Alemannic, and compares most closely to hands from modern Germany, and in particular those traced to, or linked to Reichenau (see CLA. I:7, Vatican, Lat. 583, a Moralia in Iob, 11-16 of the late eighth century or opening years of ninth century [this reproduced in full online]; I:89, Vatican, Lat. 245, another Moralia in Iob, 1-5 of the late eighth century or opening years of ninth century, and in Lorsch by the eleventh century [this also Michelle Brown's example, and reproduced in full online]; II:222, as well as those from the Lake Constance Germanic region and probably Murbach: II:222, a Cyprian of 776-800; and VI:751, an Isidore of the late eighth century or opening years of ninth century). It has the Reichenau-type mix of open 'a' and uncial 'a' (here see 'maliciam', lines 8-9 of recto), and common ligatures for 'ri', 'ti' as well as rarer features such as a 'te'-ligature and a 'nt'-ligature used even midword and that characteristic of the region. Moreover, the open 'g' here with its bowed top finds its near-exact match in both CLA. I:7 and I:89.It is interesting that the earliest books surviving that are most probably from Reichenau are both copies of parts of the Moralia in Iob ...(for full text, see catalogue PDF).

Bifolium from a copy of Hrabanus Maurus, De Laudibus Sanctae Crucis, in Latin verse, manuscript on parchment [Germany, early eleventh century] Bifolium, each leaf with remains of double column of 36 lines of a good Romanesque bookhand, with string 'st'- and 'ct'-ligatures, and surprisingly the et-ligature used integrally within a few words (see 'ess&' in first column of fol. 2r), this probably suggesting the scribe's following of an early Carolingian exemplar, rubrics once red (now oxidised to silver), every line beginning with alternating initials in normal pen or oxidised red, spaces left for large initials opening major sections, later medieval addition of 'CXV' at inner corner of fol. 2v, reused on a binding and hence one leaf trimmed at outer edge removing outer vertical margin and a few letters from text column, large section of outerside of bifolium darkened and discoloured, holes affecting a few lines of text (mostly on first leaf), overall fair, complete leaf 319 by 232mm. Provenance:Purchased in 2019 from European trade. Text:Hrabanus Maurus (c. 780-856) was the pupil of Alcuin of York, and one of the brightest lights of the early Carolingian renaissance. He served first as a monk at Fulda before being sent to Tours to study under Alcuin, who gave him the surname 'Maurus' after St. Maurus, the favourite student of St. Benedict. In 803, he returned to Fulda and took over the abbey school, tutoring Walafrid Strabo and Lupus of Ferrières. He later served as archbishop of Mainz. This is one his key works, a series of Latin poems on the Cross, in which in the earliest witnesses the physical layout of the works is made to embody and celebrate the Cross, following an Antique tradition of arranging words and phrases over and around images. Remarkably, presentation copies survive from the lifetime of the author to Archbishop Otgar of Mainz (Vatican, BAV, Reg. lat. 124), Emperor Louis the Pious (BnF., Lat. 2423), Pope Gregory IV (Amiens, Bibliothéque municipale, MS. 223), and Margrave Eberhard of Friuli (Turin, Bib. Nazionale, KII.20), among others probably for the monasteries of St. Denis and Fulda.The text of the bifolium here follows the later tradition, perhaps established in the eleventh century, of copying the verse without the complementary images and diagrams (for another example see Cambridge University Library, Gg.V.35, of eleventh century and probable Canterbury origin). The text is of the utmost rarity in private hands, with the vast Schoenberg Database recording none as ever having been offered for sale. No other fragment is known to the present cataloguer.

Leaf from a calendar with near-contemporary addition of St. Bridget of Sweden, from a Book of Hours, in Dutch, illuminated manuscript on parchment [northern Netherlands (most probably Utrecht), first decades of fifteenth century] Single leaf, entries of feasts (for July) in single column of 17 lines of an angular vernacular bookhand, capitals touched in red, significant entries entirely in red, one-line initials in gold or blue with long and trailing penwork decoration, one large 'KL' initial in gold on blue and burgundy grounds heightened in white, extensions of gold foliate tendrils from this initial in upper and inner vertical borders ending in lappeted swirls, these tendrils festooned with sprays of gold and red seedpods and pale green leaves, some scuffing to gold and chipping in a few places, small spots and stains, else good condition, 130 by 95mm. Provenance:1. The parent codex was written for use by a patron who lived in the vicinity of Utrecht (with St. Frederick, early ninth-century bishop of Utrecht, commemorated here on verso on 18 July). The simplicity of the illumination here points towards the first decades of the fifteenth century (see a Tafel van den Kersten Ghelove, produced 1400-04 for Duke Albrecht of Bavaria, count of Holland, Zeeland and Hainaut: J. Marrow, The Golden Age of Dutch Manuscript Painting, 1990, I 4, pp. 19 & 33-4; a Missal, produced c. 1405 for a Netherlandish Franciscan house: ibid., I 7, pp. 22 & 38-9; and a Book of Hours from the circle of the Masters of Mary of Guelders, made c. 1420 in Utrecht: ibid., II 18, pp. 49 & 70-71). 2. A few decades after it was produced, the feast of St. Bridget of Sweden ('natale S. birgitte', i.e. her heavenly birth, or death date) was added to the entry for 23 July, and this suggests the conversion of an existing Utrecht Book of Hours for Brigittine use. The Brigittine house of Maria Wijngaard/Vinea Mariae had been founded in Utrecht by 1444 by inmates of Marienwater, but little is known with certainty of its origins. This leaf may well be a relic of one of the books of a founding member of the community.3. This leaf acquired from the European trade in 2012.

Large initial enclosing St. Jerome writing, on a cutting from a grand Bible, in Latin, manuscript on parchment [Austria (probably Vienna), mid-fifteenth century] Square cutting, with a large initial 'F' (opening 'Frater Ambrosius ...', Jerome's epistle 53 urging Bishop Paulinus of Nola to embrace and study the Scriptures, usually found opening the Vulgate Bible: Stegmuller 284 and 3306), in light grey swirls of acanthus leaves overlaid on dark grey panels, enclosing the author wrapped in a red cloak and wearing a galero, seated at a writing desk, and writing in an open book while gazing upwards, all on burnished gold grounds, sprays of blue-grey, pink and green acanthus leaves with gold fruit in margins, red rubric, 13 lines from a single column in an ornamental and angular hand whose descenders trail away to sharp tips, some paper adhering to back from old mounting, small spots and stains, else excellent condition, 169 by 140mm. Provenance:1. Written and illuminated for a wealthy patron or grand community in Austria, probably in Vienna, towards the end of the second quarter of the fifteenth century, or in the years immediately after. This cutting is from the frontispiece of the parent manuscript, and another complete leaf has been catalogued by C. de Hamel, Gilding the Lilly, 2010, no. 65, pp. 146-147, where he also notes a further leaf in Columbia, University of Missouri, Ellis Library, Rare Res. BS 1254.L3M6.1450.2. Perhaps owned by Erik von Scherling (1907-56): C.L. Ricketts acquired the Lilly leaf from von Scherling's cat. 11, Manuscript Fragments, Miniatures, Persian Miniatures, Greek Vases (1930), no. 953, but without mentioning a specific leaf or part of text there, suggesting he had several examples.3. Les Enluminures cat. 5 (1996), no. 34: with clipping from that catalogue included, most probably thence to a North American collector (see de Hamel, p. 146).4. Acquired by Roger Martin in Brunn Rasmussen Auctioneers, Copenhagen, 12 December 2017, lot 1750/6147. Published:Jonathan J. G. Alexander, 'The Author as Authority in theMedieval Illuminated Manuscript', in Bruce Ferrini and Les Enluminures, Important Illuminated Manuscripts, 2000, p. 15, fig. 7.C. de Hamel, Gilding the Lilly, 2010, no. 65, p. 146.

Leaf with a full-page miniature of St. Lucy of Syracuse, from a prayerbook in German, illustrated manuscript on parchment [Germany (probably south, perhaps Augsburg), c. 1470] Single leaf, with a full-page rectangular miniature showing the saint as a crowned women with rosy cheeks and long flowing hair, in dull-gold robes, wrapping herself in a green and pink cloak and holding a book as a dagger pierces her throat, all before a wide blue sky with faint black penwork picking out arches around its top and sides, all within a realistic green and red frame, reverse with large green foliate initial on blue grounds, with scrolling foliage in margin terminating in flowerheads and gold bezants, one smaller initial, red rubrics, 13 lines in an angular Germanic late gothic bookhand (opening 'Kum heylige iunckfraw und martrerin lucia ...'), trimmed at edges with losses to decoration there, spots and stains, overall good condition, 104 by 78mm. Acquired from a European private collector in 2019. Another leaf from the same parent volume, with a miniature of St. Anthony the Hermit, was Maggs Bros., cat. 1283, Illuminations (1999), no. 27.

The original sin and the expulsion from the garden, miniatures perhaps from a Rosary, in German, decorated manuscript on parchment [Germany, early sixteenth century] Two leaves, each with an arch-topped miniature within thick gold frame, with (i) Adam and Eve either side of the Tree of Knowledge, the serpent entwined in its branches as Eve holds up an apple to her mouth, the whole within a medieval walled garden and before a wide pale blue sky, all above a large empty banderole; and (ii) Adam and Eve being driven out of the same garden by an angel who raises a sword to smite them as they flee, again within a medieval walled garden and before a wide pale blue sky; both with single column of short devotional text in German in early sixteenth-century hand on reverse (each opening with calligraphic red initial, perhaps an 'A', the second leaf perhaps opening 'Ave', and 9 and 8 lines respectively), these heavily erased (visible only under UV light, and further obscured on first leaf by later repair of a hole in upper centre there, with only short fragments such as 'die lob und' and 'Creaturer' legible), second leaf with inscription of perhaps nineteenth-century (erased but last word certainly 'Bamberg'), chipping from paint and scuffs to gold frames of both, discolouration to edges of borders from old mounting, overall in fair and presentable condition, each approximately 111 by 77mm. Provenance:Sheldon and Marcia Sacks; their sale at Doyle's, New York, 13 April 2016, lot 216; acquired there by Roger Martin. Text:The parent manuscript was a rare form of devotional text named a Rosary, an arrangement of 150 images alongside copies of the same prayer beginning 'Ave Maria', and may have had a Netherlandish model; compare the miniatures from just such a text sold by Sotheby's, 18 June 1991, lot 141.

Leaf from the Llangattock Breviary, with two historiated initials, in Latin, illuminated manuscript on parchment [Italy (Ferrara), c. 1450] Single leaf with double column of 30 lines of a rounded late gothic bookhand, capitals touched in yellow wash, red rubrics, one initial formed of coloured acanthus leaf fronds on rectangular gold grounds, three columns with a decorative border on their inner sides formed from thin gold and coloured bars, each exploding into penwork foliage with coloured acanthus leaves and gold leaves and seed-pods at head and foot, other sprays of hairline foliage and bezants at midpoints, the fourth column with decorative border of scrolling hairline foliage with acanthus leaves and gold leaves and seed-pods, one 4-line historiated initial on recto in blue and pink acanthus leaves on gold grounds, enclosing either St. Gaius or John the Evangelist, as a bearded man with deeply furrowed features, wrapped in a green cloak, another on verso in same enclosing Luke seated writing in a book within a gothic interior, small chipping from background of second initial, small spots and stains, else excellent condition, 272 by 198mm. Provenance:1. This leaf comes from a parent manuscript corresponding to the physical dimensions and illumination of the Missal of Borso d'Este, marquis and then duke of Ferrara (Modena, Biblioteca Estense, MS. W.5.2, lat. 239), and must be from a sister-manuscript containing a breviary, also intended for use in the ruler's chapel. It is now usually identified with the Breviary recorded in accounts in the d'Este archives as having been illuminated for Leonello by the artists Giorgio d'Alemagna, Bartolomeo de Benincà, Guglielmo Giraldi and Matteo de' Pasti (see F. Toniolo La miniatura a Ferrara dal tempo di Cosmè Tura all'eredità di Ercole de' Roberti, 1998, pp. 19, 20, 76-77).2. John Rolls (1870-1916), 2nd Baron Llangattock, with inscriptions in the parent volume recording his family's acquisition of it, already imperfect, during the Peninsular War in the early nineteenth century; sold in his sale Christie's, 8 December 1958, lot 190.3. Goodspeeds book shop, Boston, and widely dispersed by them.4. Acquired in North American trade in 2016.

Bifolium from the Llangattock Breviary, in Latin, illuminated manuscript on parchment [Italy (Ferrara), c. 1450] Two conjoined leaves, with double column of 30 lines of a rounded late gothic bookhand, capitals touched in yellow wash, red rubrics, one-line initials in liquid gold or blue with yellow or red penwork surround, 2-line illuminated initials on blue or dark pink grounds, decorated text borders of thin gold and coloured bars, painted beads and knots at midpoints and sprays of hairline foliage with coloured acanthus leaves and gold leaves and seed-pods at head and foot, other decorated text borders terminating in single flower heads or composed of scrolling hairline foliage with acanthus leaves and gold leaves and seed-pods, dealer's marks in pencil in lower outer corners leaves, small spots and stains, else excellent condition, each leaf approximately 272 by 200mm.Acquired from North American trade in 2016.Two leaves from this dazzlingly bright manuscript, almost certainly produced for the private devotions of the dukes of Ferrara. See also previous lot.

St. Andrew holding his cross, in a large initial on a cutting from a Gradual, illuminated manuscript on parchment [Italy (Lombardy), mid-fifteenth century] Nearly square cutting, enclosing a large initial 'M' (most probably opening "Mihi autem nimis ...", the introit for the Feast of St. Andrew) in pink arches with rows of circles picked out along their edges in shading and white penwork, these lined with green foliage with delicately painted green vine leaves emerging on shoots and surrounding the saint, all on deep blue ground, the saint shown as a full length portrait of a bearded man, dressed in a red tunic and wrapped in pink and green robes, the whole on burnished gold grounds, with hairline-thin yellow painted foliage overlaid, reverse with two lines of text ("[Do]mine. Di[cit andreas si]moni fratrisu[o]", the end of the Offertory and the beginning of the Communion on the Feast of the Vigil of St. Andrew on 29 November), with music on a 4-line stave (second from top red, else brown; rastrum: 44mm.) and a red initial with ornate penwork in more muted version of same colour, gold crackled in places with some small losses, a few tiny chips here and there, stave shining through in middle of saint's body, some paper hinges adhering from old mounts, overall good and glittering condition, 175 by 158mm. Provenance:1. Already cut from its parent codex in the nineteenth century at least, with remains of a blue edged paper collection label pasted to reverse.2. Rolf Werner Rosenthal (1928-2009) and his wife Elizabeth; their sale at Eldred's, East Dennis, MA., 28 October 2016, lot 40; acquired there by Roger Martin. Artist:This miniature is by an accomplished northern Italian artist who appears to have thus far evaded study. The facial modelling, especially around the eyes and beard, echo the cuttings attributed to Stefano da Verona by P. Palladino (Treasures of a Lost Art, 2003, no. 52a, there dated c. 1430-35), but this is later than those and has a bolder, less muted palette. The treatment of the gold leaf, heightened with yellow brushstrokes, points towards the early work of the Milanese artist, Giovanni Pietro da Birago (fl. 1470-1513), and suggests our artist's contact with illuminators there. The delicately painted vine-leaves within the framework around the saint have great visual appeal, but have yet to be found by the present cataloguer in any other choirbook or cutting from one.

Two leaves from a Book of Hours, in Latin, illuminated manuscript on parchment [Spain, c. 1500-10] Two separate leaves, each with single column of 17 lines in a fine and regular late gothic bookhand (text from Mass of the Virgin and Vespers in Hours of Virgin), capitals embellished with hairline penwork, deep red rubrics, punctuation stops between pleas to the Virgin on one leaf with tiny liquid gold crosses on burgundy grounds, the same leaf with one-line initials in same and a line of text in liquid gold capitals on a burgundy ground flecked with gold droplets, the other leaf with elaborate penwork cadels finishing text above line-fillers of white penwork on blue panels and liquid gold on burgundy, each leaf with a blue initial encased in stylised acanthus leaves and architectural fixtures on dull-gold grounds, with sprays of coloured and gold stylised foliage in margins in same Renaissance style, modern folio nos. '28' and '29' (but note text not continuous, so parent volume incomplete, misbound, or both), offset from decoration on once-adjacent leaves, small spots and stains, else in excellent condition, 173 by 123mm.Acquired from European trade in 2003. Other leaves have appeared in Pirages cat. 47, nos. 83-85 and 170.Please note that this manuscript is Spanish, rather than Italian as we stated in our printed catalogue.

Two leaves of John of Wales, Communiloquium or Summa collationum, in Latin, illuminated manuscript on parchment [Spain, c. 1400] Two leaves, each with double column of 48 lines in a rounded Iberian bookhand, capitals touched in yellow, red rubrics, running titles in red and blue at head of each leaf, initials in pink or blue enclosing coloured foliage on red-gold grounds, long and gracefully curling coloured foliate extensions from these into margins, terminating in acanthus leaf scrolls and flower heads on hairline thin shoots, with gold bezants, trimmed at top partly removing original foliation on one leaf, some small spots, 357 by 243mm. Provenance:1. The parent manuscript perhaps made as a royal commission for King Martin I of Aragon (reigned 1396-1410): in an online post by the rare books library of Ohio State following their acquisition of a sister leaf, they record that C. de Hamel has noted that the border illuminator here is likely to also be the artist of a Valerius Maximus codex in the archives of Barcelona (MS. L/26; see J. Alturo I Perucho, El libro manuscript a Catalunya, origins I esplendor, 2000, pl. on p. 1) linking it to the Spanish court. Moreover, Martin I's court juggler, Borra, is reported as having commissioned a copy of this exact work for the king (see J. Swanson, John of Wales: A Study in the Works and Ideas of a Thirteenth-Century Friar, 1989, p. 210), and that may have been the parent manuscript of this leaf.2. A Spanish monastery, from where it was acquired by Arthur M. Ellis (1875-1932) in 1930 (see Sotheby's, 18 December 2003, lots 17 and 18, and more fully Peter Kidd's blogpost of May 2014, featuring the present leaves). The parent manuscript was already imperfect then, and Ellis seems to have given individual leaves to friends and associates. The remnant of it passed to Ellis' heirs; their sale at PBA Auctions, 12 June 2003, lot 155, and then dispersed with leaves also appearing in Sotheby's as noted above, Maggs cat. 1366, European Bulletin No. 23 (2004), nos. 28-29 and Pirages, cats. 49 (2004), no. 114, 51 (2005), no. 128, and 57, no. 75.3. These leaves acquired in the North American trade in 2004. Text:John of Wales was a Franciscan scholar active in the second half of the thirteenth century, documented in Oxford in 1259-60 and then Paris in 1270, where he may have died c. 1285. This is his most well-known work, a pastoral handbook for preachers, partly gnomic, philosophical and theological, full of quotations from ancient and patristic authors (some 1500 extracts from some 200 works in total, including 170 from Seneca and 103 from Cicero). Swanson's research has traced more than 100 manuscripts of the work in institutional collections, almost all practical and undecorated copies.The leaves here contain text from Part 1, Distinction 3 of the text (original fol. xxviii, and modern fol. 20, and running titles: 'I P' and 'III D'), and from Part 4, Distinction 3 (original fol. trimmed, and modern fol. 92, and running titles: 'IIII P' and 'III D').

Leaf from Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on the Sentences of Peter Lombard, in Latin, decorated manuscript on parchment [Italy (most probably Florence), second half of fifteenth century (probably c. 1475)] Single leaf, with double column of 37 lines of a small and precise humanist bookhand (with part of Book I, Distinctio XIX), paragraph marks in alternate red or dark blue, simple red or blue initials with remainder of opening words of these sections in capitals, a few spots and stains, else excellent and fresh condition, 287 by 210mm. Provenance:In a blogpost released as this catalogue was in its final stages, Peter Kidd has added greatly to the provenance of the parent volume of this leaf. He notes a probable Florentine origin, and that the arms occur for a number of Italian families, but was unable to conclusively identify a Florentine family (citing examples from neighbouring Siena instead). One possible Florentine identification are the Neri family of Florence, whose arms are found in the form here, but with crescents argent, not or, in a seventeenth-century armorial in private ownership. The family was numerous in Renaissance Florence, but one possible candidate is the Francesco di Neri di Filippo del Nero, recorded in the 1450s as an official of the Medici studio (the intellectual centre of the court). Kidd then traces the parent volume in a catalogue of the Florentine bookseller T. de Marinis (cat. VIII, 1908, no. 3); with it reappearing in Davis & Orioli of Florence and London, in 1925-26; and then to Philip C. Duschnes, by 1941, when leaves appeared in his cat. 48 of that year. By 1944, a substantial part of it had passed to Duschnes' associate, Otto Ege (1888-1951), and he included leaves in his Fifty Original Leaves from Medieval Manuscripts and Original Leaves from Famous Books portfolios. The remnant of the book came to light in Sotheby's, 26 November 1985, lot 80 (some 32 single leaves; full page illustration there). See S. Gwara, Otto Ege's Books, 2013, pp. 131-32, his HL 40. The present leaf acquired from a UK collector in 2016.

Terence, Phormio, in the humanist script of Giuliano di Antonio of Prato, in Latin verse, pale red rubrics, manuscript on parchment [Italy (probably Florence), c. 1450-60] Single leaf, with 30 lines (including Act 3, scene 1-2) of fine humanist minuscule by Giuliano di Antonio of Prato, rubrics in pale red capitals, the readings for different characters marked in same pale red capitals, 3-line simple dark-blue initials, noticeable grain pattern to parchment, small spots and stains, a few wormholes, slight discolouration at edges, else in excellent condition, 250 by 175mm. Provenance:1. The parent manuscript, a collection of the works of Terence, was written in Florence, c. 1450-60. The script was first attributed by A.C. de la Mare to the Florentine scribe 'Messer Marco', but she later revised this opinion and attributed it to the accomplished scribe Giuliano di Antonio of Prato (see her 'A Livy copied by Giacomo Curlo dismembered by Otto Ege', Interpreting and Collecting Fragments of Medieval Books, 2000, at p. 57).2. The codex was owned in the fifteenth- or sixteenth-century, by a 'Petrus Colom': this leaf with his inscription now at Rutgers University.3. The incomplete parent volume of 103 leaves was offered by E.P. Goldsmidt, cat. 23 (1930), no. 14, then reappearing as Sotheby's, 28 May 1934, lot 100, bought by Marks (of 84 Charing Cross Road), presumably on behalf of Dawson's, Los Angeles bookdealers.4. Otto Ege (1888-1951), who bought this from Dawson's in 1935 (see S. de Ricci, Census of Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts in the United States, 1937, II, 1937, p. 1947 no. 65; and S. Gwara, Otto Ege's Manuscripts, 2013, his HL 78), dispersed by September 1936, and apparently shared with Phillip C. Duschnes.5. This leaf owned by Harwood B. Dryer (1895-1992), New York architect, and purchased (from Ege or Duschnes) on 19 September 1936.6. Acquired from a North American private collector in 2013. Text:Terence (Publius Terentius Afer, c. 190-159 BC.) was one of the great early Roman comic playwrights. This work, the Phormio (or 'scheming parasite', i.e. one who makes his living performing services for the wealthy), was based on a lost play by Apollodorus of Carystus and was first performed in 161 BC. The manuscript tradition is one of the fullest for any Classical work, with records of its reading in the fourth and fifth century and approximately 650 manuscripts from the year 800 onwards (see M.D. Reeve in Texts and Transmissions, 1983, pp. 412-20).

Leaf from Seneca the younger, Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium, in fine humanist script, in Latin, illuminated manuscript on parchment [Italy (perhaps Rome), c. 1470] Single leaf, with single column of 28 lines of a bold and round humanist minuscule, rubrics in faded red with last letters of final word in capitals spaced out to fill up line, contemporary '71' in margin next to initial, one large illuminated initial 'P' (opening 'Post longum intervallum pompeyos ...', the opening of epistle 71, modern 70), on blue, green and burgundy grounds heightened with clusters of 3 white dots, and with white vine foliage picked out in penwork and blank parchment, extensions into margin in same filling approximately half the vertical margin, some near-contemporary marginalia, one contemporary flaw in parchment, small spots and stains, trimmed at edges, overall excellent and bright condition, 286 by 205mm. Provenance:1. From a remarkably fine humanist manuscript of grand dimensions, produced in Italy c. 1470. Certain features, such as the 'the very careful slowly-written rather consciously classical script' as noted by Sotheby's (see below), and the ruling in plummet and proportions of the illuminated initial in the Schøyen leaf (see below) might suggest that the scribe was Germanic, perhaps among those resident in Rome.2. Neil F. Phillips, Q.C. (1924-97) of Montreal, New York, and Virginia (together his MS. 811); his sale Sotheby's, 2 December 1997, lot 67, as one of two leaves from this manuscript.3. Maggs Bros., European Bulletin 22 (1998), no. 81 (illustrated in colour there).4. Private North American collector, perhaps in Logan, Utah (and framed there c. 2000 for that owner).5. PBA Galleries, San Francisco, 13 September 2012, no. 118, acquired there by Roger Martin. Text:Unlike many other works of Classical literature, the Middle Ages never set aside and forgot the gentle moralising works of the Roman philosopher and statesman, Seneca the younger (c. 4 BC.-65 AD., more properly Lucius Annaeus Seneca). The letters here cover the subjects of rest and restlessness, on the time in life we enter a life of relative relaxation and comfort (using a ship finding harbour as its metaphor), and on the supreme good.Apart from this one, five other leaves from this impressive manuscript are known: (1) Keio University (Keio, PTP, 92), most probably the sister leaf of this one, once in the Phillips' collection and acquired by Keio from Maggs; (2) that in Quaritch, cat. 1088, Bookhands of the Middle Ages III, no. 89 (with full-page illustration); (3) Quaritch, cat. 1147, Bookhands of the Middle Ages V, no. 116, to Schøyen collection, MS 647, and his sale, Christie's, 10 July 2019, lot 457; (4) Quaritch, cat. 1270 (2000), no 122; and (5) Takamiya collection, MS. 84, now Beinecke Library, Yale (see R. Clemens, et al., A Gathering of Medieval English Manuscripts: the Takamiya collection at the Beinecke Library, 2017, p. 82).

Adam de Montaldo, Tertia pars passionis, Latin verse on the Passion of Christ, fine humanist manuscript on parchment [Italy, second half of fifteenth century (after 1458)] Two bifolia, each with single column of 27 lines in an accomplished humanist hand, paragraph marks, marginal notes and rubrics in pink, one large illuminated initial 'I' (opening 'Iam iesus accincto populo ...') with ornate blue penwork filling the entire border, small spots, else in outstanding condition on fine ivory-white parchment, 226 by 163mm.  Four leaves from a breathtakingly rare text, produced in such opulent format as to suggest that these were part of the dedication copy presented by the author to either Alfonso Vof Aragon or his successor, Ferdinand I Provenance:Acquired in our rooms, 6 December 2017, lot 42. Text:Adam de Montaldo was an Augustinian friar from Liguria, who was born in the 1440s. In 1457, he was in the Aragonese court in Naples, and later he served the Papal Court as well as that of Ludovico da Moro as a copyist and author, producing among numerous other works a translation of the Secretum Secretorum. He died in Rome in 1494, stabbed to death in his rooms after a sermon in which he accused Pope Alexander VI of being a marrano (a secret convert to Judaism).These leaves contain one of his rarest works, perhaps surviving to our time in only two or three manuscript copies. Apart from the present witness, the In Principio database lists only El Escorial, lat. I.iii.21 (part of a composite volume with works of Seneca and Cicero and other texts; see P.G. Antolín, Catálogo de los Códices Latinos, 1911, II:469-70), and the Schoenberg database offers only a paper copy dated 1473/74 and sold by Tommaso de Marinis, cat. for 1913, no. 1, but now untraced.The present leaves were once part of the same parent manuscript as the twelve leaves sold in Sotheby s, 7 July 2009, lot 40. The Sotheby's leaves included a colophon addressing a king: 'Accipe Rex triumphantissime munusculum meum ex animo' and comparing his majesty to Caesar, and we can now identify that ruler as either Alfonso V of Aragon (1396-1458), king of Naples, who died only months after the first version of the text was produced, or his successor, Ferdinand I (1423-94), for whom the text was then expanded. The former is more likely than the latter. The Escorial manuscript appears not to have the colophon, but was dedicated to King Alfonso, and the high praise of the colophon probably befits a ruler at the height of his power, rather than a youth scrambling to consolidate his hold on a newly inherited crown, and in 1458 Alfonso had been in power for 42 years and was one of the leading lights of the early Renaissance. However, Ferdinand was Alfonso's illegitimate son and began his reign in a fight with the papacy for the survival of the Aragonese line through him. Considering the high quality of this manuscript, the rarity of copies and the grand colophon, this may well be part of the dedication copy produced for the author to give to his royal patron. The Aragonese royal library passed to Ferdinand, duke of Calabria, in the late fifteenth century, and a library catalogue of c. 1550 records a volume there entitled 'Thesoro de la Pasion de Christo' that may well have been the parent manuscript (T. de Marinis, La Biblioteca Napoletana dei Re D'Aragona, 1947, II, p. 222).

Leaf from a Sacramentary, in Latin, decorated manuscript on parchment [probably Italy, last decades of eleventh century] Single leaf, trimmed at top with loss of a few lines there, remnants of double column of 29 lines in a good and regular Romanesque hand, red rubrics followed by opening text in handsome ornamental capitals, and simple and elegant red or black initials, recovered from a binding and so with small holes, splashes and cockling down one side, a few later scrawls (these apparently Italian in origin), overall fair condition, 300 by 217mm. Acquired from a private European collector in 2007.From a stately and handsome Romanesque manuscript, with large and round script and fine rubrics in ornamental capitals that might just suggest a very early exemplar (see also the Gospel Lectionary made in Italy in the mid-twelfth century: catalogued as J.J.G. Alexander and A.C. de la Mare, The Italian Manuscripts in the Library of Major J.R. Abbey, 1969, no. 2, J.A.3210, and pls. III-IV, with the same mix of monumental script and rubrics in elegant capitals). The Sacramentary was the principal mass-book of the early Middle Ages, but was all but replaced by the advent of the twelfth century, making this among the last to be produced.

Leaves with the regulations of a mercantile fleet that set sail from Venice on 21 May 1504 for Alexandria, and an account of the expedition, in Latin and Italian, illuminated humanist manuscript on parchment [Italy (doubtless Venice), soon after 1504] Twenty-seven leaves, in three gatherings, wanting the first leaf (the stub of this showing that a liquid gold border ran the height of that page, perhaps with an illuminated frontispiece) and the outer bifolium of the last gathering and another gathering or so at end, with single column of 29 lines in a late humanist hand, with numerous ornate calligraphic flourishes, uppermost and lowermost lines with penwork cadels, one- and 2-line initials in red or dark blue and set in margin, eighteenth-century hand adding foliation and regulation numbers to first text, binding structures still present in places, some discolouration to first and last leaves from having been disbound for long period of time, other small spots and stains, else good condition, 249 by 172mm. Provenance:1. Written as a de luxe form of record of this expedition by this mercantile fleet (or muda/mude in Venetian Italian) to Alexandria on the Egyptian coast in 1504 and onwards along the 'Trafego run' to Beirut, perhaps for the commander of the fleet or the Venetian doge who may have sponsored the voyage.2. The nineteenth century saw a collecting craze for Renaissance Venetian illumination, with large British collections being built up at that time of miniatures and decorated bindings from ornate documents such as the present one (see the final chapter of H.K. Szépe, Venice Illuminated: Power and Painting in Renaissance Manuscripts, 2018). The fact that the eighteenth-century foliating hand skips the first and twenty-second leaf shows that it was still complete then, but at some time later its illuminated frontispiece and binding were removed.3. Minerva Auctions, Rome, 3 February 2016, lot 209; acquired there by Roger Martin and exported from Italy with an export license granted by the Italian authorities. Text:Little survives from the Middle Ages or Renaissance describing the use of boats for transport. Venice was a maritime nation, and thus expeditions such as that narrated here were at the heart of its identity. The mude described here were an armed fleet of large rowed vessels, organised and overseen by the government of the Republic directly, and captained by high officials of the Republic, in this case to protect the Venetian commercial interests in the markets of the Levant and southern Mediterranean. This enabled regular commercial contact with Syria (which controlled much of the cotton trade of Cyprus and Beirut), Constantinople (via Romania and Tana in the Black Sea), Egypt and its neighbours (making landfall at Alexandria as here, and often Beirut and Tunis), the western Mediterranean (including southern Spain, and from there to Barcelona), and even Flanders (bringing these boats to Bruges, London and Southampton in the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries). The regulations of this enterprise, as laid down by the Venetian authorities, are formulaic, and certainly exist elsewhere. However, the eye-witness account of the voyage that follows in Italian, is in the form of a diplomatic report, and may well not be recorded elsewhere. Certainly, it does not appear to have been known to modern historians when discussing this voyage, who base their arguments instead on the diaries of Girolamo Priuli and Marino Sanuto (see K.M. Setton, The Papacy and the Levant, 1984, III:19, for an example), noting that the mission discovered that spices had become scarce in Egypt as the Portuguese had interrupted the supply lines from the Indies.

Collection of leaves from medieval manuscripts, in Latin, on parchment [France, fifteenth century] Five leaves, comprising: (a) bifolium from an illuminated Missal, consecutive leaves and thus the innermost bifolium of a gathering, each leaf with double column of 36 lines, capitals touched in red, running titles and rubrics in red, 2-line initials in gold on blue and dark pink grounds, larger initials in blue or dark pink on gold grounds, enclosing sprays of foliage and with other foliate extensions with blue and green leaves in margins, slight stains at head of two pages, one small natural flaw in parchment, else good condition, total size: 334 by 481mm., France, fifteenth century; (b) two leaves from a large Lectionary, with double column of 31 lines, faded red rubrics, red running titles, initials in red or blue, two initials variegated in both colours, inscription recording reuse of these leaves in 1734 as a cover for a record of births, deaths and marriages in Combrée in Maine-et-Loire, some folds and small spots, overall fair condition, each 350 by 268mm., France (probably vicinity of Combrée, Maine-et-Loire), fifteenth century; and another leaf from a contemporary French illuminated manuscript

Collection of leaves from devotional books, in Latin, decorated or illuminated manuscripts on parchment [fourteenth and fifteenth century] Sixteen leaves (including a 6-leaf Calendar): (i) leaf from a Breviary, with double column of 32 lines, capitals with penwork decoration, red rubrics, initials in gold or blue with black or red penwork decoration, largest initials in variegated panels of gold and blue, innermost side of each text column decorated with gold and blue leaf shapes, seventeenth- or eighteenth-century inscriptions at head of each page describing contents, slightly cockled at edges, else excellent and glittering condition, 179 by 119mm., France, c. 1350; (ii) leaf from a Diurnal Breviary of Carthusian Use, single column of 5/6 lines, red rubrics, splendid initial 'C' ('Cum complerentur dies pentecostes ...') in pink heightened with white penwork, enclosing a circle of red and blue petals around central flowerhead, on burnished gold ground, full border of gold and coloured text bars and foliage terminating in ivy-leaves, space left empty for miniature, trimmed at edges with losses in places to border decoration, else excellent condition, 97 by 70mm.; (iii) two leaves from a Breviary, with double column of 29 lines in hand of the scribe Jean d'Aussert, red rubrics, 2-line initials in pink or blue heightened with white enclosing foliage and on gold grounds, contemporary folio nos. 'cccxli' and 'cccc' at upper outer corner of versos (with instructions to rubricator just visible at edges of leaves above the first of these), slightly cockled at edges, else excellent condition, 188 by 142mm., eastern France (Dôle), c. 1458; plus a complete Calendar from a Breviary on 6 leaves, with numerous saints local to Autun and the dedication of the church of St. Lazarus there on 30 December (with seventeenth century inscription on first leaf: 'Carmeli Semuriensis. G. 130', and hence then in library of the Carmelites of Semur-en-Auxois, about 40 miles north of Autun, and the parent volume sold as part of the library of the 6th Baronet of Pitsligo in Sotheby's, 6 December 2016, lot 29, and again Reiss & Sohn, 16 May 2017, lot 208), and a leaf from a charming Breviary with a king's head inside an initial, and a bird and a human-headed bird drollery standing on other initials (this acquired in Sotheby's, 19 June 2001, lot 10), and other leaves with decorated borders, illuminated initials and fine penwork decoration The first item here comes from a Breviary obtained by Otto Ege in Paris in 1928 (recorded in S. de Ricci, Census of Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts in the United States, 1937, II, p. 1947, no. 35, and dispersed by Ege as part of his Fifty Original Leaves: see S. Gwara, Otto Ege's Manuscripts, 2013, pp. 125-6, his HL 23). The leaves in item (iii) come from a codex named the Carondelet Breviary by Sotheby's in 2015 (see below; and to be distinguished from that already given the same name and discussed in Illuminating the Renaissance, 2003, no. 122). The volume concerned here was commissioned by Étienne Carondelot, canon of the Church of Notre Dame in Dôle, from the scribe Jean d'Aussert in 1458. The parent manuscript was sold in Sothmann, Amsterdam, 28 February 1985, and then dispersed. The Catharijneconvent Museum, Utrecht, acquired fol. 206 in 2001, and other leaves have appeared in Sotheby's, 8 December 2015, lot 5 (part e) and Hartung & Hartung, 6-7 November 2017, lot 30.

Two tonsured monks kneeling before the altar in worship of the host, cutting from a Gradual, manuscript on parchment [France (probably northern), early sixteenth century] Near-square cutting with a single historiated initial 'C' in feathered bands of dark pink, enclosed with blue architectural features, enclosing a detailed scene of two tonsured monks in white robes, adoring the host and swinging censers, all on gold ground with foliage and gemstones, painted in rustic style, traces of stave and letters at right hand side, reverse with two lines of Latin text ('[d]as illis es[cam in t]empore', the introit for the Feast of Corpus Christi) in high grade angular liturgical hand with ornamental hairline penstrokes, and music on a 4-line red stave, some scuffs to miniature and traces of paper at edges on reverse from last mounting, else good condition, 122 by 130mm.Acquired in 2016 from European trade.

Leaf from a Book of Hours, with a miniature by the 'Spanish Forger', in Latin, illuminated manuscript on parchment [northern France (probably Paris), c. 1460 and late nineteenth or early twentieth century] Single leaf, from a Book of Hours with single column of 17 lines of a late gothic hand, capitals touched in yellow wash, or with hairline penwork decoration, red rubric, single 4-line blue initial with coloured foliage on gold grounds, full decorated border of foliage, the space for the arch-topped miniature originally left blank and then filled in in either the late nineteenth or early twentieth century with a scene of the Decollation of St. John the Baptist, before a group of soldiers and a city, areas of discolouration and thumbing to borders, else good condition, 165 by 122mm. Provenance:1. From a Book of Hours written and partly illuminated, probably in Paris c. 1460, but left incomplete with spaces left for its miniatures.2. In the seventeenth century it was owned by a French clergyman, but then apparently returned to the Parisian market in the late nineteenth or early twentieth century, when it came into the hands of the so-called 'Spanish Forger' (see below).3. The whole volume in Karl & Faber auctions, Munich, in 1949, and perhaps to a local buyer, then re-emerging in Hartung and Hartung, Munich, 10 May 2005, lot 111, and then with single leaves with miniatures removed, or entirely dispersed.4. Acquired from private European collector in 2014. The forger-artist:The Spanish Forger was one of the most prolific and successful forgers, with hundreds of works now identified from only a few decades of work. He was most probably active in the 1890s, and appears to have been painting up to the 1920s, borrowing from chromolithographic editions published in Paris, especially the series of publications by Lacroix, which along with Parisian newspaper cuttings found used as packing within frames, suggests that he was based in that city. Suspicion seems to be falling on an employee of the Parisian publishing house, Firmin Didot. The name 'Spanish Forger' came from the false attribution of a painting once thought to be by a fifteenth-century Spanish artist, but the name has now stuck. He was unmasked in 1930 by Belle da Costa Green, then director of the Pierpont Morgan Library, New York, and was the subject of an exhibition of his art in 1978 in the same institution, which was then revisited in an exhibition in 2014 at the Binghamton University Art Museum. Despite the revelations of the modern origin of his work, it remains steadfastly popular, and in 2009 the Victoria and Albert Museum in London acquired five paintings by the Spanish Forger 'for what they tell us about late nineteenth-century perceptions of the Middle Ages'.His style, while emulating medieval art, can be identified by his oval faced figures, their pointed toes, peculiarities of architecture and armour, and his reuse of medieval manuscripts, often cleaning off one side as in the case of many miniatures painted on cuttings from choirbooks, or as here in spaces left empty by the original book producers. The present leaf has been registered as L 268 with the Pierpont Morgan Museum.

Leaf from a Sacramentary, with a large decorated initial, in Latin, manuscript on parchment [Germany, mid- to late twelfth century] Single leaf, with single column of 21 lines of a large and elegant Romanesque bookhand, additional text for one line marked off with red penwork foliage, capitals used for opening words of lines following initials, red rubrics, one-line red initials, larger initials in red, with lines and dots of blank parchment left in their bodies (two with baubles mounted in their bodies), embellished with red foliate penwork, one very large initial 'F' (opening 'Famulorum tuorum quaesumus Domine ...', the collect for the Feast of the Assumption), in red split penwork bands, entwined with foliage, highlighted on inner side in pale yellow and green wash, both lower margins with late medieval marginalia, one natural flaw in parchment, small spots and stains, else in excellent condition and on fine and heavy Romanesque parchment, 290 by 220mm. Other leaves from this large and appealing manuscript have appeared in Sam Fogg, cat. 16, Text Manuscripts and Documents 2200BC to 1600AD (1995), nos. 30 and 31; Maggs Bros., European Bulletin 20 (1995), no. 37; Quaritch, cat. 1270, Bookhands of the Middle Ages VI (2000), nos. 69 and 70; Sotheby's, 6 December 2001, lot 8; Marc Antoine du Ry, cat. 2 (2002), no. 2; and in our rooms, 6 December 2017, lot 16. This leaf acquired from a European private collector in 2019.

Royal pardon of King James I for Hugh Currer of Kildwick, North Yorkshire, in Latin, very large manuscript charter on parchment [England, 9 June 1604] Singlesheet document, with 57 long lines in chancery hand, important words in larger version of same, uppermost line with ornate penwork cadels, two large penwork initials encased with scrolling hairline penwork and foliage, folds and small marks, else in excellent condition, most of impression of Great Royal Seal still present, and attached to single set of parchment tags at foot of document, chipped away at one corner, slightly rubbed at front, but inscription still very legible, 517 by 665mm. The Currer family had owned part of the Kildwick estate (that until the Reformation the property of Bolton Abbey), since 1559, and the subject of this pardon, Hugh Currer, acquired the last part of it in 1614 (the kitchen range is all that probably now survives of the Tudor and Jacobean Kildwick Hall, now a hotel). The family held pro-parliamentary and anti-monarchist beliefs, and doubtless this is what this pardon was intended to excuse them from, offered as a royal olive branch. Hugh Currer's son would later enter the Parliamentarian side during the first Civil War with the rank of lieutenant-colonel and a permanent garrison established at Kildwick Hall.

Ɵ Psalter in Old French translation, with Latin rubrics, illuminated manuscript on parchment [northern France (probably Paris), first half of fourteenth century] To view a video of this lot, click here. 61 leaves (plus a modern paper endleaf at front and back), wanting a single leaf from fourth gathering, else complete, collation: i-iii8, iv7 (wants first leaf), v8, vi6, vii8, viii6, ix8, horizontal catchwords, single column of 29 lines of a rounded vernacular bookhand, red rubrics, one-line initials in red or pale blue, 2-line initials in gold on pink and blue grounds heightened with white penwork, many leaves with late medieval French additions in margins, five large historiated initials in pink or blue, heightened with white penwork, before tessellated or gold backgrounds, and within thin gold frames and with foliate extensions in margins terminating in coloured and gold fruit and foliage, these enclosing (i) fol. 12r, the anointing of David, (ii) fol. 19r, David pointing to his eye as God appears to him in the heavens above (with a long-beaked dragon-like animal in the border), (iii) fol. 30v, David naked in the waters (iv) fol. 39r, David laying the bells (with a grinning long-eared creature in the margin above him), (v) fol. 33r, the Trinity, the frontispiece with a large square miniature enclosing David before Goliath on a burnished gold ground, within a pink and blue decorated frame, extensions of coloured and gold bars along upper and inner edges of text block, these with foliage and triangular protuberances, one long curving foliate shoot across bas-de-page supporting two squat trees and a hound chasing a white hare, the latter looking over his shoulder at his pursuer, some leaves with original flaws to parchment, first leaf discoloured and much scuffed with serious losses to initial and opening text there, two further initials rubbed (those on fols. 30v and 33r), most leaves with stains from old water-damage, this leading to numerous hard to read areas with leaves at front and back of volume, overall fair condition, 215 by 155mm.; bound in nineteenth- or early twentieth-century green velvet over pasteboards, this rubbed at corners Provenance:1. Written and illuminated in France in the fourteenth century, perhaps for a wealthy patron: most large Biblical codices in French were produced for the devotions of secular aristocratic owners, or female ecclesiastics; the endleaves at the back filled with contemporary and near-contemporary instructions in French on the use of the volume during certain feasts and services.2. Most probably surviving the Middle Ages in a monastic or cathedral library, with the numerous additions demonstrating use then, and then entering private hands during the Secularisation: with the initials 'I.F.D.S' in bas-de-page of frontispiece in an apparent eighteenth-century hand. Text:The Psalter was the first book of the Bible to circulate in French prose. The original early twelfth-century translation into Anglo-Norman French was based on Jerome's Latin translation of the Hebrew Psalter, and formed the basis of several French versions on both sides of the Channel. That here opens Psalm 1 with '[Boin eures] est li hons qui [nala p]as el conseil [des] felons' and ends Psalm 150 with '... chose qui a esprit loes nostre seigneur'. It provided the basis of the Psalter in the first complete Bible in French, compiled and translated in the thirteenth century and so usually known as the Bible du XIIIe siècle. While the earliest manuscripts to survive date to the end of the thirteenth century, the text probably reached a final form by about 1260 in Paris, or just perhaps Orléans (see C. Sneddon, 'On the creation of the Old French Bible', Nottingham Mediaeval Studies, 46 (2002), pp. 25-44, and 'The Bible du XIIIe siècle: its medieval public in the light of its manuscript tradition', in The Bible and Medieval Culture, 1979, pp. 127-40), in part driven on by the Dominican Order and their mission of lay instruction.They are far from common on the market, with the last recorded copies offered by Les Enlumineres, Text Manuscripts 2, Before the King James' Bible (2012), no. 16; Laurent Coulet, cat. 29 (2003), no. 29; and a slim volume of 27 leaves, probably abstracted from a larger Bible, sold by Christie's, 30 April 2008, lot 165, for £18,500.

Ɵ Sermons in Old French and Latin, formerly attributed to Maurice de Sully, but now to Guillaume de Blois, bishop of Lincoln, with the Evangile de Nicodème and Lettre de Pilate, in Old French, decorated manuscript on parchment [France, opening decades of fourteenth century]89 leaves (plus one modern paper endleaf at each end), wanting a single leaf from end of sermons and last leaf mostly torn away, else complete, collation: i-ix8, x7 (wanting i), xi4, xii6 (wanting last two leaves, these probably cancelled blanks), double column of 29 lines of a rounded vernacular bookhand, written below topline with numerous biting curves but without much lateral compression, capitals touched in red, 2-line initials in alternate red or blue with contrasting penwork, last text opening with 5-line initial in red and blue variegated panels, enclosing and encased within ornate red and blue penwork with marginal extensions above top of column and down entire inner vertical side, similar 4-line initial opening sermon-text beneath a column-wide square miniature of God seated before a dark blue starry sky and holding a golden book, the symbols of the four evangelists at the four corners, the miniature probably added later, numerous scribal errors, small losses to miniature and gold there crackled, occasional small areas of water-damage and resulting offset or scuffing, but without substantial affect to text, grain-pattern noticeable on some pages, a few leaves with original flaws in parchment (some with later parchment repairs), most of last leaf, half of one leaf and bottom of first leaf torn away (these replaced with paper, most probably at time of last binding), overall good condition, 220 by 154mm.; bound in nineteenth- or early twentieth-century red velvet over pasteboardText:The volume opens with the Latin prologue to these Sermons (beginning 'Dominus ac Salvater noster dilectissimi ...'), before the same in a longer form in Old French ('Seignors prevoires ceste parole ne fu ...'). On fol. 3r the sermon on the Creed opens the work ('Nos creons la sainte ...'), before the text adopts on fol. 3v the format it will continue in for most of the volume: three or four lines of theme for each sermon in Latin, before a lengthy text in Old French (the first 'Pater noster qui es in celis santificetur nomen tuum. Nostre Pere, qui est elciel [in error for 'es ciex'] saintifie ...'). This ends on fol. 72v, wanting a single leaf, and partway through the epilogue to the text.Traditionally this early vernacular sermon collection has been ascribed to Maurice de Sully, who served as the bishop of Paris from 1160 to his death in 1196. However, doubts have persisted with suspicions that these sermons may have been compiled after his death, and perhaps date to the end of the twelfth century or even the opening of the thirteenth century. In a study published only last year, M.M. Huchet proposed that the author was Guillaume de Blois, a Frenchman connected with the court of Hugh de Puiset, bishop of Durham, and perhaps also King Stephen of England ('Les sermons en français attribués à Maurice de Sully: la piste anglaise', Romania, 2020, pp. 325-59). Guillaume de Blois served in Hugh de Puiset's household in Durham until he moved to that of Hugh de Avalon, bishop of Lincoln, who he succeeded in that office in 1203, holding that office until his death in 1206. Gerald of Wales relates a story about how he was inveigled into the house of a wealthy lady in Paris, and had to fend off her amorous advances.The text is of immense importance for the history of Old French (langue d'oil), and ranks among the earliest literary compositions in that language, formed alongside the earliest blossoming of troubadour compositions in the opening decades of the thirteenth century. If the connection to Guillaume de Blois is correct, then this text also has the added honour of being from the golden age of Anglo-Norman literature. It was popular in the Middle Ages and survives in 56 manuscripts (see P. Meyer, 'Les manuscrits des sermons de Maurice de Sully', Romania, 5, 1876-94, pp. 466-87; and updated list on the IHRT website, Jonas; all these in institutional hands in Europe). None is recorded by the vast Schoenberg database as ever appearing on the market before.This is followed here on fol. 73r by the anonymous Evangile de Nicodème (opening 'Ce avint el quinzime an que Tybere cesar ...', and ending here on fol. 85v), an Old French work of the thirteenth century known from ten manuscripts (see list on the IHRT website, Jonas), all in French or British institutional hands. The final text here is that of the anonymous letter of Pontius Pilate to Emperor Claudius, in Old French translation (opening 'Ponce Pilate a Claudie cesar son empereor salus ...'), and while the present manuscript is certainly French, this may reveal a connection to the Anglo-Norman manuscript tradition. This text is found in only four manuscripts following the Evangile de Nicodème, all of Anglo-Norman and probable English origin (three of the thirteenth century: British Library, Egerton 2710 + John Rylands, fr. 6, ff. 1-12; British Library, Harley 2253; BnF. fr. 19525; and a fifteenth-century copy certainly in England by the sixteenth century: National Library of Wales, 5028C).

Ɵ The Pontifical of Louis d'Amboise, bishop of Albi, in Latin, illuminated manuscript on parchment [southern France (probably Albi), late fifteenth century (after 1474)] To view a video of this lot, click here.67 leaves (plus two original endleaves at front, and another two at back), wanting two single leaves from fifth gathering, else complete, collation: i-iv8, v8 (wanting single leaf after first leaf and last leaf), vi8, vii-viii8, ix3 (last a blank cancel), occasional catchwords or traces of them, single column of 16 lines in two sizes of a fine late gothic bookhand, capitals touched in yellow, smaller text underlined in red, rubrics in red, paragraph marks in red or blue touched in contrasting colour, line-fillers in same, 2-line initials in split bands of blue or burgundy, encased within contrasting penwork (the last of these at end of book with three human faces in penwork, one with a hooked nose), or in burnished gold on blue and pink grounds heightened with white penwork, these usually accompanied by a border of thin gold and coloured bars and a decorated border panel of coloured acanthus leaves and flowerheads and seedpods with hairline foliage containing gold bezants (an occasional bird in some panels), frontispiece with a bishop in a mitre and holding a crosier with the opening initial 'P' (opening 'Pontifex in fronte pueros crismate ...'), in blue on burgundy grounds within gold frame, full border decoration as before with Amboise arms in bas-de-page surmounted by a gold crosier, last leaf with contents list added later, old water-damage with leaves cockled throughout and stained at edges, some borders damaged in places, spots and stains, sewn on original thongs, but these split in places and volume now held together with modern thread and footband stitching, overall fair and presentable, 192 by 135mm.; loosely enclosed in original limp parchment binding made from a bifolium from a commentary on Matthew 23-24, probably southern French and fourteenth century, used upside down with edges folded in and scrubbed clean on outermost side, with addition of 'Pontificale Episcop[...]' and 'Ff4/25' in sixteenth- or seventeenth-century hand on spine, '235' added there and on front endleaf in later hand Provenance:Louis d'Amboise (1433-1503), bishop of Albi, son of Pierre d'Ambroise, courtier to King Charles VII and Anne of Brittany, and elder brother to Cardinal George d'Amboise: his ex libris marks on endleaves at each end of volume, the last probably in his hand (front: 'Ludovicus de ambasya epicopus albien' olim episcopus edvensis' and back: 'Ludovicus de ambazia episcopus albiensis / hoc liber pertinent') as well as his arms on frontispiece. This is the only evidence known to us to record his temporary holding of the bishopric of Autun (Eduense palatium), yet it is known that he was appointed lieutenant-general of the governor of the Duchy of Burgundy following its conquest in 1477 and this partly coincides with a long period without a known incumbent on the episcopal throne there, from 1483 to 1490. He also served as president of the assemblies of the Trois États of Languedoc and royal ambassador to Medici Milan and the Spanish court. He was raised to the episcopate of Albi when it became vacant in 1474, and held this office until he renounced it in favour of his nephew and namesake in 1502. His will and testament survives, and in that he leaves all of his books both from his personal collection and that of his library in Albi Cathedral to the cathedral, presumably including this volume (see E. Cabié, 'Testament de Louis Ier d'Amboise', Revue de Tarn for 1891, p. 20). A grand Missal from his chapel singled out in the will has been identified by François Avril as a volume lavishly illuminated by Jean Bourdichon (later owned by Cardinal Juan Álvarez de Toledo with arms overpainted then, now Naples, Bib. Nat., I.B.21: discussed by T. D'Urso in Art de l'Enluminere, 74, 2020). Following the revolution the cathedral was ransacked for valuables, with its reliquary of the True Cross and others seized and stripped of jewels and precious metals, and this volume most probably entered private hands at the same time. Text:The Pontifical is one of the rarest of liturgical books to survive from the Middle Ages, and containing the rites and ceremonies performed by a bishop or a pope. See also lot 87.

Ɵ Rules of the Confraternity of the Cross, in Italian, manuscript on paper [Italy, dated Rome, 13 October 1570] To view a video of this lot, click here. 12 leaves (plus a pastedown and an endleaf at front and back reused from original paperstock), complete, collation: i-iii4, single column of about 27 lines in an italic hand, catchwords on every page and contemporary foliation, titles in capitals, frontispiece with line-drawing of the Cross and the instruments of the Passion, text ending with calligraphic flourishes, watermark of anchor with a circle topped by a six-pointed star (a common type with several Italian examples, see Briquet nos. 477-96, ranging there from c. 1500 to 1565), 'Serra Petrona' in faded ink on frontispiece in contemporary hand (see below), these leaves once kept rolled up and lightly folded at their vertical midpoint, thus small holes and wear there, small spots and stains, else good condition, 260 by 193mm.; in a remboîtage binding, retooled with arms of Catherine de Medici, this most probably in the nineteenth century (see below), scuffs, stains and penmarks, nineteenth-century English armorial bookplate (but this much more foxed than surrounding sixteenth-paper; see below)Sotheby's, 5 December 2000, lot 58.These confraternity rules must have been written in 1570 for a new member of the confraternity, perhaps in Rome, and then stored among his archives and papers, rolled up and slightly flattened, probably in the castle of Serrapetrona, near Camerino in central eastern Italy. Then, three centuries later, they were put into the current binding, with that produced from a blind-tooled binding for a book half the size of these leaves (traces of elaborate tooling on front board), taken off its original volume for its antique leather, turned sideways (hence the dark stain from the original spine running horizontally across the present boards), its original tooling flattened out as much as possible, and then retooled in gilt with floral borders around the crowned arms of Catherine de Medici. The added armorial bookplate of the little-known English collector John Nicholls Browne (part owner of Grenfell, Brown & Co., and recorded as acting for them in a legal dispute in 1837; his bookplate elsewhere recorded by E.R.J. Gambier Howe, Catalogue of British and American Bookplates Bequeathed to the Trustees of the British Museum by Sir Augustus Woolaston Franks, I, 1903, no. 4065) may have come from the volume the leather was reclaimed from, and might suggest a date and place for this forged binding. The nineteenth century saw other attempts to forge Catherine de Medici bindings: see that by Louis Hagué, made c. 1822, and now Folger Library, 227-140q.

Ɵ Lucio Croce or Diego Laínez, Instructio Visitationis Dioeceseon, and other texts relevant to bishops visiting their dioceses, in Latin and Italian, manuscript on paper [Italy, second half of sixteenth century] To view a video of this lot, click here. 212 leaves (including 3 endleaves at front, and 30 blank leaves either between texts in second half of volume or at end), apparently complete, single column of 20-32 lines in several Italian formal and cursive hands, some leaves affected by shine-through and ink burn, a few small holes, other spots and stains, else fair condition, 195 by 138mm.; early binding of red-brown leather over pasteboards tooled with arms of Jesuit order within floral frames with sprays of foliage at corners, one compartment of spine fallen away to reveal fourteenth-century manuscript fragment there, some restoration at spine, small scuffs, stains and bumps at edges Provenance:Marco Aurelio Croce: his late sixteenth-century ex libris on front endleaf. If, as seems likely, the author of the first tract here was Lucio Croce, this early owner may have been a relative or immediate descendent of his. The arms in the centre of the boards indicate that he was most probably a Jesuit. Text:Under Jesuit influence, the Council of Trent in 1545-63 reaffirmed the necessity of the Canonical visitation of bishops to their dioceses, stating that 'patriarchs, primates, metropolitans and bishops shall not fail to visit their respective dioceses either personally, or if they be lawfully hindered, by their Vicar-General or visitor; if they shall not be able on account of its extent, to make the visitation of the whole [diocese] annually, they shall visit at least the greater part thereof, so that the whole shall be completed in two years, either by themselves or by their visitors', with the aim to be 'to lead to sound and orthodox doctrine, by banishing heresies; to maintain good morals, and to correct such as are evil; to animate the people, by exhortations and admonitions, to religion, peacefulness and innocence'. The first text here sets out this affirmation, and has been ascribed in manuscript to Lucio Croce (fl. 1560), as well as to Diego Laínez (d. 1565), the second Superior General of the Society of Jesus, in the printing of 1882. Other related texts follow here on the nature of the bishop's examination of his flock, the sacrament and penitence, usury, simony, commerce and excommunication, baptism and indulgences. On fol. 152r there follows a short work by the Spanish Dominican Pedro de Soto (1500-63) and a Bull of Pius V of 1568.

Ɵ Prayerbook containing the Fifteen Oes of St. Bridget of Sweden, Litanies of Christ and the Virgin, and prayers to reduce time in purgatory, in Latin and French, illuminated manuscript on parchment [France, c. 1650] To view a video of this lot, click here. 78 leaves, wanting a single leaf from first gathering, perhaps with frontispiece naming original owner, else complete, collation: i5 (wants iii), ii-iii6, iv-xx2, xxi3 (last a singleton to complete text), xxii-xxxiii2, single column of 20 lines in remarkably fine roman and italic hands identified below as those of Nicholas Jarry the royal court scribe, red rubrics, initials in liquid gold, larger initials in silver on gold grounds (silver now oxidised and spread), almost every page with text within thin gold frame, titles of each text in gold ink, frontispieces and openings of each text in softly coloured architectural frames and enclosing scenes of a bee seeking a flower, a pelican stabbing its own breast, doves with olive branches, a sacrificial lamb, a flower opening to the sun and numerous images of finely painted grinning human skulls and flowers, first leaves slightly cockled, occasional spots and small stains, else in excellent condition, 163 by 110mm.; contemporary binding of gilt-tooled red morocco over pasteboards (floral frame on each board, spine with six compartments in same), tooled olive leather doublures, two clasps formed from metal crosses, these clasps having caused boards to indent into text block very slightly at fore-edge, a few of thongs split between boards and textblock, but all held in place by leather and solid in binding The hand here is of the greatest refinement, and is identical in its roman and italic forms, as well as the flowery decoration and the use of gold, with these features in prayerbooks written by the grand scribe Nicholas Jarry (d. before 18 September 1666; see Amiens, Bibliothèque municipale, MS. Lescalopier 25; partly reproduced on Biblissima website; and Lilly Library, Ricketts 155: C. de Hamel, Gilding the Lilly, 2010, no. 99). Unlike many of their neighbours, the French continued to refine the scribal arts following the advent of printing, and perhaps were even spurred on by it. Nicholas Jarry was the zenith of the seventeenth century in this respect, and worked predominantly for Louis XIV and members of his court (on Jarry see, J. Bradley, Dictionary of Miniaturists, Illuminators, Calligraphers and Copyists, London, 1887, II:143-8, and R. Portalis, Nicolas Jarry et la calligraphie au XVIIe siècle, Paris, 1896). His script was described by Meridel Holland as 'if it could have been produced by a little, delicate typewriter' (in Bulletin of the John Rylands Library, 65, 1983, p. 148), and the resulting books were 'as frivolous and costly as Fabergé eggs' (de Hamel, p. 214).

Ɵ Portable legal formulary, in Latin and Italian, manuscript on paper [Italy, seventeenth century]To view a video of this lot, click here.250 leaves (including 25 blank leaves at back, but before the alphabetical index), contemporary foliation and thus textually complete, single column of approximately 24 lines of an italic hand, titles in larger version of same, some corners folded in, edges of leaves bumped throughout, small spots and stains, overall good condition, 155 by 110mm.; limp parchment flap binding, stitched through brown leather section on spine, with remains of single thong and toggle fastening, one thong snapped in spine between two gatherings, scrawls on front cover with numbers 1-6 and lists of years from 1801-06, '1797' on spine perhaps a shelfmark, small scuffs and marks, but overall solid in bindingMost probably written for, and by, Giovanni Baptista Bonta, who signs the front pastedown, recording his profession as an 'advocato'. He was evidently a working lawyer who had to travel significantly in that role, and thus required this portable reference work of sample legal formulas.

Leaf from a Missal, of Cistercian Use, in Latin, decorated manuscript on parchment [Austria or southern Germany, c. 1175] Single leaf, with single column of 24 lines in two sizes of a tall and angular proto-gothic hand, numerous letters with hairline calligraphic penstrokes, capitals touched in red or with red dots added within their bodies, red rubrics, five large red initials, two of these in split bands or with baubles mounted within their bodies, instructions to rubricator preserved in smaller version of same fine hand vertically along inner margin, line-prickings preserved at outer edges, modern pencil folio no. '78' in upper outer corner of recto, small spots and stains, else excellent condition, 345 by 242mm. Provenance:1. From a handsome and visually imposing manuscript most probably produced in Austria or southern Germany c. 1175: thought by Ege to be Spanish, but the crucial opening leaf reproduced in the 1948 catalogue recognised by C. de Hamel in 1989 as Austrian or southern German. The parent manuscript had a Mass added to fol. 105v for St. Robert of Molesmes, co-founder of Cîteaux, canonised in 1222.2. The parent manuscript was owned by Emil Hirsch (1866-1954), bookdealer of Munich (of Jewish extraction and so fleeing to New York in 1938, when he was 72, to continue trading there); his catalogue Valuable Manuscripts of the Middle Ages, Mostly Illuminated (c. 1928), no. 17, and then with 173 leaves.3. Arnold Mettler (1867-1945) of St. Gallen; then sold by his son in Parke-Bernet, New York, 29-30 November 1948, lot 317.4. Otto Ege (1888-1951), and partly dispersed in his Fifty Original Leaves, with the 26 leaf remnant emerging in Sotheby's, 11 December 1984, lot 44 (see M.M. Manion, V.F. Vines and C. de Hamel., Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts in New Zealand Collections, 1989, no. 113, p. 108; and S. Gwara, Otto Ege's Manuscripts, 2013, p. 117, his HL 3). That said, leaves from this attractive manuscript are not common on the market. The last appeared in Christie's online sale, 3 December 2015, lot 5.5. This leaf acquired by Roger Martin from the Australian trade in 2019.

Trattato del Terremoto, on the origin of earthquakes, in Italian, manuscript on paper [Italy, eighteenth century (probably after 1755)] 7 leaves, complete, collation: i4, ii3 (central leaf a singleton inserted to complete text, last leaf blank), written in single column of 38 lines aligned on outer edge of page, title on first page in larger version of same, the gatherings tacketed together with thread at midpoint and never in a binding, small spots and stains, else good condition, 300 by 210mm. A rare subject to be addressed in manuscript, and from the dawn of modern seismology. Here the anonymous author sets out a lengthy description of earthquakes, with some accurate descriptions of volcanic eruptions and the like. He defines these as caused by the forces of elastic fluid and vapours within the earth, rejecting any part of the element of fire in this, and thus setting himself against the seventeenth-century consensus view put forward by Athanasius Kircher that the movement of fire within underground channels caused this phenomenon. Comment is then made on cannonballs within his rejection of the views of Nicholas Lemery (d. 1715) that underground chemical explosions were the cause. Interest in the subject exploded after the Great Lisbon Earthquake of 1 November 1755, which destroyed 85% of buildings in that city, and was felt as far away as Finland and North Africa, with tsunamis recorded in Cornwall and across the Atlantic in Barbardos and coastal Brazil. However, it was not until the 1850s when actual experimentation began with the work of Robert Mallet that the science of seismology was born and so named.

Leaf from a treatise on the Calendar, in Latin, finely decorated manuscript on parchment [France, c. 1100 or early twelfth century] Single leaf, bisected laterally, with single column of 22 lines in an excellent and elegant Romanesque bookhand (text apparently unrecorded elsewhere, and not even in the vast In Principio database), written above top line, capitals set off in margins, opening words of sections in alternate blue and red capitals, rope-like line-fillers in red and blue penwork, three large initials in green, red and blue with flourishing in same, the two initial 'e's partly infilled with yellow wash, prickings for lines visible, slight darkening to edges of leaves (showing this leaf has not been cut down at outer edges), small holes and folds from reuse (see below), small amount of cockling, overall good condition on strong and supple parchment, 270 by 180mm. Reused on an account book and dated 'L'an mil six cent dix' in scrawled hand on reverse. Purchased from a private European collector in 2005. The quality of the script here, the coloured capitals and delightfully complex three-coloured initials with compartments partly touched in yellow wash, all show that the parent manuscript of this leaf was a magnificently handsome codex.

A fine interlace initial from the Pontigny Abbey copy of Gratian's Decretum, in Latin, decorated manuscript on parchment [France (almost certainly Pontigny, Burgundy), second half of the twelfth century] Rectangular cutting, trimmed on all four sides with losses there, with a large initial 'I' (opening 'I[n infamiam cuiusdam] ...', Causa V; the initial 163 by 68mm.), formed from tightly interlacing red and green bands heightened with white and dark green brushstrokes, these terminating at top in curled buds of acanthus leaves, and at foot in a single acanthus leaf spray in green, red and grey-blue heightened with rows of white dots, all on rich blue grounds, one- and 2-line initials in red and pastel blue, red rubrics, remains of double columns of 33 lines of an excellent early gothic bookhand, the initial bright but the text on recto somewhat faded making legibility difficult, text on verso quite legible, cockling at edges, and small circular stains at corners and midpoints from metal tacks once used to mount the cutting to a board, overall in good and presentable condition, 230 by 148mm. A fine and bright twelfth-century initial, almost certainly from a parent manuscript from the medieval library of Pontigny Abbey, and perhaps consulted there by St. Thomas Becket and Stephen Langton Provenance:1. Almost certainly from a grand copy of Gratian's Decretum made in the Cistercian abbey of Pontigny in the second half of the twelfth century, and recorded as no. 153 in their late twelfth-century catalogue as 'Volumine uno, Decreta Gratiani', and then no. 100 in the early seventeenth-century catalogue, no. 235 in their catalogue of 1778, no. 7 in the catalogue of 1791, and no. 73 in the list prepared of their possessions after the suppression of the community during the French Revolution. Pontigny held one of the great libraries of Romanesque France, seen by Herbert of Bosham in the 1160s, and as C. de Hamel notes, it was the place of exile of St. Thomas Becket in 1164-66 and Stephen Langton in 1207-13 'both while preparing their respective claims under canon law to the rights of the archbishopric of Canterbury. It seems inconceivable that they would not have consulted the Pontigny Abbey copy of Gratian' (Gilding the Lilly, 2010, no. 19, p. 45).2. The parent volume was dismembered probably in Auxerre in the early nineteenth century, with complete leaves (measuring 450 by 320mm.) now surviving in Auxerre, Bibliothèque municipale, ms 269, and Cleveland Museum of Art, MS 54.598, and cuttings such as this one in (i) London, Victoria & Albert Museum, MS 8985, (ii) Free Library of Philadelphia, Lewis EM. 16: 8-9, (iii) Lilly Library, Bloomington, Ricketts 205.7, and (iv) Aberystwyth, National Library of Wales, MS 4874 E, no. 2. The identification of these was begun by W. Cahn in his 'A Twelfth-Century Decretum Fragment from Pontigny', Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art, 1975, pp. 47-59, and continued by M. Peyrafort-Huin, La bibliothèque médiévale de l'abbaye de Pontigny, 2001, no. 53), with further comment by de Hamel (op. cit.).3. This cutting acquired in France in the nineteenth century (reportedly 1843), and thence by descent. From them directly to Roger Martin in 2012. Decoration:The high quality of the script and initial here, executed in exquisite style but without use of gold, are in keeping with the best work from the Pontigny scriptorium. Compare the great Pontigny Bible, also dismembered into fragments after the French Revolution (reproduced in W. Cahn, Romanesque Manuscripts: the Twelfth Century, 1996, no. 82, pp. 102-103).

Three cuttings from a large and elegant Carolingian copy of Gregory the Great, Homiliary, in Latin, decorated manuscript on parchment [France (most probably Loire valley, perhaps Angers), ninth century] Two cuttings making up a single leaf (bisected laterally; with Homily X) and a large cutting from the centre of another leaf (trimmed away margins, upper part of text and a few cms of the outermost column; with Homily I), from a large manuscript with text originally in double column of 35 lines of an excellent and refined Carolingian minuscule with a frequent 'nt'-ligature, occasional use of the et-ligature integrally within words, distinctive half 's' shapes in the tails of the letters 'g' and 'z', capitals touched in pale red wash, rubrics and simple initials in pale red, the third cutting with a very large initial 'd' in uncial form enclosing 'NS' (together an abbreviation for 'Dominus', the opening of 'Dominus [ac Redemptor noster, paratos nos inuenire desiderans] senescentem ...'; the preceding text part of the prologue), reused together to form bindings for seventeenth-century account books and with inscriptions of that date (see below), loss of a single line at cut-point from bisected leaf, some folds and small areas of discolouration, else in good condition and on fine and heavy parchment, each cutting approximately 265 by 170mm. (the complete bisected leaf once 344 by 263mm.) Provenance:1. Given their reuse for accounts in the immediate vicinity of Angers, the parent volume was perhaps written for, and by, the abbey of Saint Aubin d'Angers (founded in the sixth or seventh century, next to the funerary chapel of St. Albinus (d. 550), who is remembered as working to free prisoners and campaigning against incestuous marriages in the Merovingian nobility). Little is known in detail of the house, but in the eighth or ninth century the monks were displaced for a community of canons, and in 818-20 Bishop Théodulf of Orléans was detained there. The monks returned in 966 and the community flourished until their forced closure during the Secularisation. If this is correct, then these are important fragments; Bischoff notes that there are no Carolingian manuscripts from Angers beyond the possible example of a late eighth-century legal codex (now Fulda, D.I; Manuscripts and Libraries in the Age of Charlemagne, 1994, p. 30).2. Reused in the seventeenth century on account books for properties to the immediate south west of Angers: with inscriptions recording that these leaves were reused to cover accounts for 1668, 1678 and 1681, for 'La Iubaudere' (La Jubaudière in Maine-et-Loire) and 1679 for 'La Seguinere' (a nearby village in Maine-et-Loire, west of Cholet). The re-use of the leaves here on accounts predates the closure of the community by approximately a century, and so these were probably re-used by the monastic community themselves on their own records.3. Acquired in 2010 in a Swiss auction. Script and decoration:The hand here is a clean and practised Carolingian minuscule, of the form championed by the scriptoria of nearby Tours during the Carolingian script revolution of the late eighth and early ninth century. However, the simple and almost austere red initials here, especially that of the large uncial 'd', stands apart from the riotously coloured and geometric initials of Tours (for examples see F. Mütterich, 'Dir touronische Bibel von St. Maximin in Trier' and 'Die Initialen der tourischen Bibel von St. Maximin', in Studies in Carolingian Manuscript Illumination, 2004, pp. 341-60 and 361-74) bringing great elegance to the page here with the minimum of effort.

Opening leaf from a copy of Gratian, Decretum, with a large white-vine initial, in Latin, decorated manuscript on parchment [France (probably south west, perhaps Moissac or vicinity), late twelfth century or c. 1200] Single leaf, with a very large initial 'H' (opening 'Humanum genus duobus ...', the incipit of the text; the initial 80 by 53mm.), formed from frames of interlacing geometric penwork ribbons, infilled with red wash and small oxidised panels perhaps once silver, each compartment enclosing mirrored acanthus-leaf sprays, partly on dark blue grounds and all within a penwork ribbon frame, remaining letters of first word in elaborate red capitals over two lines, simple red initials, red rubrics, double column of 59 lines (of originally 60) of a small and angular bookhand strongly influenced by university script, a few textual corrections in margin (one running vertically down the column edge), some interlinear marginalia, some spots and stains, a few wormholes and small amount of cockling, significant losses from text on reverse, 228 by 188mm. Provenance:Acquired from a European private collector in 2010. Decoration:The tightly interlacing bands that form the body of the initial here and the geometric knots at its terminals, as well as the panels set within their bodies, find their ultimate origin in the copying of initials of grand Tours Bibles. In the twelfth century they find close parallels in a group of grand codices produced in the region of Moissac, to the north of Toulouse, and its surround (see the Bible, now Paris, BnF. MSS lat. 52 and lat. 135, produced at end of eleventh century at the abbey of Saint-Pierre, Moissac: reproduced W. Cahn, Romanesque Manuscripts: the Twelfth Century, 1996, no. 28, fig. 59; another Bible, now BnF. MS lat. 7, produced c. 1100 probably in Moissac: ibid., no. 29, figs. 60-63; a New Testament, now BnF., MS lat. 254, made c. 1100 in south-west France: ibid., no. 31, figs. 68-69 and pl. III; and a Pseudo-Dionysius, De Caelesti Heirachia and other texts, made in the early twelfth century in south-western France: ibid., no. 32, figs. 64-65), and the style continued there until the middle of the century and beyond (see the Old Testament, now Auch, Bibliothèque municipale, MS 1: ibid., no. 41, figs. 91-93).

Fragment of a bifolium from Gregory the Great, Moralia in Job, in Latin, manuscript on parchment [France, first half of twelfth century] Bifolium, reused on a later binding and hence with a single column trimmed away from one side, full leaf with double column of 35 lines in a squat and angular proto-gothic bookhand, without biting curves, one-line initials in red, scrawled inscription in French of '1611' identifying the reuse of this on an account book, some sections discoloured and scuffed, folds, stains and cut away sections of borders, overall in fair condition, the complete leaf: 375 by 350mm.Acquired by a private European collector in 2016.A large fragment from a once monumental Romanesque codex of an important early medieval work on morality, composed in the late sixth century as a commentary to the book of Job.

Leaf from a Sequentiary, mentioning both France and Paris, in Latin, manuscript on parchment [France (probably Paris or vicinity), twelfth century (probably after 1146)] Single leaf, with single column of 13/14 lines of a proto-gothic bookhand, without biting curves but with a hairline-thin 'ct'-ligature, with music on a 4-line stave (with F-line indicated in margin), rubric underlined in red, three initials in floral penwork, the whole darkened and discoloured, scuffed and cockled in places, a few small holes, trimmed at edges and scrawled on in Early Modern period, overall fair condition, 196 by 136mm. Provenance:1. The text here includes the sequences for the Feasts of SS. Maurice and associates, followed by the rubric introducing the Feast of St. Denis of Paris, and the first verse of the sequence composed by Adam of Saint-Victor ('Gande prole Graecia / Glorietur Gallia / Patre Dionysio / Exultet uberius / Felici Parisus / Illustris martyrio'). Adam of Saint-Victor died in 1146.2. German private collection in 2004.3. Acquired by Roger Martin from a private UK collector in 2018. Text:While Guido d'Arezzo (c. 991-after 1033) is credited as having invented the musical stave, and thus conveying pitch in a written form, the actual use of this musicological tool took time to gain a foothold in Europe, and they are hard to find in manuscripts before the 1120s and still rare in manuscripts from the 1150s. The present witness falls among the very earliest examples in French manuscripts.

Fragment from a leaf from a Bible or Gospel Book, in Latin, decorated manuscript on parchment [France, first half of twelfth century] Cutting from the top half of a leaf, with remains of double column of 14 lines in a large and imposing proto-gothic bookhand (John 18:39-19:3, 19:7-11, 19:15-19, and 19:23-25), without biting curves, references to Eusebian Canon Tables in margin in smaller script, running titles in same, initials in red or pale blue, recovered from reuse in a binding and with holes, folds, discoloured and scuffed areas, overall fair condition, 215 by 350mm.Acquired from private European collector in 2019.The original manuscript was an impressive Biblical codex, written in outstandingly impressive script. It had 30 lines to a page, and so would have measured approximately 500 by 350mm.

Two bifolia from a copy of Papias the Grammarian, Elementarium Doctrinae Rudimentum, in Latin with a few words in Greek, manuscript on parchment [Italy, late twelfth century] Four consecutive leaves, and thus once the centre of a gathering, each leaf with four columns of 40 lines of a squat and angular bookhand (with entries from the text from 'placare' to 'portus'), with occasional biting curves and written below topline, capitals touched in red and line-fillers in same penwork, tall red abbreviations set in margins next to entries marking where the reading is taken from (see below), occasional extra readings supplied interlineally or in small red boxes in margins, one leaf with a catchword ('abellane', the last word for the entry 'ponticae') despite this not being the end of a gathering, prick-marks for lines visible and so leaves most probably not cut down, some splashes and small areas of discolouration, a few small holes, some cockling overall, but in good condition, each leaf approximately 614 by 342mm. Provenance:1. From a monumental codex of this important encyclopedic text, most probably produced for a large ecclesiastical centre.2. Acquired from a private European collector in 2013. Text:Little can now be known with certainty about this 'Papias' (almost certainly a pseudonym, with the word meaning 'guide'). He may have been a theologian in Pavia, and most probably produced this work in the 1040s. However, while he has been almost forgotten, his Elementarium Doctrinae Rudimentum has not, with the late Richard Sharpe calling it 'the first fully recognizable dictionary', and noting that it is the first lexigraphical work to cite its sources (in Medieval Latin, An Introduction and Bibliographical Guide, 1996, p. 96). Papias arranges his entries by their first three letters, and here cites his Classical sources as 'hyg' (Hyginus), 'Vir' (Vergil) and 'P's' (Priscian). Bruno of Würzburg (d. 1045) saw an early draft of the work, and it was complete by 1053 when the chronicler Alberic of Trois-Fontaines noted that copies had been distributed.G.L. Bursill-Hall records 110 extant manuscripts (Census of Medieval Latin Grammatical Manuscripts, 1981), but the only study of the manuscript stemma is that of B. Zonta who lists none there older than the twelfth century (in Studi Classici e orientali, 9, 1960, pp. 76-99). The text is rare in manuscript in private hands, with the Schoenberg database recording only two on the market in the last century: (i) a copy dated 1410, ex Thomas Phillipps, his MS. 21039, offered by Sotheby's, 27 April 1903, lot 500 (and now Berlin, Staatsbliothek); and (ii) that of the late thirteenth century, sold in Bonham's, New York, 2 December 2012, lot 1006. To these should be added the fragment of 63 leaves from a twelfth-century French manuscript offered by Erik von Scherling in Rotulus V (1949), no. 2089.

Bifolium from a Peter Lombard, Magna Glossatura in Epistolas Pauli, with two large illuminated initials, in Latin, manuscript on parchment [France (probably Paris), last quarter of twelfth century (probably c. 1180)] Remains of two conjoined leaves, reused inside-out as a later binding and hence with losses from head and foot of second leaf and outermost column there partly trimmed away, main text in single column of up to 47 lines of an angular proto-gothic bookhand (with I Corinthians 12:26-13:11 and I Corinthians 16:18-II Corinthians 1:1-10), without biting curves and with pronounced fishtailing, glossing text in smaller version of same in two or three columns accompanying main text, rubrics and names of textual authorities in margins in red, one-line initials in main text in red or blue, two very large initials opening II Corinthians 1 and its gloss (both 'P': 'P[aulus] apostolus iesu christi per voluntatem Dei et thimotheus ...', and 'Paulus apostolus et cetera hanc item ...'), in coloured and gold panels, enclosing other decorated panels heightened with white penwork, ornate coloured and gold foliage within the bodies of the initials including a winged beast in the first initial, all on blue grounds, the extensions of the initials in the margins reaching almost two-thirds of the page in height, the whole much scuffed with damage to large initials and text, last page scrubbed clean and with the eighteenth-century inscription 'Table' followed in the first case by an illegible number, with folds, losses and small holes, the whole somewhat battered, each leaf approximately 440 by 335mm. Acquired from a European private collector in early 2020.This is perhaps the last noble relic of an otherwise lost codex of great refinement and beauty, produced on a grand format with lavish use of gold and decoration.

Leaf from a Glossed Gospel of John, of great refinement and with numerous gold initials, in Latin, illuminated manuscript on parchment [northern France (most probably Paris), last quarter of twelfth century] Single large leaf, with single column of 23/25 lines of main text in a handsome and professional proto-gothic bookhand (with John 14:3-24), with occasional biting curves, that encased within 52 lines of glossing text in smaller version of same, other glosses added interlineally, references to Eusebian Canon tables added in small hand in margin, running titles in alternate red or blue capitals, one-line initials of gloss in red or blue with paragraph marks adjacent to them in margin and elaborate penwork in contrasting colour (often in both red and blue alternating for visual effect), occasional line fillers in coloured penwork in same place, one-line initials in main text entirely in gold, these with red and blue penwork within and extending from them into margins, reused on binding of an account book and so with folds, small areas of discolouration and scuffs, slight water stains at edges causing some cockling there, but overall in notably good condition, 463 by 328mm. Acquired from the European trade in 2014, with a statement that it had come from a collection in the commune of Ancenis (Loire-Atlantique).

Leaf from a Psalter, with Great Gloss of Peter Lombard, in Latin, decorated manuscript on parchment [probably England, perhaps northern France, last decades of the twelfth century] Single large leaf, with main text in small rectangular blocks in a handsome proto-gothic bookhand (these no more than 11 lines long, and with Psalm 101:1-11) set within 55 lines of gloss in smaller proto-gothic bookhand, quotations underlined in red, running titles in red capitals, one-line initials in red or pale blue (those in gloss without ornament, those in main text with contrasting penwork in red or dark green), two large penwork initials in same with ornate penwork, one very large initial 'D' (opening 'Domine exaudi orationem ...', the opening of Psalm 101) variegated in red and green, enclosing scrolling blue penwork and surrounded by red penwork, some cockling and folds at edges, small spots and stains, else good condition, 238 by 173mm.Sold in Dominic Winter Auctions, UK, 10 April 2013, lot 426, to Roger Martin.The use of green in the large initial and to decorate smaller initials points towards an English origin for this leaf (compare its use in twelfth-century English manuscripts in P. Binski and P. Zutschi, Western Illuminated Manuscripts, 2011, pls.xv-xxvi, especially xxi), but similar decoration can also be traced in adjacent mainland Europe, in Normandy and along the northern French coast in centres working in the 'Channel style' (W. Cahn, Romanesque Manuscripts: the Twelfth Century, 1996, pls. xiii-xvi).

Leaf from a Lectionary, in Latin, in archaising script and perhaps that of a student-scribe copying an old exemplar, decorated manuscript on parchment [Germany, early thirteenth century] Single leaf, with single column of 26 lines in an awkward and often confusing bookhand (see below), red rubrics and one-line initials, three large initial in red or blue, the third with scrolling dark blue penwork, contemporary folio no. 'CI', recovered from reuse in a binding and hence with stains, spots, and small holes (none affecting text), overall good condition, 284 by 226mm.  Provenance:Acquired from European trade in 2019. The script:On initial inspection this leaf is baffling, but must be an attempt by a thirteenth-century scribe, perhaps a student-scribe, to laboriously copy outdated letterforms he found in a Romanesque exemplar (perhaps eleventh-or twelfth-century). The aspect is square and heavy, as one might expect from German script, but the initials are characteristically thirteenth century, as are the use of tiny decorative penstrokes inside some capitals. However, the use of tongued 'e' in capitals and at the end of words, among other forms, fits better in a Romanesque setting. The ductus throughout has a ponderous quality, and lacks the rapidity one expects with normal script (as in awkward forms of some letters, especially 'r', and has errors (such as the fishtailing added in error to the first 'i' in 'munditiis' in the last but one line of the recto, among others - correct if this was an ascender of a consonant, but not an 'i') that consolidate the impression that the scribe was working slowly, carefully copying letterforms that might have been strange to him. This lack of familiarity with older letterforms rules out an elderly scribe who had trained at the end of the twelfth century, and our scribe was more likely a youth in training, given an older exemplar to copy.

Two leaves from an early Psalter-Hours, with numerous penwork drolleries of a hanged man, a cow chased by a dog playing a musical instrument and others, in Latin, illuminated manuscript on parchment [Flanders, or perhaps Rhineland, third quarter of the thirteenth century] Two leaves, each with single column of 20 lines in an angular early gothic bookhand, 2-line initials in blue or gold with contrasting penwork, the leaf with modern foliation '34' in upper outer corner with a large initial 'I' (opening 'Iuste iudex ...', see below) formed from a youthful David holding a sword and standing within a green tower topped with a gold parapet, a red and green dragon biting at the foot of the tower, and another penwork dragon used as a line-filler, other geometric line-fillers in colours and gold, this leaf somewhat stained in centre, discoloured and cockled, trimmed at top removing top of parapet and at innermost edge removing part of tail of dragon; and the leaf with modern foliation '202' with penwork scene of a man being hung in the upper margin, with a figure each side drawing up ropes as he dangles from a scaffold, a cow with a bell around its neck being chased by a dog, as the cow plays a musical instrument (perhaps a hirtenschalmei, a shepherd's shawm, as often played by rustics in medieval art), and three other bird-headed drolleries, one of whom plays a similar instrument, two contemporary repairs, and similar trimming at head removing the top of the hanging scene; both overall fair and presentable condition, 177 by 134mm. Provenance:1. Produced as a lavish commission for a nun (one of the collects of another leaf mentioning 'our abbess'), most probably in Flanders or the Rhineland (with previous attempts at localisation including England, eastern France and lower Lorraine). The opulent level of decoration has been taken to suggest that the original owner of the book may have been royal.2. Broken and widely dispersed in the 1960s, with leaves in the collection of Carl Richartz, Amsterdam by 1966. A part of this dispersal was undertaken by Folio Fine Art, with leaves initially appearing there in their cat. 43 in February 1967, and the leaf foliated '202' here has an erased inscription on its reverse recording their stock number 'MS 2617', and a price: '£10.10. 0'. Alan Thomas and Maggs also sold leaves in this decade (see P. Kidd, The McCarthy Collection, II, 2019, no. 20, and the list of known leaves in Sotheby's, 7 July 2015, lot 13, not including these here).3. These leaves acquired from a UK private collector in 2006 (leaf foliated '202') and from a North American private collector in 2019 (leaf foliated '34'). Text:The two leaves here contain part of the Athanasian Creed (leaf foliated '202') and prayers, including one to Christ 'Iuste iudex ihesu Christe rex regum et domine ...' (leaf foliated '34').

Fragment of a leaf from a Homiliary, with large coloured initials, in Latin, decorated manuscript on parchment [probably Italy, tenth century] Substantial fragment of a large leaf, trimmed at top (with loss of about 8 lines there; what remains with readings from homilies by St. Pope Leo and St. Pope Gregory for epiphany) and inner vertical edges (with loss of a few letters from column edge there), with double column of 32/31 remaining lines in a large and bold late Carolingian hand, with insular 'r' that descends far below the line, an et-ligature commonly used integrally within words, and the '-ris' abbreviation formed from a downward flick of the pen under the word, bright red rubrics, two large red penwork initials in panels touched in pale yellow and green wash or left in blank parchment, one with a quadrilobed shape mounted at its centre, the other with long curved brushstrokes of green wash hanging downwards from the horizontal strokes of the letter ('S') filling both upper and lower bowls, reused in a binding and hence with some splashes, small stains and cockling, overall good and presentable condition, 288 by 193mm. Acquired from a European private collector in 2007. Whilst this late Carolingian hand and some of its scribal features can be found in apparently archaicising Italian hands as late as the eleventh century (such as that of Florence, Bibl. Nazionale, F.N.II.I.412: see K. Berg, Studies in Tuscan Twelfth-Century Illumination, 1968, pl. 1), the initials here are firmly Carolingian in design and colouring, and of a type quickly swept away in the late tenth and early eleventh centuries by the new white-vine initials. These initials with their terminal-lappets in different colours and compartmented bodies follow early Carolingian models such as those found in a Homilary made at Murbach c. 800 (see Pracht auf Pergament, 2012, no. 7), and most probably reached Italian centres through books sent from northern centres in the ninth century. However, the grass-skirt-like green wash brushstrokes that hang down within the 'S' are without parallel known to us.

Three leaves from a finely illuminated English Sacramentary, Use of Sarum, in Latin, decorated manuscript on parchment [England, c. 1220] Three single leaves, each with at least one single slender gold initial with coloured penwork picking out acanthus leaves in its infill and surround, smaller initial variegated in red and green with similar penwork, or simple red or green with contrasting penwork (some with baubles mounted within the thinnest parts of their strokes), red rubrics, important text ruled through in red, capitals touched in red, single column of 16 lines of a formal and visually appealing English early gothic hand, written above top line, one leaf (that numbered 'I') cut down at margins (most notable at top and inner with losses to edges of initials there), small flaking from gold in places, some cockling and small spots and stains, else good condition and on fine and supple parchment, complete leaves: 330 by 220mm., the cut down leaf: 300 by 200mm. Provenance:1. Written, decorated and finely illuminated in England in the early thirteenth century, doubtless for an important individual or ecclesiastical institution.2. Apparently already fragmentary by the early twentieth century: these three leaves most probably in a German collection together at that date (acquired in two batches in Germany over a decade apart, but with 'I', 'II' and 'III' at their upper outer corners in single hand of that date). Two further leaves appeared in Quaritch, cat. 1147, Bookhands of the Middle Ages V (1991), no. 55 (one marked up 'IV' in same hand: see photograph there).3. First two leaves here acquired in German trade in 2007 (leaves numbered 'II' and 'III'), the third in Hargesheimer Kunstauktionen, Düsseldorf, 19 September 2018, lot 2855 (numbered 'I'). Text:From an opulent Sarum Sacramentary, the precursor to the expanded Missal. These leaves containing Votive Masses from the Common of Saints followed by Votive Masses for the days of the week. Those in Quaritch were identified as probably for the week of Ash Wednesday, and the present leaves include part of masses for Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, and prayers for the Common of the Vigil of Many Martyrs, a Confessor, Many Confessors, and for Many Virgins. Only one Sarum Sacramentary was recorded by W.H. Frere (also thirteenth-century and modified for Exeter: Dean and Chapter Library, Exeter, MS 3510: see Bibliotheca Musico-Liturgica: A Descriptive Hand List of the Musical and Latin-Liturgical MSS., 1932, II:12, no. 597).

Four leaves from a lavishly illuminated Psalter, in Latin, manuscript on parchment [northern England, c. 1260-70] Four leaves, with single column of 21 lines in an elegant formal gothic bookhand (containing Psalm 43:11-45:4 and Psalm 55:2-57:7; Psalm 93: 13 (end)-94:10; Psalm 135:17-137:3), line-fillers in floral and geometric bands of red or blue ink, one-line initials in blue or liquid gold, two large initials in red or blue containing sprays of foliage on burnished gold grounds, two illuminated initials on blue and dark pink grounds heightened with white penwork, another illuminated initial on red and blue penwork grounds, slight chipping to gold in places, else outstanding condition, each approximately 230 by 165mm. Provenance:1. The parent manuscript was owned by Bruce Ferrini (1949-2010), and offered by him and Les Enluminures in their Important Illuminated Manuscripts (2000), no. 14, at $1,000,000 (described there as from northern France, and the last part of the reign of Philip August, i.e. c. 1200-1210). When it went unsold, Ferrini began to sell individual leaves (with leaves in a private collection by July 2002), and eventually at the end of his life cutting down individual leaves and selling them line-by-line as small strips. In 2016, the emergence of a leaf with an initial allowed the re-attribution of the work to northern England (see Sotheby's, 5 July 2016, lot 5), noting that the closest parallels were Psalters from northern England such as the Evesham, Oscott, York, and Rutland Psalters, all dating to c. 1250-c. 1270.2. The cataloguing of 2000 recorded that there was an inscription on its first flyleaf, reading 'Ex-libris de Maître avocat Aubéry[?] procureur-general, 1828'.3. Both acquired by Roger Martin from a private European collector." To "Acquired from private collectors in Europe in 2017 and North America in 2018. 

Leaf from a finely illuminated Psalter, in Latin, illuminated manuscript on parchment [southern Netherlands, late thirteenth century] Single leaf, with single column of 14 lines in a high-grade gothic bookhand (Psalm 96:7, followed by Antiphons and Psalm 97:1-2), red rubrics, one-line initials in gold on blue and burgundy angular grounds heightened with white penwork, line-fillers in coloured foliate sprigs on gold grounds (these enclosing an animal masked drollery creature with a long undulating foliate tail, two sets of tiny and precise hares and hounds arranged in pairs nose to nose and a tiny red hare), one 2-line initial in blue with white penwork on burnished gold grounds, enclosing a clean-shaven tonsured head, two floral sprouts meandering along the margins from edges of large initial and ending in coloured foliage, spots and stains and a few later penmarks in bas-de-page of one side, else excellent condition, 157 by 115mm.Acquired from a private European collector in 2017.The ornament here, especially the slightly bulbous face of the figure with his lips touched in red, points to southern Netherlandish art (compare the figures in the cuttings from an Antiphonal made for the abbey of Beaupre-lez-Grammont in 1290, now Brussels, Bibliothèque royale, IV.173 and II.3634, 1-2 and other places; reproduced in Manuscrits dates conserves en Belgique, I, 1968, no. 23, pl. 77-8). The animals in the line-fillers here add great charm.

Two leaves from the Bute-Soissons Hours, in Latin, opulently illuminated manuscript on parchment [France (probably Soissons), c. 1370-1400] Two single leaves, both with 13 lines of a high-grade gothic bookhand, red rubrics, one-line initials in gold on blue and pink grounds heightened with white penwork, larger initials in colours on gold grounds with sprays of coloured and gold ivy-leaf foliage in margins, line-fillers in same, one leaf with a very large initial 'D' (opening 'Domina labia mea ...') in pink with foliate and geometric designs picked out with fine white brushwork, enclosing large curls of coloured foliage in a 'S' shape formed from a blue dragon's body on brightly burnished gold grounds, all within blue and gold frame, with opening seven lines of text in gold letters on blue and pink grounds, the whole text block within gold and coloured bars and within a full border of coloured and gold foliage, a few small smudges and spots, else excellent condition, each leaf, 154 by 115mm. Provenance:1. From a notably early Book of Hours most probably produced in Soissons: the Office of the Virgin was according to the Use of Soissons and the Litany included St. Médard of Soissons.2. John Crichton-Stuart (1847-1900), 3rd Marquess of Bute, or John Stuart (1713-1792), 3rd Earl of Bute or his namesake and heir the 1st. Marquess (1744-1814), and recorded in the library catalogue for St. John's Lodge, Regent's Park, London, in 1896 as their MS. 128 (G.23): 'Missale Romanum. A.M.S. with 31 paintings, & illuminated letters. Anteroom. 4.A.'; their sale at Sotheby's, 13 June 1983, lot 6, to Kraus.3. H.P. Kraus (1907-88) of New York, the single greatest bookdealer of the twentieth century, and dispersed by that firm, with a single leaf passing from them to the Jeanne Miles Blackburn collection (see catalogue of an exhibition at the Cleveland Museum of Art in 1999, no. 20). The leaves were then kept in display drawers in Kraus' shop and 34 of them (23 miniatures and 11 leaves with opulent openings) were stolen over a period of weeks in late 1983. The remainder in Kraus' ownership were then sold to Bruce Ferrini, and one can be found in his cat. 1, Important Western Medieval Illuminated Manuscripts and Illuminated Leaves (1987), no. 73.The thefts from Kraus included the present leaf, and it is reproduced in black and white in an internal New York Police Department circular dated 29 March 1984, as well as an Art Dealers Association of America theft notice dated 20 April 1984 (copies of these documents included in this lot). The leaves were recovered, and sold by the insurance company to recover their losses. Details of the theft and recovery of these leaves kindly confirmed by correspondence between Mary Ann and Roland Folter and Roger Martin.4. Bonhams and Butterfields, San Francisco, 25 June 2003, lot 3016, acquired immediately after that sale by Roger Martin.

David Harping in a historiated initial on a leaf from a Bible, in Latin, illuminated manuscript on parchment [England (perhaps Oxford), c. 1250] Single leaf, with a large initial 'B' ('Beatus vir...', the opening of the Psalms), in orange-red with white circles picked out in its body, enclosing David seated on a blue edged plinth, dressed in green robes and playing his harp, all on blue and thick gold grounds, with foliate extensions on same gold grounds extending into margins, the gold around the initial and its extensions pounced at edges, 2-line initials in alternate red or blue with contrasting penwork, one-line initials in alternate red or blue, red rubrics, double column of 48 lines in a professional university bookhand, small spots, tape adhering to edge of reverse from last mounting, else bright and outstanding condition, 197 by 140mm. Provenance:1. From a fine English Bible, sold in Sotheby's, 7 December 1931, lot 24.2. Otto Ege (1888-1951), self-proclaimed 'biblioclast', and in his possession since the 1930s and perhaps from his personal collection, with leaves issued in his Fifty Original Leaves portfolio, as no. 13 (see S. Gwara, Otto Ege's Manuscripts, 2013, p. 120, his HL 13), with further leaves emerging in Sotheby's, 25 April 1983, lot 25 (10 leaves), and again 26 November 1985, lot 46b (another 10 text leaves, there erroneously recorded as French), and Maggs, cat. 1319, no. 69.3. Daniel Meyer Friedenberg (1923-2011): his pencil marks on reverse, recording this as his 'Zion 14'. Acquired by Roger Martin in Friedenberg's sale: New England Auction Company, Danbury, CT, 22 August 2014, lot 50. Illumination:As Sotheby's noted in 1983, the decoration of the parent manuscript has 'much in common with the W. de Brailes style'.

Leaves from the Tollemache-Wardington Bible, in Latin, illuminated manuscript on parchment [France (Paris), mid-thirteenth century] Seven single leaves, each with double column of 55 lines, red rubrics, versal numbers and running titles in alternate red or blue initials, 2-line initials in same with alternate colour penwork, other 2- to 4-line initials in colours heightened with white penwork and enclosing foliage and gold bezants, all leaves here with a historiated initial in pink of blue heightened with white penwork, and on coloured and burnished gold grounds, these: (1) original folio no. 222r, with Christ seated holding a book and blessing (with a sketch in drypoint gloss in the adjacent margin for the illuminator: see below); (2) original folio no. 243v, Ecclesia holding a chalice (with a drypoint gloss sketch); (3) original folio no. 298v, Ezekiel dreaming of the man, ox eagle and lion (with a drypoint gloss sketch); (4) original folio no. 332r, Habakkuk (without sketch); (5) original folio no. 337v, Malachi preaching to a group of onlookers (with a faint drypoint gloss sketch); (6) original folio no. 368v, Mark within a tower standing above his attribute (without sketch); (7) original folio no. 432r, St. Peter with key (without sketch); slight cockling at edges, a few small spots and stains, else excellent and fresh condition, approximately 200 by 137mm. Provenance:1. Written and illuminated in northern France (Paris) in the mid-thirteenth century, perhaps by an English scribe studying there: the word 'evangelium' here on leaf no. (6) above is spelt with a 'w' instead of a 'v', a feature normally associated with scribes and readers from England or the Low Countries.2. Certainly in use in England in the Middle Ages, with the signatures of 'J. Doys', and 'John Paxten doone thys bok', the latter in a fifteenth-century hand.3. The Tollemache family, Helmingham Hall, Suffolk. There were already manuscripts at Helmingham before the Reformation, and many others were gathered in from local East Anglian collections by Sir Lionel Tollemache, who succeeded his father in 1575 and died in 1612. This parent volume once in a binding made for the fourth Earl of Dysart (1708-1770), after his succession in 1727, and with shelfmark L.J.II.14 (IV.14). Most probably sold in the 1950s by the Robinsons Bros.4. Christopher Henry Beaumont Pease, Lord Wardington (1924-2005); then Christie's, 8 December 1982, lot 139.5. Comites Latentes collection, Geneva, MS.203; then Sotheby's, 1 December 1998, lot 72, and dispersed, most probably by the North American trade. Illumination:The illumination here is in the style of the Soissons Atelier, defined by R. Branner, Manuscript Painting in Paris during the Reign of Saint Louis, 1977, pp. 77-8 and 216-17, a workshop which evidently specialised in the illumination of Bibles. What is notable here is that many of the scenes within the historiated initials survive alongside the original dry-point sketches for the main artist to follow. For other such marks see J.J.G. Alexander, Medieval Illuminators and their Methods of Work, 1992, pp.184-5.

Leaf from a pocket Bible of tiny proportions, in Latin, decorated manuscript on parchment [France, first half of the thirteenth century]Single leaf, with single column of 29 lines of a tiny university hand (with Deuteronomy 15:10-16:14), single versal number in margin in red or dark blue with blue paragraph mark, running titles in capitals in same, small spots, darkening to edges, else excellent condition on heavy parchment, 119 by 81mm. Acquired from a private European collector in 2018. Few medieval Bibles were copied in a single column of text (one is shown by C. de Hamel, The Book. A History of the Bible, 2001, p. 118; and in the study of 357 miniature Bibles by C. Ruzzier, 'The Miniaturisation of Bible Manuscripts in the Thirteenth-Century. A Comparative Study' in Form and Function in the Late Medieval Bible, 2013, pp. 105-25, she records only a few more than ten in this format), and the use of this rare format here is part of a conscious attempt to produce a tiny and portable copy of this fundamental text. It was most probably made as a special commission for an itinerant reader, perhaps a monastic preacher such as a Franciscan or Dominican who was not tied to a single ecclesiastical site.

Leaf from a Sacramentary or Ritual, in Latin, decorated manuscript on parchment [probably France or Rhineland, tenth century] Single leaf, with single column of 33 lines on recto (but only 29 on verso) of a good and rounded late Carolingian minuscule, with strong 'st'-ligature and very occasional use of et-ligature integrally within words, rubrics mostly in ornamental red capitals, initials set off in margin in simple red, black penwork touched in green, plus one red with feathered ornamental penwork, and one in penwork design touched in pale yellow wash with feathered ascender, recovered from reuse as a pastedown in a later binding, and with tears to edges (without affect to text), small holes, folds, cockling and darkening to large part of reverse, overall fair and presentable condition, 300 by 225mm. Provenance:Purchased in European trade in 2016. Here the initial 'd' on the recto and 'V' on the verso, with their penwork compartments touched in yellow wash and feathered ascenders, descend from the style of illustration found first in northern European books such as the Gellasian Sacramentary (produced c. 790 in Meaux or Cambrai; see Trésors carolingians, 2007, no. 7), and then made popular across Europe by the dissemination of the Tours Bibles.

Two leaves from a copy of Peter Lombard, Libri Quattour Sententiarum, in Latin, manuscript on parchment [England, c. 1280] Two separate leaves, each with double column of 53 lines in a small and precise university hand, with elongated calligraphic cadels in uppermost and occasionally lowermost lines (some of these with penwork animal heads), capitals touched in red, pale red rubrics, initials in red or dark blue with elongated penwork in contrasting colours, medieval marginalia showing continuing use of volume throughout the Middle Ages, the leaf that was once last in volume mounted on parchment guard and so probably once loose and reattached to volume, modern pencil inscriptions at foot describing contents, spots, stains and small amount of cockling, else good condition, each 326 by 219mm. Provenance:1. These leaves are from a codex originally containing books III-IV of this work (so perhaps one volume of two), which were written in England c. 1280. The work was the fundamental textbook of medieval theology, and so no cathedral- or monastic school or ecclesiastical library could be without a copy. At some point, perhaps at the close of the Middle Ages or in the Early Modern period seven lines of cipher using mostly Greek symbols were added to the second leaf here, in the margin. These remained undeciphered.2. Edward Walmsley, whose library was sold in London in March 1795: the second leaf here with the crucial ex libris mark (his calligraphic signature) establishing his ownership of the volume. He also appears to have owned the Mirrour of the blessed lyf of Jesu Christi now in the Pierpont Morgan museum, MS. M.648.3. Perhaps already imperfect in the early twentieth century, and leaves were given in 1910 by J.F. Lewis to the Free Library in Philadelphia (now Lewis fragment XIII:373), and another leaf was bequeathed by the Marquess of Cholmondley to the Society for Italic Handwriting. The remainder of the volume was owned by Nell and Charles Wheeler: their sale, New York, 29 July 1919, lot 593.4. C.L. Ricketts (1859-1941), the calligrapher, and described in his possession by de Ricci (see below).5. Parke Bernet, New York, 24 February 1939, lot 280.6. Sotheby's, 24 June 1980, lot 59, and soon after dispersed. Another leaf is now Tokyo, Keio University, MS. 17, and the historiated initial for the opening of book III, showing the Annunciation, was illustrated in A.M.W. As-Vijvers, Miniaturen en Monnikenwerk, 1999, p.57, no. 27.7. This leaf acquired from North American trade in 2005. Published:S. de Ricci, Census of Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts in the United States, 1935, I:646, no.185