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Ɵ Compendium of Latin translations of Greek texts on teaching, including Leonardo Bruni's translations of Xenophon's Hiero, Basil's De liberalibus studiis and Pseudo-Plutarch's Vita Marci Antonii, as well as Guarino of Verona's translation of Pseudo-Plutarch, De liberis educandis, fine humanist manuscript on paper [Italy (Genoa), dated 1439]To view a video of this lot, click here.64 leaves (plus a modern paper endleaf at front and back and an original parchment endleaf at front), complete, collation: i-viii8, catchwords, double column of 32 lines of two good semi-humanist hands (first hand: fols. 1r-51v; second hand: fols. 51v-61r), six large initials in variegated red or blue, encased within contrasting penwork that scrolls in foliate forms into the borders, often stretching the entire length of those borders, watermarks of a flower close to Briquet 6641 (Siena 1434) and 6642 (Florence, 1440), seventeenth- or eighteenth-century "No 29" on original endleaf at front and at head of text on fol. 1r, with brief notes there in same hand: "Manuscripto edu[candis] liber[is]" (partly torn away), upper and lower outer corners wanting from first leaf, small spots and stains, first and last leaves with a series of small dents in the leaves there perhaps from pieces of jewellery once kept flat inside book, overall excellent condition on supple and clean paper, 268 by 195mm.; late eighteenth- or nineteenth-century brown speckled calf over pasteboards, blindtooled with simple fillets, a small title block of red leather stamped "pluta" in gilt, blue marbled endleaves and doublures, some scuffs and chips to edges  A handsome humanist codex with rare works, that of Xenophon most probably only seen once at auction before; as well as a witness to often overlooked Genoese humanism  Provenance:1. The lengthy inscription in elegant humanist script on the original endleaf at the front of this book states that the first part of this volume (fols. 1r-51v) was copied by Johannes de Logia, notary of Genoa, and finished on 31 March 1439. Soon after a second hand added fols. 51v-61r. Johannes de Logia is recorded elsewhere as the scribe of another Leonardi Bruni codex, that now Gdansk, Biblioteka Gdanska Polskiej Akademii Nauk, 2434, finished in August 1401 (P.O. Kristeller, Iter Italicum, IV, 1989, p. 399), and two copies of Historiarum Alexandri Magni: Vatican, BAV MS Vat. lat. 11567 (copied in 1441 for Gottardo Stella; J. Ruysschaert, Codices Vaticani Latini, 1959), p. 318) and Genoa, Coll. Durazzo 50 [A IV 16] (copied in 1445 for Antonietto Grillo; D. Puncuh, I Manoscritti della Raccolta Durazzo, 1979, p. 120). Genoese humanism is a greatly neglected subject, but the wealthy city was an important centre for humanist studies, often with its scholars coming from the large and influential bureaucratic class of that city (as with the scribe Johannes de Logia here). Giorgio Stella (d. 1420) and Giovanni Stella (d. c. 1435) were among its patrons, and served as notary and chancellor to the city, respectively. Another chancellor, Jacopo Bracelli (d. 1466) was an author himself, composing works in emulation of Classical texts such as the 'Commentaries' of Julius Caesar.2. The volume begins and ends with three swirling penwork devices (added under the scribe's inscription on the original endleaf and at the foot of the text on fol. 61r), and these are probably the marks of an Early Modern owner.3. Aristophil collection, sold in Aguttes in Paris, 16 June 2018, lot 15. Text:The knowledge of Greek, or at least the content of Classical texts surviving in Greek, was a cornerstone of the Italian Renaissance, and accurate translations were greatly sort after. This humanist compendium was compiled and copied during the lifetimes of the two most famous Italian humanist translators of Greek texts: Leonardo Bruni (also called Leonardo Aretino; c. 1370-1444) and Guarino of Verona (1374-1460). Both learnt Greek from Manuel Chrysoloras (c. 1350-1415), Bruni when he was studying under Coluccio Salutati in Florence c. 1400, and Guarino when in Constantinople, c. 1403 to 1408/9.This volume comprises: St. Basil, De liberalibus studiis in Bruni's translation, opening with a letter by Bruni addressed to Coluccio Salutati used as a preface (fols. 1r-8r); Pseudo-Plutarch, Vita Marci Antonii in Bruni's translation, addressing Coluccio Salutati in its prologue (fols. 8r-38v); Pseudo-Plutarch, De liberis educandis in the translation of Guarino of Verona (fols. 38r-51v); and Xenophon, Hiero in Bruni's translation (fols. 51v-61r), ending with "Explicit deo gratias amen" in red. These short translations, along with others, appear to have circulated together in manuscript in the middle decades of the fifteenth century, and a codex with loosely similar contents copied in northern Italy by Johannes de Camenago and dated 1440 is now in the Houghton Library.The Hiero by the Greek author, Xenophon (d. 355/4 BC.) is of especial note here. It sets out a fictional dialogue between Hiero, the tyrant of Syracuse, and the poet Simonides, in order to debate if a tyrant's life is better or happier than a commoner's, and concluding it is not. It is of extreme rarity on the market in any language, with the vast Schoenberg database recording only one other to ever come to auction, and that the Burgundian ducal copy in the French translation of Jean de Hennecart, once Phillipps MS. 2810 but sold privately by the Robinsons, and last appearing at auction in Drouot, 21 March 1973, lot 14 (and thereafter Tenschert, cat. 27, Leuchtendes Mittelalter III, no. 12). To this can be added only the fifteenth-century copy of Bruni's translation offered by Bernard Rosenthal in his cat. 9 (1959), no. 64.

Ɵ The 'Harpenden codex' of Palladius, De re rustica, in the earliest Italian translation of the work, that attributed to the scholar-translator Andrea Lancia, decorated manuscript on paper [Italy (Tuscany, probably Florence), c. 1450-60]To view a video of this lot, click here.48 leaves, complete, collation: i-ii16, iii12, iv4, plus two contemporary blank leaves at end, some quires with catchwords, double column of approximately 44-47 lines of a small and scrolling Italian vernacular hand, rubrics in pale red, watermark of a flower similar to Briquet 6655 (Palermo, 1462; Pisa, 1464-69; Perugia, 1456/58) and a pair of scissors perhaps identical to Briquet 3668 (Rome, 1454, 1456-60; Naples, 1459; Perugia, 1458), spaces left for initials, old water damage to top and bottom of volume, with some stains in those places and repairs to corners of first 6 leaves (losses to text minimal, with losses to corners of uppermost 6 lines of outer column there), first leaf nearly loose, other splits and small holes to leaves at each end of volume repaired with old tape, overall good condition, 295 by 222mm.; late fifteenth-century limp parchment binding reusing a bifolium from a fourteenth-century copy of the city ordinances of San Leonino in Tuscany, reused upside down and held in place by three alum-tawed pigskin thongs, an earlier (perhaps tacketted) binding suggested by sewing stations visible in gutters, some stains and wear to parchment leaves; all within a fitted cloth-covered case An appealing humanist codex of this rare late Roman text, representing an important stage in the Renaissance history of the text, and still in its medieval binding Provenance:1. Written in Tuscany, perhaps Florence, for a wealthy scholar who probably lived in nearby San Leonino or had estates there (note the reuse of a manuscript from that town in its near-contemporary binding). The book's script is not refined enough to suggest a noble commission, and the lack of illumination consolidates this impression; however, it is written in a grand format, quite different from most scribbled scholarly copies.2. Davis & Orioli, booksellers of Florence (from 1910) who then moved in 1913 to London, where J. Irving Davis carried on without G. Orioli, taking on H.A. Feisenburger as a junior partner from about 1935. This manuscript their cat. 32 (1922), no. 5; reappearing in cat. 39 (1924), no. 8; cat. 45 (1927), no. 6; and then appearing as no. 33 in a subsequent catalogue of theirs (leaf from this last catalogue loose in the volume, and in format of their general catalogue series but not among the copies of their catalogues held in the British Library); most probably sold then to the Lawes Agricultural Library formerly in Rothamsted for £20. That library recently dispersed. Text:Little is known with certainty of the late Roman author, Palladius (more properly Rutilius Taurus Aemilianus Palladius). He lived in the late fourth and early fifth century, probably came from a noble Gallic family and owned farms in Italy and Sardinia. He wrote this work, an encyclopedic treatise on agriculture in thirteen books, in a long tradition of Classical Roman works that saw the subject as a noble pursuit. He took the works of Cato the Elder (d. 149 BC.), Columella (4-70 AD.), Gargilius Martialis (fl. third century) and other now lost writers on the subject, and condensed them, reorganising their contents into a month-by-month approach to farming and food cultivation. This was the work through which the Middle Ages and later centuries knew of Classical interest in agriculture, and the work of the thirteenth-century author Petrus de Crescentius is a direct descendant of it. Medieval translations were made into Middle High German, Spanish, Middle English and Italian, while the Latin version was printed as early as 1472 by Nicholas Jensen in Venice.The translation of Classical texts into Italian was an important area of the Renaissance. At its heart humanism sought to bring to light the works of Classical authors and enter into dialogue with them, and while the humanism of the late fourteenth and early fifteenth century had focussed on the rediscovery of new Latin texts and translations from Greek, a new phase began around the middle of the fifteenth century with the emergence of translations of Latin works into Italian. This benefited both a growing elite readership and reflected the increasing power of vernacular Italian following Petrarch and Dante. Coluccio Salutati endorsed such translations and Leonardo Bruni set out new guidelines in his De interpretatione recta in c. 1426. The text here dates to the dawn of such activities, and is the earliest Italian translation of this Classical text, often attributed to the Florentine notary and ambassador, Andrea Lancia (after 1296-after 1357). In his youth Lancia produced an Italian translation of Seneca's Epistulae morales, and then moved on to translate the Aeneid for Coppo di Borghese, and the Penitential Psalms and 'Psalter of St. Augustine' for an unnamed friar, but he is best known for his Ottimo commento, an early commentary on Dante's Divina commedia written in the years following that poet's death. Eleven medieval manuscripts survive of this important translation, with the oldest that now Florence, Biblioteca Riccardiana 2238 (see C. Marchesi, 'Di alcuni volgarizzamenti toscani in codici fiorentini', Studj Romanzi, 5, 1907, pp. 213ff.). The present manuscript shares the addition of an anonymous sonnet addressing the work, "Io sono palladio della agricholtura ...", at its end, with Riccardiana 2238 and only two other manuscripts of the translation: Florence, Biblioteca Laurenziana Plut. 43.28 and Segni 12. They are most likely to form a distinct group, preserving the oldest version of this translation. However, while the readings here are close to those of Riccardiana 2238, there are some orthographic variants and changes in word order, and the present codex may have had a now-lost sister of Riccardiana 2238 as its exemplar. The subject is deserving of further study.Manuscripts of Palladius in any language are staggeringly rare on the market, with Sotheby's offering only three copies in the last century (i: that from the Oettingen-Wallerstein'sche library, sold 16 April 1934, lot 570; ii: the Clumber Park manuscript, sold on 6 December 1937, lot 960; and iii: another copy once Phillipps MS. 8246, sold on 19 May 1956, lot 126, and now in Harvard), and the only copy to appear in Christie's rooms was that owned by Harold Baillie Weaver (once Phillipps MS. 3346), sold on 29 March 1898, lot 476, and now in the Wellcome Library in London. Published:I. C. Cunningham and A. G. Watson, Medieval Manuscripts in British libraries V. Indexes and Addenda, 2002, p. 13.M. Zaccarello, I sonetti del Burchiello, 2000. Pp. xxxii-xxxiii, 277.V. Nieri, 'Sulla terza versione di Palladio volgare', Studi di Filologia Italiana, 71 (2013), p. 342.

Ɵ Medical compendium with substantial parts of Egidius de Corbeil, De urinis, to which was added much of the Fasciculus medicinae attributed to 'Johannes de Ketham', with his diagrams of the human body and the chart to compare the colour of patients' urine, in Latin, illustrated manuscript on paper [Italy, mid-fifteenth century and 1500 or years immediately following (before 1509)]To view a video of this lot, click here.82 leaves (plus two endleaves at front and pastedowns at each end, these filled with additional material), a sammelband of at least two volumes (wanting a leaf or so from opening of first unit, and the second unit opening at original fol. 261, and with two misbound leaves added in before this leaf: these original fols. 247-8), and with contemporary foliation (across the whole volume 236-46, [247-8 misbound and now after original fol. 261] 249-55 [skipping 255 in error], 256-61, 247-8, 261-320+5 unfoliated leaves) and sporadic quire numbers ('38' and '39') to suggest this was once part of a series of volumes foliated in one sequence for ease of reference, thus apart from missing leaves before original fol. 231, this volume complete in itself, collation: i12, ii12 (first 2 leaves or original gathering now bound at end), iii-v8, vi6, vii8, viii6, ix-, x8, xi4, approximately 31-34 lines of text in a series of hands, the main hand scrawling and leaning, rubrics and underlining in red (that accompanying main hand vermilion red), three full page diagrams: (i) original fol. 261v, the so-called 'Urine Wheel', a circular chart arranged like a flowerhead, with twenty urine flasks in its outer ring, each painted with a colour to allow practical comparison with actual patients' urine, these ranging from white through yellow, to various shades of red, ending with more medically worrying shades of green, grey and black, all with links to the 'humours' of the body listed in red script; (ii) original fol. 264v, standing man in a loincloth, on a grassy ground with thin red lines drawn from parts of his body to names of diseases affecting those parts in black ink followed by the relevant folio no. for remedies in pale red; (iii) original fol. 272r, the 'phlebotomy man', a full length figure of naked man, delicately shaded, with bright red dots showing favourable places for blood-letting; (iv) fol. 291r, a linedrawn 'wound man', impaled and injured by various weapons and with the location of his major organs and their Latin names overlaid on his body; watermarks variations of a cow's head too indistinct or obscured to allow close identification, original fol. 285r originally left blank by scribe in error and then filled with additional material by same hand, some spots, stains and a few wormholes, edges of some leaves woolly, but overall in good condition, 207 by 155mm.; contemporary binding of brown leather with concentric rectangles of ropework and foliate designs over wooden boards in apparent Venetian style, remains of four metal clasps (one each at head and foot, two on outer vertical edge), small fragments of early printing and manuscript waste used inside each board, corners scuffed with small losses there and a few wormholes in back board, spine rebacked, this most probably the original binding of the volume, but then restored (perhaps in nineteenth or early twentieth-century, when a blue crayon '649' was added to front pastedown) An illustrated medical manuscript, created in the years immediately following the publication of the earliest versions of the Fasciculus Medicinae, perhaps within the mileau that reworked and adapted the text Provenance:The first part of this volume is a fifteenth-century medical compendium, mainly composed of long sections of Egidius de Corbeil's work on urine as a diagnostic tool, with other related matters both as main text and in the margins. The discoloured front endleaf of this earlier codex survives as original fol. 260. By at least 1500 this book, perhaps already missing some leaves at its beginning, came into the hands of a physician, who glossed several pages of it (original fol. 253v-56v), before adding a new front endleaf with the opening lines of part of the Facisculus medicinae, and then adding a copy of much of that work at the end of the volume. These were then apparently bound in the opening years of the sixteenth century in the binding that still holds the volume. The use of the various editions of the Facisculus medicinae by the later copyist and some of the additions here in his hand, suggests that he worked immediately after 1500, perhaps in the Veneto in the milieu where the various editions of the text were being printed in the 1490s and 1500. The dating of an addition on the front pastedown in the main hand to '1509', and an extract on one of the unfoliated leaves at the end to "21 January 1508' fixes the point by which this book was most probably in its present form. There was a large medical school at Padua at the close of the fifteenth century, and our copyist may have worked there. Text:The earlier manuscript unit here contains substantial sections of the De urinis of the French royal physician, Egidius de Corbeil (died in first quarter of thirteenth century). The text was an adaptation of the seventh-century Greek medical scholar, Theophilus Protspatharius, via the Articella. The earliest versions are in verse, but that here is in the later prose form.To this has been added treatises on the colour of urine and its use in diagnosis (original fols. 261v-64r), on the various illnesses of the body arranged alphabetically (fols. 264v-71v), on the most advantageous parts of the body for bloodletting (fols. 212r-90r) and on grievous injuries and surgeries to treat them (fols. 290v-300r), each with their diagrams, all copied from the Fasciculus medicinae. This work was printed first in Venice in 1491, drawing together these independent medieval medical treatises (as well as one on gynecology ignored by our copyist) and publishing them under the name of a former owner of the collection: Johannes de Ketham. The text was popular, and was reissued in 1493, this time with a frontispiece suggesting that the works were composed by one Petrus de Montagnana, who like Ketham has proved impossible to locate and is probably fictitious. It was issued again in 1495, 1500 and 1513, with Italian translations in 1493, 1509 and 1522.What is fascinating here is that our copyist seems to have had access to multiple early editions, and to be comparing and taking from them equally. His text is closest to that of the 1500 edition, but has been truncated and given minor adaptations in many places. However, while his figures of the 'wound man' and the 'phlebotomy man' have exposed genitals, the figure on original fol. 264v has a loincloth added showing the copyist's debt to the more coy 1495 issue and their so-called 'speedo diagrams'. Finally, the complete absence of the frontispiece or any of the narrative scenes showing the surgeon inspecting urine or similar (which were all added to the 1493 edition) may indicate an attempt to preserve the simplicity of the diagrams of the original printing.Early editions of the work are rare even in printed format (no copy of the 1471 edition can be traced by us in public sale records, and the last copy of the 1495 issue was sold by Sotheby's in 1994 for $46,400, and the 1500 issue by Christie's in 2015 for €36,250, with another copy sold in the same house in 2013 for $37,500).

Ɵ Book of Hours, in Latin and French, illuminated manuscript on parchment [France (most probably Paris), c. 1400]To view a video of this lot, click here.196 leaves (plus an seventeenth-century endleaf at each end), wanting single leaves (probably once with miniatures) throughout, also wanting a few leaves from end (but that way since seventeenth century at least), some catchwords, collation: i4 (all singletons, once a quire of 6, January and February leaves wanting), ii6, iii8, iv7 (wants i), v8, vi7 (probably wants i), vii6 (wants outermost bifolium), viii7 (wants i), ix5 (wanting i and 2 other leaves), x8, xi6 (wants ii and vii), xii7 (wants i), xiii2 (but no text missing, so a bifolium added to complete text section), xiv7 (wants i), xv8, xvi9 (wants i), xvii6 (wants i and vi), xvii8 (wanting ii and another leaf), xviii-xxii8, xxiii5 (wants iv, vi and another leaf), xxiv-xxvi8, single column of 13 lines of two sizes of a good and accomplished late gothic bookhand, Calendar entries in red, blue and gold, capitals touched in yellow, red rubrics, one-line initials in liquid gold on blue and pink-red grounds heightened with white penwork, 2-line initials in same colours, enclosing coloured foliage on burnished gold grounds, one leaf with single-line foliage terminating in teardrop shaped petals emerging from illuminated initials, ninety-nine pages with decorated borders with gold and coloured bars sprouting foliage (usually only one decorated side per leaf, and a few with three-quarter decoration like this, one with full border like this, two with blue fleur-de-lys at their apex), fifty-two pages with similar border decoration terminating in red and blue dragons with spiky manes snapping at their own bodies or at bezants or foliage (these usually only one per leaf, one leaf with two dragons), plus two others with similar borders with dragon-bodied drolleries with a human head and a boar's head, one half-page miniature of the presentation in the Temple, the scene before a gold and red tessellated background, and within thick text bars of coloured fleur-de-lys, flowers and pots on gold, with full border of gold and coloured ivy leaves, trimmed at edges (but noticeable only with miniature page and occasional borders throughout), miniature worn in places, thumbed in places throughout, some leaves cockled (especially those at end), overall fair and presentable condition, 172 by 123mm.; seventeenth-century mottled calf over pasteboards, corners bumped and spine cracking in places, endleaves reused from a French parchment document of that dateProvenance:1. This was once an impressive example of Parisian book production at the opening of the fifteenth century. It was probably made for a patron who lived near the modern Belgian border, perhaps in Rheims, and has St. Doda, abbess of Rheims in the Litany, and St. Blanchart of Brie in the Calendar (10 March).2. Maris Gerardot of Rheims in August 1695: inscription at head of first endleaf.3. Hubert André Dallie, prelate of Ailly, who received the volume on 6 July 1815: inscription at foot of first endleaf. Text: The volume comprises: a Calendar (in French); Gospel readings; Hours of the Virgin; the Seven Penitential Psalms with a Litany; Hours of the Holy Spirit (with rubric in French); the Hours of the Cross; the Office of the Dead; ending with prayers in French and Latin. 

Ɵ Book of Hours, in Latin, illuminated manuscript on parchment [northern France (Paris or Rouen), c. 1480-90]To view a video of this lot, click here.87 leaves (plus 2 original endleaves at front and back), with many leaves cut away, leaving just text leaves and a single Calendar leaf (March), ruled in red for single column with 17 lines of lettre bâtarde, capitals touched in yellow, rubrics in blue, one- and 2-line initials in liquid gold on blue and burgundy grounds heightened with white penwork, line-fillers in same, Calendar month name and crucial dates in liquid gold, each page with a decorated panel border of coloured foliage and fruit on a dull-gold or blank parchment ground (many of these grounds in interlocking shapes), some spots and stains, Calendar leaf loose in volume, other leaves becoming detached, overall good condition, 160 by 115mm.; in nineteenth-century green velvet (worn in places) over thin pasteboards (both bowed slightly), but binding structures earlier and reusing parts of a fifteenth-century French document to support top and base of spine, spine fallen away and front board now held by spine supports and velvet there, richly patterned doublures with coloured and gilt flowers and a spiderThought in the eighteenth century to come from the library of Catherine de Medici: an inscription of that date on the front endleaf: "Les heurs viennes de feut la Reine Chaterine de Medisis - famme de feut henry deuxiesm[e] Roy de France".

Ɵ Book of Hours, Use of Paris, in Latin and French, illuminated manuscript on parchment [France, c. 1475] To view a video of this lot, click here.220 leaves, wanting single leaves throughout and slightly misbound in fourteenth gathering, collation: i12, ii8, iii5 (vi a cancelled blank), iv5 (i, iv and vii wanting), v7 (v wanting), vi8, vii6 (i wanting, last a cancelled blank), viii-ix8, x7 (iv wanting), xi3 (i, ii and v wanting), xii-xiii8, xiv8 (slightly misbound), xv4, xv6 (ii wanting, last leaf a blank cancel), xvi7 (i wanting), xvii8, xviii6 (wants last leaf, that apparently originally a singleton), xix8, xx8, xxi8, xxii8, xxiii7 (iv wanting), xxiv7 (wants last), xxv8, xxvi8, xxvii8, xxviii8, xxix8, xxx2, single column of 16 lines of two sizes of a good late gothic bookhand, dark red rubrics, Calendar with entries in red, blue and liquid gold, line-fillers in blue and pink panels heightened with white penwork and gold dots, one-line initials in gold on coloured grounds, 2- to 4-line initials in colours enclosing foliage sprays on gold grounds, leaves with larger initials with decorated panel borders of rinceaux foliage terminating in coloured flowers and gold bezants, ivyleaves and seed pods, thirteen large arch-topped miniatures by Maître François or his workshop, above a 3-line initial, the text and miniature encased on three sides by a decorated bar border of coloured foliage and shapes on burnished gold, these within a full border of acanthus leaf sprays and densely packed rinceaux foliage ending in coloured flowers and fruit, gold ivy leaves and bezants, a few small illuminated initials cut out leaving holes, trimmed at edges with some losses to edges of borders, slightly thumbed in places, a few miniatures with some chipping and cracking (this with serious affect to only two), last leaf once loose and now attached on paper guard, small spots and stains, else in good condition on fine parchment, 155 by 110mm.; nineteenth-century chestnut velvet over pasteboards, with plaited gilt thread sewn in fillet and central chevrons on each board, worn at spine and edges, rebacked and restored with nineteenth-century velvet overlaid  Provenance:1. Written and illuminated in Paris apparently for a patron who lived in that city or its vicinity: with SS. Genevieve and Denis in gold in the Calendar.2. William Constable Maxwell, most probably the namesake who lived 1804-76 and from 1868 10th Baron Herries of Terregles: his ex libris dated 'July 1833' at head of front pastedown. Perhaps from him to the owner of the unidentified armorial bookplate pasted in the middle of the pastedown.3. Owned in twentieth century by one A.R. Burn, then E.J.W. Vaughan in 1982, gifted by him in 1999 and thence by descent. Text:The volume comprises: a Calendar (in French); Gospels readings; the Obsecro te and O intemerata; the Hours of the Virgin, with Matins (wanting opening), Lauds, Prime, Terce, Sext, None, Vespers and Compline (wanting opening); the Seven Penitential Psalms, followed by a Litany; the Hours of the Cross (wanting opening); the Hours of the Holy Spirit; the Office of the Dead (opening wanting); a long series of prayers in French opening with Les Quinze Ioyes de Notre Dame. Illumination:Surviving examples of the work of Maître François show that he directed an extremely productive Parisian atelier between c. 1460 and c. 1480, with his first name recorded in a single document of 1473. He has tentatively been identified as the artist François le Barbier who was documented in Paris 1455-72.The large miniatures here comprise: (1) fol. 13r: the evangelist John, seated and writing in a scroll; (2) fol. 43r, St. Anne and the Virgin; (3) fol. 52r, the Nativity; (4) fol. 57v, the Annunciation to the shepherds; (5) fol. 62r, the Adoration of the Magi; (6) fol. 66r, the Presentation in the Temple; (7) fol. 70r, the Flight into Egypt guided by a gold winged angel; (8) fol. 78r, David in prayer within a gothic setting; (9) fol. 98r, Pentecost; (10) fol. 99r, the Crucifixion; (11) fol. 140v, the Virgin and Child seated as angels play music; (12) fol. 146r, the Trinity, with Christ and God the Father enthroned as the Holy Spirit descends; (13) fol. 166r, the Pietà at Golgotha between two angels.

Ɵ Book of Hours, Use of Saintes, in Latin, illuminated manuscript on parchment [northern France (Paris), c. 1470-80]To view a video of this lot, click here.190 leaves (plus two endleaves at front and back), lacking single leaves after fols. 43, 69, 73, 77, 94, 128 and 190, and two leaves after fol. 91, else complete, collation: i12, ii-iii8, iv2 ,v8 , vi7 (wanting vi), vii-ix8, x6 (wanting i and vi), xi7 (wanting iii), xii8, xiii7 (wanting ii-iii and vii), xiv-xvi8, xvii-xviii (both wanting i), xix-xxiv8, xxv7 (wanting viii), ruled in red ink for single column of 16 lines of tiny and precise lettre bâtarde, Calendar in red with major names in blue, capitals touched in yellow, red rubrics, line-fillers and one- and 2-line illuminated initials throughout in burnished gold on red and blue groundswith white tracery, panel borders on every page with 2-line initials in rinceaux foliage terminating in coloured acanthus leaves, flowers and fruit and gold bezants and ivy-leaves, three large initials with three-quarter illuminated borders in same, and five large arch-topped miniatures by Maître François, above large initials and 5 lines of text, these with full borders as before and inhabited by occasional birds and drolleries, nineteenth-century collector's label on front pastedown with "No 514", some minor stains and thumbing to edges, discolouration and slight cockling to first leaf, else in good and presentable condition, 95mm by 65mm.; seventeenth-century French olive-brown morocco gilt, marbled endleaves, gilt edges, headband detached, slight scuffs, else good condition A tiny pocket-sized Book of Hours prepared in Paris for a patron in the south west of France, and following the exceptionally rare Use of Saintes Provenance:1. Written and illuminated in Paris for a patron in Saintes in south-western France. The Calendar has SS. Albinus, bishop of Angers (1 March), the Litany includes SS. Eutropius, Ambrose, Bibianus, Trojanus and Palladius, all bishops of Saintes, St. Machutus (Malo), who lived in exile at Saintes, and St. Fronto, apostle of Périgueux, and the Use is that of Saintes, which appears not be recorded in any example by Leroquais. The presence of a number of Norman saints, including St Lawrence O'Toole, archbishop of Dublin, who died at Eu in Normandy in 1180 ("Laurencii de augo", 14 November), may reveal family origins of the original owner in that region.2. The Calendar leaves then used in the seventeenth or eighteenth century to record family events in French. These later erased and now only partly visible through UV light.3. Perhaps then owned by John M. Augustin Felicite Steinmetz (1795-1883) of Shadwell, a lawyer of Middlesex and Bruges: with a small inkstamp of a 'VS' within a circle on front endleaf, similar to two variants (but within flattened circles) recorded by Lugt for Steinmetz.4. Sold in Sotheby's, 6 July 2000, lot 83, to the current owner.  Text:This book comprises: a Calendar (fol. 1r); the Gospel Sequences (fol. 13r); the Obsecro te (fol. 20r, for male use) and O intemerata; the Hours of the Virgin, with Matins (fol. 31r), Lauds (fol. 44r), Prime (fol. 57r), Terce (fol. 64r), Sext (fol. 70r), None (fol. 74r), Vespers (fol. 78r) and Compline (fol. 86r); the Hours of the Cross (fol. 92r) and of the Holy Ghost (fol. 95r); the Penitential Psalms (fol. 98r) with a Litany; the Office of the Dead; and Suffrages (fol.186r).  Illumination:For the artist, Maître François, see previous lot. The miniatures here are: (1) fol. 31r, the Annunciation, the Virgin kneeling before a chair or bed draped in red, a green canopy above, Gabriel on the right with a banderole "ave maria gracia", gothic windows behind, architectural frame, and border including three song birds and a peacock facing the viewer in the middle of the bas-de-page; (2) fol. 57r, the Nativity, the Child lying on the hem of the Virgin's robe who kneels with Joseph outside the thatched stable, a hill to the right, the donkey behind; (3) fol. 64r, the Annunciation to the Shepherds, two shepherds and a shepherdess gazing up as two angels appear in the heavens holding a musical scroll, sheep in the foreground drinking from a spring, a dog asleep, landscape background; (4) fol. 86r, the Coronation of the Virgin, with the Virgin kneeling before the Throne of God as an angel leans over a tapestry and places a crown on her head; (5) fol. 98r, David in prayer, kneeling before an open book on an elaborate carved wooden lectern (apparently adjustable through a wooden screw forming its central pillar), his harp beside him as God appears in the sky above, with an animal-legged human-bodied drollery shooting an arrow at an orange dragon-headed snail in the border. 

Ɵ Book of Hours, Use of Paris, in Latin and French, illuminated manuscript on parchment [northern France (Paris), c. 1500]To view a video of this lot, click here.172 leaves (plus an added seventeenth-century frontispiece, and 2 paper endleaves at front and 3 at back), collation impracticable and with catchwords only for quires at end, but wanting single leaves after fols. 42, 145 and 161, 2 blank cancels at end, else complete, ruled in red ink for single column of 20 lines in several angular gothic bookhands much ornamented by hairline penstrokes, rubrics in red, capitals touched in yellow wash, one-line initials in liquid gold on blue or dark red grounds, with line-fillers in same, larger initials in coloured leafy designs on burnished gold grounds, panel borders on every page with coloured and gilt acanthus sprays, flowers, fruit, insects and some birds and grotesques (occasionally including bulbous green frogs), all on blank parchment and dull gold grounds arranged in patterns and shapes (including half fleur-de-lys), four small miniatures with three-quarter or full borders (the Virgin and Child enthroned; the Virgin and St. John the Evangelist; the Crucifixion; and the Pietà), thirteen large arch-topped miniatures, each set above a coloured initial and 4 lines of text and within full borders, some slight smudging and rubbing, a few chips to paint in places, upper and outer edges trimmed with slight affect to some borders there, else in good and bright condition, 149 by 105mm.; bound in mid-nineteenth-century English gilt-tooled red morocco, with "OFFICIUM B.V. MARIÆ M.S." gilt on spine, gilt edge, skilfully rebacked with spine laid on, in a fitted green cloth-covered case Provenance:1. Written and illuminated for the woman (perhaps a widow) who is shown dressed in black in the miniature on fol. 152v, kneeling before Christ, and perhaps again in the miniature on fol. 83r as she is struck down by Death. She was evidently a Parisian, and both SS. Geneviève and Denis are in red in the Calendar.2. Presented to a patron whose Latinised name was Ludovicus Justus by the French master calligrapher and illustrator, Baptiste de Beaugrand (1572-1632: on him see Bradley, p. 108, where this very book is discussed): calligraphic inscription ("Ludovico Justo offerebat B. de Beaugrand") at foot of finely decorated seventeenth-century frontispiece; this leaf evidently the work of Beaugrand himself.3. John Wilks II (1793-1846) of London and Mill Hill, Middlesex, attorney, entrepreneur, MP for Sudbury and bankrupt, whose collections were sold in Sotheby's, 12 March 1847, this lot 1688.4. Messrs J. Pearson & Co. of 5 Pall Mall Place, London bookdealers; this sold in the liquidation sale of their stock at Sotheby's, 8 December 1924, lot 591. Then reappearing the next year in Sotheby's, 23 February 1925, lot 461.5. Mrs Jesse H. Metcalf, and presented to the John Carter Brown Library, in Providence, Rhode Island, in 1947 (listed there by Faye and Bond, Supplement to the Census of Medieval and Renaissance MSS, 1962, p. 496, no. 44). Carter Brown sale in Sotheby's, 18 May 1981, lot 2.7. Sotheby's, 18 June 1991, lot 152, and thence by descent. Text:The book comprises: a Calendar, in French (fol. 2r); the Gospel Sequences (fol. 14r); the Hours of the Virgin, with Matins (fol. 18r), Lauds (fol. 35r), Prime (fol. 43r), Terce (fol. 47r), Sext (fol. 50v), None (fol. 54r), Vespers (fol. 57v) and Compline (fol. 63r); the Penitential Psalms (fol. 67v) with a Litany; the Office of the Dead (fol. 83r); the Hours of the Cross (fol. 119r); the Hours of the Holy Ghost (fol. 124r); ending with a long series of additional prayers in Latin and French (including among its rarer inclusions, the 'Verses of St. Bernard', prayers of St. Gregory with an offer of plenary indulgence attributed to Pope Alexander VI, a prayer described as having been brought from Constantinople to Charlemagne while he was hunting and protecting him in battle and claiming that its reader would be immune from arrows, lances, knives, daggers, swords or invisible implements, also giving safety to women in childbirth and victory to soldiers in wartime, and the Fifteen Oes attributed to St. Bridget of Sweden in French). Illumination:This manuscript is apparently from the same workshop as Waddesdon MS. 24, a Book of Hours signed by the scribe Nicholas Forget c. 1510 (see L.M.J. Delaissé et al., James A. Rothschild Collection ... Illuminated Manuscripts, 1977, pp. 516-39), with the composition of the miniature of the Visitation on fol. 35r showing striking parallels to that in the Waddesdon volume, and certain figures such as the Virgin and St. Anne having near-identical features.The subjects of the larger miniatures are: fol. 18r, the Annunciation; fol. 35, the Visitation, with houses behind; fol. 47r, the annunciation to the Shepherds; fol. 50v, the Adoration of the Magi; fol. 54r, the Presentation in the Temple; fol. 57v, the Flight into Egypt; fol. 63r, the Coronation of the Virgin; fol. 67v, David in prayer; fol. 83r, Death as a skeletal figure thrusting a lance at a young women, while bodies lay strewn about; fol. 119r, the Crucifixion; fol. 141v, the Virgin and Child holding the Cross and standing on the crescent moon, all surrounded by a rosary; and fol. 143r, the Mass of St. Gregory. Published:J.W. Bradley, A Dictionary of Miniaturists, 1887, p. 108.Bénédictins du Bouveret, Colophons de manuscrits occidentaux, 1965, I, no. 1541.

Ɵ Carta Executoria, granted by King Philip II, for Juan Bautista Gallo of Valladolid, an officer of the royal treasury, in its Renaissance gilt-tooled binding, illuminated manuscript in Spanish on parchment [Spain (Castile, Valladolid), dated 1 July 1590, with additions dated 1591-92]To view a video of this lot, click here. 128 leaves, wanting a single leaf (with miniature and opening words of inscription that follows onto first leaf here), else complete, single column of 30 lines in an excellent late humanist hand, ornamental capitals for significant words, every text page with text enclosed within a thin gold and coloured frame on all sides, each recto signed with scribal device, thirty-seven text openings in gold or silver capitals on blue or burgundy panels, one entire page of nine such panels in gold capitals on alternating burgundy and blue grounds (this addressing the monarch with his titles), initials in liquid gold and blue acanthus leaf sprays on burgundy grounds decorated with clusters of gold dots, one illuminated initial (with human face at extremities) enclosing a songbird on burgundy grounds decorated with clusters of liquid gold dots, the whole initial on dark blue grounds with shading used to pick out acanthus leaves, one large miniature of St. James fighting the Moors in upper half of frontispiece, within a border of flowers, insects, small birds and peacocks all on dull gold grounds, the inscription in gold capitals "por la gracia" at foot of this miniature, with the Gallo arms between putti and cornucopia and further foliage and birds on dull gold grounds in the lower half of the page, slight cockling throughout, a few wormholes, else excellent condition, 350 by 240mm.; contemporary binding of gilt-tooled leather over pasteboards, with concentric fillet with floral sprays at corners, arranged around a central crowned 'IHS' device, edges torn, with losses to spine, corners scuffed, signs of large area of back board once scorched, front board held in place by pastedowns Provenance:1. Written and illuminated for Juan Bautista Gallo of Valladolid, who came from a family of bankers and royal servants, directly serving Philip II as a regidor (regional councillor) and as "depositario general de la Ciudad y de la Real Chancilleria" (treasury officer for the city of Valladolid and the royal chancellery). He founded the convent of Porto Coeli in the city, and died c. 1601. This volume then passed to the Archivio Arias de Saavedra, Condes de Gómara, of Castile and León.2. Sotheby's, 23 May 2017, lot 50, for £4000, to Martin Schøyen, his MS. 5583, thereafter kept in his London library. Illumination:Scholarship has yet to begin to unravel the identities of the numerous artists who clustered around the royal court and produced Carta Executoria for Spanish noble patrons in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, but the artist here had few peers in that group. This document was produced for a wealthy and influential royal officer by an artist of significant skill.

‡ Cutting from an 'Atlantic' Bible, with remnant of a large interlace initial in Carolingian style, in Latin, manuscript on parchment [Italy, c. 1080]Long and thin strip, cut and reused to strengthen board attachment to book block in a later binding, here with remains of double column of 8 lines of a good Romanesque bookhand with a tongued final 'e' and a dotted 'y', approximately two-thirds of an initial 'V' (opening "Verbum domini, quod factum est ...", the opening of Joel) enclosing an angular swirl of geometric decoration, the initial once bright red but now oxidised to silver, stains, tears to edges and other damage concomitant with recovery from a binding, overall fair condition, 307 by 57mm.From the stock of Bernard Rosenthal (1920-2017), then Quaritch, cat. 1147 (1991), no. 10.The remains of the initial here, with its geometric infill, hark back to early Carolingian models so closely as to suggest that the artist here was copying directly from a Tours Bible (compare, for example, the initial 'V' on a fragment of a Tours Bible now in the Getty Museum in Los Angeles: F. Mütherich, 'Die touronische Bibel von St. Maximin in Trier', in a facsimile volume in 2019, then reprinted in Studies in Carolingian Manuscript Illumination, 2004, fig. 1 on p. 353).‡: A double dagger (‡) indicates that the lot is being sold whilst subject to temporary importation and that VAT is due at the reduced rate (5%) if the lot remains in the UK.

Ɵ Statutes of the Confraternity of the Venerable Society of St. John the Baptist, in Latin, manuscript on parchment [Italy (Rome), 1582]To view a video of this lot, click here.16 leaves (a single gathering, plus a paper and a parchment endleaf at front and back), complete, single column of 28 lines of a late italic hand influenced by humanist script, important words in large capitals, numerous subscriptions and additions on privileges and indulgences granted to members of confraternity, slightly cockled throughout and light folds showing these leaves once folded twice before binding, hole at base for thong of seal (both seal and thong wanting), modern ownership stamp of a skull and crossbones on front paper endleaf, small spots and stains, overall good condition, 240 by 170mm.; bound in near-contemporary card with parchment spine (this spine stiff and causing breaks in card in lower part of front board; these now held in place by paper pasted to inside), some tears to edges of boards, working leather thong ties.

Ɵ 'Descriptiones Poetice', a collection of Latin verse of an encyclopedic nature assembled by Franciscus Brivius, manuscript on paper [Italy, seventeenth century] 126 folios (plus 3 paper endleaves at front and 5 at back), complete, single column of 26 lines in a scrolling italic hand, titles in larger version of same, a frontispiece on a front endleaf with the title and author's name within a wreath supporting by bees, above an eagle, above a scallop within a frame between two cities, frowning birds in the foreground on both sides, some small spots and stains, slight foxing to endleaves, else good and fresh condition, 152 by 100mm.; contemporary pigskin over pasteboards, gilt-tooled with fillet and floral sprays around a central 'IHS' within a sun motif (indicating probable Jesuit ownership), remnants of blue paper label at spine The compiler here is almost certainly the Francisco Brivio of Milan, who served as a Jesuit and wrote the Dies domini oratio in parasceue printed by the Vatican in 1633. The present work is, to the best of our knowledge, unpublished, and includes verse on the heavens, the world, the heavenly spheres, God and divine love, day and night, clouds and winds, animals, the oceans and naval warfare, gemstones, monstrous humans, fantastical beasts, demons and the whole gamut of Roman gods, among many other subjects, all culled from Classical and medieval sources. This may well be in the author's own hand. 

Leaf from a gargantuan Atlantic' Bible, in Latin, decorated manuscript on parchment [Italy, mid-twelfth century] Single large leaf, with double column of 44 lines of a large and rounded early-gothic bookhand (with Leviticus 7:20-8:13 on legible side), written above topline and without biting curves, simple red initials and running titles in red ("Lib' / Leviticus"), prick marks visible at outer vertical edge, recovered from reuse in a later binding and hence with folds, small holes, scuffs and clipped corners, reverse abraded and illegible, 545 by 365mm. At the end of the eleventh century and the opening of the twelfth, ecclesiastical book producers in Italy sought to reshape the format of the Bible, emulating and exceeding the grand size and regularity of the Carolingian Tours Bible. They produced vast codices of great austere beauty, named 'Atlantic' Bibles due to their size (after the titan Atlas ).

Bifolium from a Sacramentary, in Latin, manuscript on parchment [Italy, early twelfth century] Two conjoined leaves, with edges folded in during reuse in a later binding, borders trimmed in places, but all text present, each leaf with double column of 32 lines in an occasionally faltering Romanesque hand, with a strong ct-ligature and several other earlier features, without biting curves, capitals touched in red, bright red rubrics, two red initials (the larger formed of red penwork boxes containing blank parchment compartments, opening letters after these initials in ornamental capitals touched with red, somewhat discoloured on outer sides, some small spots, folds and torn edges, else presentable condition, each leaf approximately 355 by 282mm. 

Small cutting from an early choirbook, in Latin, decorated manuscript on parchment [Italy, first half of the twelfth century] Rectangular cutting from upper lefthand part of a leaf, with remains of 6 lines in an attractively elegant gothic bookhand with music in neumes arranged around a red clef line, small initials in looping penwork strokes in main ink, rubrics in red, two simple red initials, recovered from reuse in a later binding and hence with scuffs, stains and losses (reverse somewhat scuffed), overall in fair and presentable condition, 138 by 200mm. 

‡ Notker the Stammerer, Liber sequentiarum, an important work for the Carolingian history of music, in Latin verse, decorated manuscript on parchment[Germany, c. 1100]Substantial remains of a bifolium, with outer edges and lower parts of each leaf trimmed away (removing text in both places), remains of double column of 26 lines of a handsome Germanic Romanesque bookhand with a strong ct-ligature and a notable lean to the right, initials in red set off in margins, red rubrics, and large simple initials in red, inner sides much abraded (although text legible there), stains, folds and a few small holes concomitant with reuse in a later binding, small green stains at head of first leaf from offset of decorative paper from that later binding, each leaf 169 by 195mm.; the leaves set within modern paper supportNotker the Stammerer (c. 840-912) of Sankt Gallen would cut an impressive figure in the Carolingian Renaissance even if all he was known for was his certain authorship of the Vita Sancti Galli and probable authorship of a Gesta Caroli Magni (life of Charlemagne). However, he also made significant contributions to early music in the period 881 to 887, collecting together the core 'Sequences' (mnemonic poems for remembering the series of pitches sung during a melisma in plainchant) that form the base of the work here (see J. Davis-Secord, 'The Sequences of Notker Balbulus', Journal of Medieval Latin, 22, 2012, pp. 117-48). This work operated as an alternative to neumes, and was composed at a point when neumes (and thus all forms of musical notation that would follow) were in their infancy in the West.The text is of great rarity, with only eight manuscripts recorded before the end of the eleventh century, and apart from this one, no other apparently recorded as ever coming to the market.‡: A double dagger (‡) indicates that the lot is being sold whilst subject to temporary importation and that VAT is due at the reduced rate (5%) if the lot remains in the UK.

Fragment with Werner von Ellerbach, Deflorationes Sanctorum Patrum or Honorius Augustodunensis, Speculum Ecclesiae, in Latin, manuscript on parchment [Germany (probably south), probably first half of twelfth century] Rectangular cutting (cut laterally across a leaf), with remains of single column of 11 lines of a small and precise proto-gothic bookhand, using tall tongued 'e' as a capital and an extremely late use of the et-ligature as an integral part of '&iam' and '&enim' (this feature most probably locating this in the first half of the twelfth century when a handful of examples can still be found in German manuscripts, see the leaf in our rooms, 8 July 2020, lot 32, for discussion), recovered from reuse in a binding and hence with folds, small holes and stains, overall good condition and on good and heavy parchment, 63 by 175mm. From the collection of Roger Martin (1939-2020) of Grimsby. The identification of this cutting as one of two distinct texts requires some explanation. Werner von Ellerbach (d. 1126) was a Benedictine monk of St. Blasius in the Black Forest, and was among the brethren sent from there in 1093 to establish a daughter-house at Wiblingen, near Ulm in Baden-Württemberg, where he became its abbot. Honorius Augustodensis (c. 1080-1154) was most probably a German monk (not of Autun as his name suggests, but another similarly named site as yet to be conclusively identified), who seems to have travelled to Canterbury and met Anselm and by the end of his life lived among the Irish monks of the Regensberg Schottenkloster (see E.M. Sanford in Speculum, 23, 1948, pp. 397-425; he may well have been Irish himself). The distribution of the early manuscripts of his work, as well as its impact in other texts supports the link to Regensberg and its vicinity. These authors were, for a decade or two, contemporaries and close neighbours, and they may have even known each other. Certainly, Honorius knew of Werner's Deflorationes Sanctorum Patrum, as a large collection of preaching material (the part here Migne, Pat. Lat. 157, cols. 1019-20), and copied sections of it into his own preaching manual, the Speculum Ecclesiae (Pat. Lat. 172, cols.1043-44) so that the readings here agree almost perfectly with both (the only variation is that of the repetition of the last three words on the verso here, due to scribal eye-skip). It is hoped that another binding-fragment from the same parent codex can be traced and be used to make a conclusive identification, but even without that both authors occupy important places as among the earliest definitively German authors. They are preceded by Hrabanus Maurus (d. 856) of Mainz, and his pupils Walafrid Strabo and Gottschalk of Fulda, as well as Hrotsvit of Gandersheim (d. 973), and are immediate forerunners of Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179). Moreover, whichever text this is, this cutting may well contain the earliest witness to it, perhaps standing closest to the author's own copy. Manuscripts of both works are of extreme rarity on the market, with Werner's Deflorationes Sanctorum Patrum traceable in the vast Schoenberg database in only one manuscript copy (a part of the text in a compendium of c. 1500 sold on behalf of J. Ritman in Sotheby's, 17 June 2003, lot 34), and to that should be added a copy of the second half of twelfth century, ex. Phillipps, sold Sotheby's, 15-18 June 1908, lot 42, and now Berlin, Staatsbibliothek, Preussicher kulturbesitz, MS. theol. lat. fol. 699. No witness of Honorius' Speculum Ecclesiae can be traced in sale records by us.

Palladius of Cappadocia, Historia Lausiaca, in Latin translation, cutting from a large leaf, decorated manuscript on parchment [France, mid- to late twelfth century] Top half of a leaf, with remains of 30 lines in a good and professional early Gothic bookhand, written with a few biting curves and above topline, remains of a large red initial and a red rubric on reverse, recovered from a binding and hence with stains, discoloured areas, small holes, tears and folds, much scuffed on reverse, overall fair and presentable condition, 234 by 304mm. This text is one of the most important witnesses to the lives of the Desert Father saints. It was written by Palladius of Galatia around 419-420 at the request of Lausus, chamberlain to the court of Emperor Theodosius III. Following a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, the author travelled into the Nitrian desert, where he spent nine years with Macarius and Evagrius. It was fundamentally popular among monastic readers, and A. Wellhausen records approximately 110 extant manuscripts, all in institutional ownership. The fragment here contains a large part of ch. 38 and the opening of ch. 39, on the figures Evagrius and Pior, and thus for much of the text here this is an eye-witness account of Evagrius' life.

Bifolium from a herbal glossary in the Synonyma tradition, in Latin, manuscript on parchment [France, twelfth century] Two conjoined leaves, each with single column of 25 lines in a small and angular early gothic bookhand, with a few biting curves, plant names underlined in black ink, apparently reused on accounts in sixteenth century with probable date of those accounts "1592" added to bas-de-page of one page upside down, liberated from those accounts by the nineteenth century and with inscription of that date at head ("Live de medicine fin XI ou comment du XII"), cockling and stained areas, a few tears to edges, but without affect to text, overall good and presentable condition, each leaf 185 by 146mm. These leaves contain numerous entries of medicinal plants (usually Latin transliterations of Arabic or Greek plant names), with brief glosses on alternative names and uses. They are most probably all that survives from a codex with a synonyma-text. These texts were composed in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries as a way to make practical sense of the waves of new herbal information that flowed into European hands from medical books discovered by Westerners in the Holy Land during the Crusades. In response to the discovery of the Ancient Greek medical writer Serapion and the Arabic physicians Rasis and Avicenna, anonymous authors in the West composed the Synonyma Rasis, Synonyma Serapionis and Synonyma Avicennae, as well as many others not devoted to a single author or text. In an effort to bring order to the cacophony of such texts with a single unified replacement, Simon de Gênes compiled the Clavis sanationis in the late thirteenth century. We have not been able to identify the present text among published examples, and this may well be the only recorded witness to this text.

Fragment of a manuscript of the works of John Damascene, De fide orthodoxa, in Latin translation of Burgundio of Pisa, manuscript on parchment [probably France, thirteenth century] Cutting from a bifolium (trimmed at head, foot and one vertical edge), with remains of double columns of 23 lines of a fine university hand, yellowed on reverse, small holes, scuffs and spots, a few folds at corners, else fair condition, 302 by 114mm. John Damascene was a Christian monk who lived from c. 675 to 749, making great contributions to law, theology, philosophy and music as well as being named one of the fathers of the Eastern Church. The cutting here includes parts of ch. 8 of the author's Introductio dignitatem elementaris, on "genere et specie" (on humans and various types of animals), summarising part of Aristotle's work on categories, as well as parts of De duabus in Christo voluntatibus. Both formed chapters of John Damascene's De fide orthodoxa, the third part of his 'Fountain of Wisdom' (pege gnoseos), a compilation and epitome of the works of the great ecclesiastical writers who preceded him, that became the principal textbook of Greek Orthodox theology and had profound influence on medieval Latin thought. It appeared in only two medieval Latin translations, that of Burgundio of Pisa (as here) made in the 1150s, and Robert Grosseteste in the 1230s. The work was fundamental to the scholastic movement, and at least 120 manuscripts of Burgundio's translation are now recorded, as well as several early post-incunabula printings. However, these manuscript witnesses are predominantly late, with none of the twelfth century, and only a handful of the thirteenth century surviving (I. Backus in Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, 49, 1986, p. 211).

Leaf from Peter Lombard, Magna Glossatura in Epistolas Pauli, in Latin, decorated manuscript on parchment [northern France (probably Paris), c. 1210] Single leaf, with double column of approximately 27 lines in a handsome professional early gothic bookhand (with text from I Corinthians), the gloss arranged around these columns in smaller script, running titles in normal hand and drypoint gloss in upper margin, marginal notes in red, quotations underlined in red, one-line initials in red or blue (those in main text with contrasting penwork), prickings for lines visible showing leaf has not been cut down, small spots and stains, slight darkening at edges, else in excellent condition, 350 by 250mm. From a large and handsome copy of the text identified as from the medieval library of the Augustinian abbey of Rebdorf. The parent codex was sold by Sotheby's, 17 June 2003, lot 82, and then dispersed. Other leaves have appeared in Quaritch, Bookhands of the Middle Ages VIII (2007), no. 95; Sotheby's, 10 July 2012, lot 1 and again 7 July 2015, lot 8; as well as in our rooms, 6 July 2017, lot 10, and 2 July 2019, lot 13. A bifolium with two large gold initial 'P's is in the Scheetz collection (S. Gwara, Bibliotheca Scheetziana, 2014, no. 17, pp. 109-18. This leaf from the collection of Roger Martin (1939-2020) of Grimsby.

‡ Two leaves from a Glossed Psalter, one with elegant coloured initials, in Latin, manuscript on parchment, with a contemporary bifolium from a manuscript of Hugh of St. Cher, In universum Vetus et Novi Testamentum [France, thirteenth century] Two leaves (with eighteenth-century pagination '39/39', second in error, and '60/61'), each with single column of 16 lines of main text in a formal early gothic hand, glosses in smaller version of same in blocks set in both outer margins, with further glosses added interlineally, one-line initials in red, red rubrics, rubric in gloss in ornamental blue and pale gold, two large initials in blue and red, with scalloping penwork in contrasting colour, some flaking from ink on each leaf, some darkening at edges, small spots and stains, else excellent condition, each leaf 302 by 197mm.; with a bifolium from Hugh of St. Cher, In universum Vetus et Novi Testamentum, these on Ecclesiastes, double column of 57 lines in a good university hand, running titles in red, trimmed at top and outer vertical edge of one leaf, recovered from a binding and with concomitant damage, each leaf approximately 255 by 183mm.From the collection of Dr Otto Oren Fischer (1881-1961) of Detroit.‡: A double dagger (‡) indicates that the lot is being sold whilst subject to temporary importation and that VAT is due at the reduced rate (5%) if the lot remains in the UK. 

Two small cuttings from Hrabanus Maurus, Homilies 150 and 151, quoting Paterius' lost commentary on Luke 10, in Latin, manuscript on parchment [probably Italy, c. 900] Two rectangular cuttings, recovered from reuse after the Middle Ages on the spine of a later book, each with remains of single column of 13 lines of a good Carolingian minuscule, with an et-ligature used integrally within words, and strong st- and ct-ligatures, remnants of red rubrics, one large initial 'F' ("Fratres fiduciam talem ...", opening Homily 151) in intertwined bands of red and blank parchment on black grounds, with terminals ending in stylised penwork foliage sprays, scuffs, holes, tears to edges from reuse on later binding, overall fair condition, 77 by 43mm. and 72 by 39mm.; framed in Perspex The theologian, poet and author Hrabanus Maurus (c. 780-856) was one of the cornerstones of the entire Carolingian Renaissance. He was a student of Alcuin of York (who gave him the byname 'Maurus' after the favourite disciple of St. Benedict), and served as school master of Fulda, overseeing the enrichment of the library there and teaching in turn Walafrid Strabo and Lupus of Ferrières, before serving as abbot of that house and then archbishop of Mainz. He wrote homilies, Latin poetry (in particular the In Honorem Sanctae Crucis, for a bifolium of which see our sale, 6 July 2021, lot 10), extensive Biblical commentaries, an encyclopedia following Isidore of Seville's work, interpretations of Scripture and an annotated version of Vegetius' De re militari intended to improve Frankish martial skills.The homily here in part quotes the work of Paterius, a favourite author of Hrabanus who acted as secretary to Gregory the Great and died in 606. Paterius' commentary on the New Testament survives in its original format only in the parts from Genesis to the Song of Songs, with later sections partly recorded by excerpts made in the twelfth century by Aluphus of Tournai (the so-called pseudo-Paterio C), an abbreviation from Wisdom onwards (pseudo-Paterio A) and a revision by Bruno monachus (pseudo-Paterio B). Migne's edition for the Patrologia Latina was a collage of these (with the text quoted here at LXXXIX, 1849, col. 1062, chs. 25-26).These fragments are thus of some importance as witnesses to a now-lost finely decorated manuscript of Hrabanus' homilies, made in the decades following his death, as well as to Paterius' long-lost text, read and used by Hrabanus in its original form.

Leaf from a Psalter or Psalter-Hours, with large illuminated initial, in Latin, manuscript on parchment [north-east France, second half of thirteenth century] Single leaf, with single column of 10 lines in two sizes of a notably high grade of bookhand, with pronounced angularity and lateral compression, and notable fishtailing to ends of ascenders, the larger of the scripts the most formal and decorative, capitals with decorative penstrokes and touched in red, one-line initial in gold with elaborate blue penwork, one 2-line initial in blue, containing coloured foliage on a burnished gold ground, scuffs to gold in places, leaf slightly trimmed at base (probably during binding of whole codex), but slight discolouration at edges showing leaf untrimmed for considerable time, overall good condition, 124 by 83mm. From the collection of Roger Martin (1939-2020) of Grimsby. In the second half of the thirteenth century a number of high-grade devotional books were produced in this format: pocket-sized but in script so formal and decorative, and most importantly so large, that the books themselves appear designed to display conspicuous wealth through their lack of economy of materials. They appear to have been personal commissions for influential and wealthy individuals.

‡ Guillaume de Lorris and Jean de Meun, Roman de la Rose, in Middle French, illuminated manuscript on parchment [northern France (probably Paris), mid-fourteenth century] Two large leaves, each with double column of 40 lines of an early gothic French vernacular hand (with lines 7635-7791 of the poem), with one-line initials offset in margins, 2-line initials in gold on blue and dark-pink grounds heightened with white penwork, the two leaves with continuous text (hence probably the central bifolium of a gathering), but with an apparent quire signature "VII'" at foot of verso of second leaf, recovered from an account book binding (that dated "1622" and "1623"), and so with some stains, cockled areas, later scrawls, discolouration to outer surfaces of that binding and holes, but overall in good and presentable condition, each leaf approximately 330 by 225mm. (written space 226 by 167mm.)These are exceptionally early witnesses to this most important literary text, the most popular secular work of the entire Middle Ages Provenance: Recently discovered in an American collection. Text:The Roman de la Rose is probably the single-most influential literary text of the Middle Ages, exceeding both Chaucer and Dante in the production and circulation of manuscripts. C.S. Lewis stated that in cultural importance it ranks second to none except the Bible and the Consolation of Philosophy (Allegory of Love, 1936, p. 157). It is of fundamental importance for the history of French literature, and is the first example in French of a sustained first-person narrative and a narrative allegory. The poem was begun c. 1240 by Guillaume de Lorris (d. c. 1278) who wrote the first 4058 lines. As he explains, he wished to tell the reader all that he knew of love, and the poem describes a dream in which Amant is taken by Oiseuse into a pleasure garden where he meets the allegorical figures of Pleasure, Delight, Cupid and others, finally catching sight of and falling in love with the Rose-in-bud. He is held back by the figures of Danger, Shame, Scandal and Jealousy who imprison the Rose in a castle. Thus far the tale is a rather innocent one of love in the abstract, however, some forty years later, another author, Jean de Meun (a friend of Dante) added another 17,724 lines (including the lines on the present leaves). These fundamentally changed its tone to a biting satire on contemporary society. His lover-hero makes war on the castle, debates with Reason, Nature and Genius, and finally enters the inner chamber of the Rose. His advice to the lover includes sections on how a man should keep his mistress (study the arts, ignore any infidelities, offer flattery but never advice) and how a lady might keep her male lover (use false hair, make up and perfume, avoid getting so drunk you fall asleep at dinner, only have intercourse in the dark to hide imperfections of the body, and avoid poor men and foreigners - except very rich ones). The only systematic census of manuscripts of the text is that of Langlois in 1910 (Les Manuscrits du Roman de la Rose: Description et Classement), although there has been a recent collaborative scholarly project between John Hopkins University and the Bibliothèque nationale de France on the text resulting in a website that lists 324 extant manuscripts. The parent manuscript of the present leaves was most probably a grand Parisian product, close in appearance to its contemporaries BnF. français 19156 and Bodleian, Selden, Supra 57, and part of a wave of production of copies of the text there for the French elites in the middle of the fourteenth century.The text is far from common on the market, with the vast Schoenberg database listing only ten codices appearing at auction since the 1970s, and only three of those of the fourteenth century: Christies', 7 June 2006, lots 23 and 31 (once Phillipps MS. 2838 and 4185, now both Senshu University, Japan); and another in the same rooms, 9 July 2001, lot 12; Sotheby's, 17 June 1997, lot 6 (once Phillipps MS. 129); Drouot, 16 December 1994, lot 1; another in the same rooms, 9 December 1992, lot 371; Ader Picard Tajan in Paris, 16 September 1988, lot 152 (this previously in Sotheby's, New York, sale of Carleton Richmond's library in 1981); the Astor copy sold in Sotheby's, 21 June 1988 (then Beck collection and stolen); Christie's, 25 June 1980, lot 232 (once Phillipps MS. 4357, now in the Ferrell collection); another sold in Ader Picard Tajan in Paris, 20 May 1980, lot 60; and that sold in Sotheby's, 13 July 1977, lot 48, to Peter Ludwig and thence to the Getty Museum. Fragments seem to come to the market even less frequently, with the last examples in Christie's, 30 May 1984, lot 200 (a small miniature trimmed to its edges, from a manuscript of the second half of the fourteenth century); Alde Libraire Giraud Badin, 8 June 2012 (a fourteenth-century leaf most probably the missing first leaf of Columbia University, Plimpton MS. 284); and two fifteenth-century bifolia recovered from bindings, sold in our rooms, 6 July 2017, lots 34 and 35 (together realising £7000 hammer). ‡: A double dagger (‡) indicates that the lot is being sold whilst subject to temporary importation and that VAT is due at the reduced rate (5%) if the lot remains in the UK.

Bifolium from a large illuminated manuscript of Laurent de Premierfait's French translation of Boccaccio, Des cas des nobles hommes, manuscript on parchment [France or Burgundian Netherlands, second half of fifteenth century] Large bifolium, recovered from a binding and hence with outermost column from one leaf mostly trimmed away, double column of 57 lines of an excellent lettre bâtarde (with parts of book V), complete leaf with a catchword, capitals touched in pale yellow, running titles in red, red rubrics, one 5-line initial 'I' (opening "Ie avoye presque ...", opening of book V, ch. 2) in blue heightened with white penwork, with rinceaux foliage terminating in coloured acanthus leaves and gold bezants in adjacent margin, spots, stains, folds, scuffed areas and cutaway section from edges of leaves through reuse, overall fair and presentable condition, complete leaf 453 by 352mm. Laurent de Premierfait translated both Boccaccio's De Casibus Virorum Illustrium (twice: in 1400, and again in 1409; this here most probably the latter) and the Decameron (c. 1411) for an elite secular clientele who wished to have edifying texts in vernacular French in large and lavishly decorated manuscripts. As P.M. Gathercole notes "If we are to judge by the number and the length of his translations he is the most significant translator of fifteenth century France" ('Laurent de Premierfait: The Translator of Boccaccio's De casibus virorum illustrium', The French Review, 27, 1954, p. 245). The last survey of surviving manuscripts traced sixty-five witnesses (P.M. Gathercole, 'The Manuscripts of Laurent de Premierfait's 'Du Cas des Nobles Hommes', Italica, 32, 1955), to which the Arlima database has added another two. Some forty of these are in institutional ownership in Paris, and only one is recorded there in private ownership (the Wilmerding-Beres copy, last seen in 1950). To these should be added a series of miniatures cut from a lost manuscript of the text (see Butler Rare Books' catalogue for 2021, no. 27). 

‡ Leaf from a manuscript of Alexander de Villa Dei, Doctrinale puerorum, a grammar in Latin verse, on parchment [France, c. 1375] Single leaf, with single column of 30 lines of a rounded and compact gothic bookhand, each line opening with an initial touched in red and set off in margins, many of these preceded by a red paragraph mark, red rubrics and underlining, extensive marginalia in a number of hands, recovered from reuse as a pastedown in a later binding and hence with small holes, stains to edges and some wear (abrasion making some of verso illegible), overall fair and presentable, 198 by 142mm.From the collection of William Chmurny (1941-2013) of Oak Park, IL. and California. Alexander de Villa Dei (c. 1170-1240) was a Norman, who rose to prominence in the University of Paris. The present work was his magnum opus, a Latin grammar, drawing on Priscian and Donatus, entirely set in Leonine hexameters. It was written in 1199 while he was a private tutor to the young relatives of the bishop of Dol. ‡: A double dagger (‡) indicates that the lot is being sold whilst subject to temporary importation and that VAT is due at the reduced rate (5%) if the lot remains in the UK.

Five leaves from an extremely large codex of John of Freiburg, Summa confessorum, in Latin, manuscript on parchment [France, early fourteenth century] Five leaves (including two bifolia), double column of 51 lines of a fine rounded early gothic bookhand, quotations underlined in red, red rubrics, paragraph marks in alternate red or blue, small initials in red or blue with contrasting penwork, 2 larger initials variegated in red or blue with elaborate penwork infill and penwork extensions in margin trailing into long whip-like penstrokes, one catchword at end of partial bifolium, reused on an account book dated 1567 and 1569, some tears, folds, discolouration and small holes, overall fair and presentable condition, each leaf approximately 370 by 290mm. The Dominican theologian, John of Freiburg, composed his gigantic Summa confessorum in the years 1297-8. These works were an extension to the works of Raymond of Pennafort and William of Rennes' gloss on that work. They were very popular in the Middle Ages, and both survive in approximately 170 recorded manuscripts (T. Kaeppeli and E. Panella, Scriptores Ordinis Praedicatorum medii aevi, 1970-93, ii. 430-6 and iv. 152).

Bifolium from a large and handsome Missal, in Latin, decorated manuscript on parchment, in situ on the binding of a manuscript record of a legal dispute in Chalon, Burgundy [central-eastern France (probably Chalon-sur-Saône or vicinity), fifteenth century] Large bifolium, reused as a later limp parchment binding and hence trimmed at top with a probable loss of the upper margin and a line or so there, text in double column of 32 lines of a good and angular late Gothic bookhand, capitals touched in pale yellow, red rubrics, 2-line initials in red or blue, some seventeenth-century scrawls in bas-de-page upside down (so in alignment with manuscript codex within this bifolium), paper pastedowns covering inner sides of parchment leaves, cockling and small holes, else good condition, 280 by 200mm.; enclosing a booklet of 58 leaves of parchment recording the details of a legal dispute in approximately 23 lines of italic hand, occasional armorial inkstamps with motto "Dix sols de Roole Bourgogne et Bresse", this dated September 1689

Two cuttings from an early Liber Pontificalis, in Latin, manuscript on parchment [perhaps Poland, or south-east Germany, tenth century] Single leaf, bisected laterally, with a loss of a few lines at the cut-point, with remains of a single column of 16+13 lines in a rounded late Carolingian minuscule, with frequent use of et-ligature integrally within words, reused as pastedowns in a medieval binding (see below) and much scuffed and with large parts illegible, the parchment now translucent, in somewhat battered condition, 140 by 203mm. and 150 by 203mm. Provenance:1. The localisation of these leaves is based on their reuse in the binding of a fourteenth-century manuscript perhaps from a Dominican chained library in either Poland, south-east Germany or a Polish-German mixed region such as Silesia. Of course, German Dominicans may have brought books with them when founding houses in Poland and its neighbouring regions in the late Middle Ages, but a tenth-century copy of the Liber Pontificalis would be a strange volume for a Dominican house to have sitting in its library (the Order was founded in the thirteenth century), and it seems more likely that the parchment for the pastedowns in the binding was sourced locally in the fourteenth century. If this was in Poland, then these are the earliest records of books from that country (see C.J. Mews, 'Manuscripts in Polish Libraries Copied before 1200 and the Expansion of Latin Christendom in the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries', Scriptorium, 56, 2002, pp. 86-90). Even if the parent volume of these leaves was a book carried in by a German missionary in the twelfth century (for examples see ibid., pp. 96-99), then it would still be among the very earliest physical witnesses to the use of the written word in that country.2. Surviving as pastedowns in the medieval binding of a manuscript of "Sermones Peregrinus de Sanctis", dated 1376 by one of its scribes, Syfridus Goppel, and sold by Frederick Muller and Co., Amsterdam, 3 April 1906, lot 16, and again Skinner's, Boston, 7 November 2013, lot 209, then later Konstantinopel Rare & Fine books, cat. for 2015, no. 6.3. These fragments from the collection of Roger Martin (1939-2020) of Grimsby. Text:The Liber Pontificalis is a collection of biographies of popes from St. Peter up to initially the reigns of Pope Adrian II (867-72) or Pope Stephen V (885-91), but then with later continuations up to the close of the Middle Ages. It seems to have its origins in a sixth-century fleshing out of bare lists of Popes and their regnal years, continued sporadically in the centuries following. Here the cuttings contain the lives of Pope Symmachus (reigned 498-514) and Pope Hormisdas (514-23).

Two leaves from a large English manuscript of Petrus Riga, Aurora, in the first redaction of Aegidius of Paris, in Latin verse, on parchment [England, second half of fourteenth century (c. 1375)] Two single leaves, each with 32 lines in a small and rounded English gothic hand much influenced by secretarial forms (with parts of the text for Exodus, lines 149-212 of that part of the poem, and for I Kings, lines 185-248 of that part of the poem), paragraph marks in red or dark blue, rubrics in red and set off in outer margin with paragraph marks there, running titles in main hand in red, four larger initials in dark blue with ornate red penwork with whip-like extensions in margins, one leaf torn away at extremity of foot (without affect to text, and probably once with a pasted on medieval repair which has since fallen away), the same leaf with tape marks in upper margin from last mounting, a few small spots, else in excellent and fresh condition, each approximately 285 by 198mm. Provenance:1. The large and impressive parent manuscript of these leaves was owned by the Grosvenor family, Dukes of Westminster; their sale Sotheby's, 11 July 1966, lot 229 (when it had 267 leaves but was already missing a gathering and about 13 other leaves).2. Francis Edwards, bookseller, who acquired it in the Sotheby's sale, before removing three damaged leaves that had had their initials cut out, and advertising the rest of the codex in a number of his subsequent catalogues.3. At some time later more leaves were removed from the main codex, or it was completely dispersed, perhaps in North America. One from the collection of Bernard Rosenthal (1920-2017) appeared as Quaritch cat. 1348, Bookhands of the Middle Ages VIII (2007), no. 96, and other leaves now reside in Marquette University in Milwaukee as donations of Dr. and Mrs John Pick, as well as the University of South Carolina, their early MS. 125.4. These leaves from the collection of Roger Martin (1939-2020) of Grimsby. Text:This text, alongside the Bible and the works of Peter Lombard, was one of the fundamental textbooks used in the thirteenth-century universities of France and Italy. The author was a canon of Rheims cathedral, and most probably died in 1209. It is a distillation of the historical passages of the Bible in verse, with a commentary and allegorical discussion. The leaf now in the University of South Carolina importantly reveals that the text here is the first redaction by Aegidius of Paris, composed c. 1200 (see P.E. Beichner, Aurora: Petri Rigae Biblia Versificata, 1965).

Leaf from the gargantuan 'Bohun Bible', with an illuminated initial, manuscript in Latin on parchment [England (East Anglia, perhaps Cambridge), c. 1340] Single leaf, with double column of 22 lines in a rounded English gothic bookhand (with text from Eccesiasticus 24:43-25:28), with significant lateral compression of lines, capitals touched in hairline penwork, running titles and versal numbers in blue and red, 2 one-line initials in burnished gold on blue and rose pink grounds, one very large illuminated initial 'I' (opening "In tribus placitum ...", opening Eccesiasticus 25:1) on bi-coloured blue and rose pink grounds with white penwork and fleshy foliate terminals emerging from head and foot, early folio no. '91' in faded pen at upper outer corner of the recto, original flaws to parchment causing losses to upper and outermost margins, small spots, else excellent condition, 450 by 310mm. The parent volume of this leaf was most probably part of a four volume set, with the first volume perhaps now British Library MS. Royal I.E.IV. On a stylistic basis links have been made between the surviving parts of these volumes and other manuscripts made for the Bohun family, earls of Hereford, whose main estates were in East Anglia (L. Sandler, Gothic Manuscripts, 1285-1385, 1986, no. 132). Other single leaves and collections of leaves in the Bodleian (MS. Bib. Lat.b.4) include ex libris marks of three Early Modern Cheshire families, and these have led to connections being made to the Benedictine Priory of St. Radegund's, Cambridge (suppressed in 1496 to establish Jesus College), and most recently the Carmelite Friary in Chester. The surviving leaves are listed by C. de Hamel in Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts in New Zealand Collections, 1989, pp. 93-95 (but not including the present leaf), and in an updated form extensively discussing their provenance by the same author in 'The Bohun Bible Leaves', in Script & Print, Bulletin of the Bibliographical Society of Australia & New Zealand, 32 (2008), pp. 49-63.

Leaf from a Missal, with a charming decorated initial, in Latin, decorated manuscript on parchment [Low Countries, fourteenth century] Single leaf, with double column of 39 lines in an angular gothic bookhand, capitals touched in red, rubrics and paragraph marks in dark red, initials in alternate dark red and blue, one large initial 'D' ("De ventre matris mee ...") in dark blue with paired 's'-shaped swirls and flowers left in blank parchment, enclosing a blank parchment flowerhead on dark green grounds, and enclosed with red foliate penwork, scrolling red penwork enclosing green dots filling the entire inner margin, original folio no. 'xl', some stains, small cockled areas, scuffs to text in first column on recto, torn inner vertical edge, overall good condition, 290 by 215mm. 

Single leaf from a Homiliary by either Haimo of Halberstadt or Haimo of Auxerre, in Latin, manuscript on parchment [probably Italy, tenth century (perhaps first half or mid century)] Single leaf, with margins trimmed and losses of just the outer edges of a few letters from outer edge of one column, remains of double column of 28 lines in a large and regular late Carolingian hand, with tongued 'e' and occasional use of et-ligature integrally within words, pronounced grain pattern on reverse, recovered from binding and hence with spots, stains, folds, small holes and damage to edges in places, overall fair and presentable condition, 305 by 205mm. Provenance:1. Bernard M. Rosenthal (1920-2017), this his I/194, and here with a copy of the cataloguing by the late Prof. Marvin Colker made for Rosenthal.2. Bernard Quaritch, their cat. 1088, Bookhands of the Middle Ages III (1988), no. 59 (but then two leaves, the other sold to a collector in Queensland, Australia).3. From the collection of Roger Martin (1939-2020) of Grimsby. Text:A fine late-Carolingian leaf, written within a century of the death of the author. This homilary was one of the fundamental collections of homilies and preaching materials known to the Carolingian world. However, while the manuscripts agree that it was the work of a Haimo, this could be either Haimo of Halberstadt (d. 853), who was a monk at Fulda alongside Hrabanus Maurus, Hrabanus' fellow student at Tours under Alcuin of York, and then the bishop of Halberstadt, or Haimo of Auxerre (fl. 840-75), who appears to have studied with the Irish grammarian Murethach and was for a time the abbot of the monastery of Sasceium (Cessy-les-Bois), and who taught at the school of the Benedictine house of Saint-Germain at Auxerre and certainly was the author of many sermons and commentaries on the Song of Songs, Revelations, and the Minor Prophets (see E. Jeauneau, 'Les écoles de Laon et d'Auxerre au IXe siècle', in La scuola nell'Occidente latino dell'alto medio evo, 1972, II:495-522). In 1907 E. Riggenbach demonstrated that the commentaries attributed in the Patrologia Latina to Haimo of Halberstadt were actually the work of Haimo of Auxerre (Die ältesten lateinischen Kommentare zum Hebräerbrief), and since then many of the homilies also there have been tentatively reattributed to him.

Bifolium with the capitula list of a manuscript of Augustine, Soliloquies and Contemplations, in Latin, on parchment [Italy, c. 1400] Two conjoined leaves (second one ruled but left blank), with 37 capitula listed in a rounded Italian gothic bookhand on recto, and 11 more on verso for second text, final 'explicit' and 'Deo gratias' lines in calligraphic hand touched in red, capitals touched in red, paragraph marks in alternate red and blue, red rubrics, nineteenth- or early twentieth-century '278)' in red crayon at outer head of recto of first leaf, each leaf 230 by 175mm. 

Bifolium from a large humanist manuscript of Fazio degli Uberti, Dittamondo, in Italian, on parchment [Italy, mid-fifteenth century] Two conjoined leaves, each with single column of 33 lines of an accomplished humanist hand (with parts of chapters X-XI and XIII-XIV), one large simple initial in pale blue, the text set within an extensive gloss in Italian in smaller script, recovered from the binding of a seventeenth-century book and hence with scuffs, spots, small holes, one corner torn away with loss to gloss there, scrawls and areas of text on outerside abraded and illegible, each leaf approximately 330 by 240mm. Fazio degli Uberti (1305/09-67) was a Florentine in the service of the Visconti, with this, the Dittamondo, his magnum opus. It was composed in emulation of Dante's La divina commedia, as a lengthy didactic poem in which the narrator tells that after a meeting with the allegorical figure of Virtue, he and the Roman geographer Solinus travelled the whole world (here Italy, Greece, Germany, France, Spain, northern Europe, Africa and parts of Asia), with Solinus giving the narrator descriptions of the cities visited. In addition, numerous other snippets of information are added from the works of Pliny the Elder, Isidore of Seville and Pomponius Mela. It remained incomplete on the author's death.While no comprehensive survey of manuscripts exists, it is clear that the text is rare in manuscript, with the Arlima website listing only BnF., italien 81 and Venice, Biblioteca Nazionale, Marciana, Cl. IX, c. XI. To these should be added Turin, Biblioteca Nazionale Universitaria, cod N 1 5; Milan, Biblioteca Nazionale, AC.X.30; and other single volumes in the Biblioteca Riccardiana in Florence, the Biblioteca Angelica in Rome and the university library of Bologna, as well as a fourteenth-century fragment in the Biblioteca Archiginnasio in the same city. The Schoenberg database lists no copy offered for sale since that from the Joseph Martini library, by Hoepli on 27 August 1934 (lot 177 there), with that previously appearing as Sotheby's, 10 June 1918, lot 504.

Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, in Latin, a leaf and a book-board with fragments and offset from a lost leaf, both from a fine humanist manuscript on parchment [Italy, second half of fifteenth century] Fragment of a leaf (trimmed at three outer edges with losses of a few lines at top and bottom and half of outermost column), and a pasteboard with small fragments from other leaves from same parent manuscript still adhering and another page from same remaining in offset ink on the board, the main leaf with remains of double column of 48 lines of a skilled humanist hand (with end of II, quaestio XIX, articulus IV and opening of articulus V), paragraph marks in red, underlining in red, large initials in red or pale green with elaborate red penwork, all recovered from a binding and hence with scuffs, stains and tears, overall fair condition, 233 by 184mm. and 245 by 172mm. The work of Thomas Aquinas (1225-74) and its focus on reason and scholasticism underpins much of Western philosophical thought. This work was his magnum opus and was composed between 1265 and his death as a vast compendium of the teachings of the whole Church. The present copy, while now only a remnant of the parent manuscript, was once part of a grand copy elegantly written in the new humanist script of the late fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. The use of this script denotes the respect shown to this work by the humanists, as well as most probably the wealth and influence of its original owner.

Leaf from a copy of William Durandus, Rationale divinorum officiorum, in Latin, manuscript on parchment [Germany, fourteenth century] Single leaf, reused as a later binding and hence with blank borders trimmed away, with double column of 46 lines in an angular late gothic bookhand with pronounced fishtailing to ascenders and notable lateral compression (with part of book IV, chs. LIV-LVII), capitals touched in red, paragraph marks, running titles and rubrics in red, large initials in simple red or pale pastel blue, and in one case blue with ornate red penwork infill, reused to form a limp parchment flap binding with inscription '16' or '91', small holes, folds, darkened areas and damaged edges, the flap added by attaching another piece of parchment from the margin of another leaf from same parent codex to head of leaf here, overall fair condition, 386 by 228mm. From the collection of Roger Martin (1939-2020) of Grimsby.

‡ Leaf from the Ordinary of a Missal, in Latin, manuscript on parchment [Germany, c. 1500] Single leaf, with double column of 14 lines of a notably large and formal bookhand, capitals touched in red, early folio no. '201', a few small spots and stains, edges darkened, else excellent condition, 349 by 230mm. This appealing script, with its monumentality and profusion of decorative hairline penstrokes, stands at the crossroads between manuscript and the earliest years of commercially viable printing.‡: A double dagger (‡) indicates that the lot is being sold whilst subject to temporary importation and that VAT is due at the reduced rate (5%) if the lot remains in the UK. 

Sixteen cuttings from bifolia from a manuscript of a Latin wordlist based on Balbus' Catholicon, in Latin, on paper [Switzerland (probably north-west, perhaps Fribourg or Geneva), mid-fifteenth century (probably c. 1430-40)] Sixteen near-complete bifolia, trimmed at top and on one side and reused together to pack a series of book bindings or a padded object, each leaf with remains of double column of approximately 42 lines in a small and cramped Germanic bookhand, opening capital of each entry touched in red, each letter of alphabet opening with a large red initial (some with baubles and looping calligraphic letterforms that suggest a Swiss origin), watermark of bunch of grapes (with large grapes arranged around an undulating stem with a curled top similar to Briquet 12,991-13,006, these almost entirely recorded from 1420-60, focussed on Switzerland and to a lesser extent Germany, that here perhaps closest to 12,994: Geneva, 1433, and 12,995: Fribourg, 1445-46, among other places), some holes, scuffs, stains, discolouration through dirt and tears to edges, overall fair condition and on robust and heavy paper, each cutting approximately 210 by 340mm. Johannes Balbus was a Genoese Dominican who finished his Catholicon, a type of Latin dictionary, in 1286. It was widely disseminated and many versions and offshoots from it were produced throughout the later Middle Ages. That here is in a truncated form, and was most probably produced for a specific readership and function.

Substantial remains of a single gathering from a large manuscript of Augustine, De sermone Domini in monte secundum Matthaeum, in Latin, decorated manuscript on parchment [probably Germany, second half of tenth century, or just perhaps c. 1000]  To view a video of this lot, click here.Eight leaves (four bifolia), recovered from reuse in a later binding and reconstructed from cuttings into present bifolia with modern paper filling gaps, each reconstructed leaf with double column of 35 lines of a thin and angular late Carolingian bookhand, with et-ligature used integrally within words, a long tongued 'e', a strong st-ligature and a dotted 'y', bright red rubrics and simple initials (some of these oxidised to silver), where initials begin a line these set off in the margin, all taken from a single gathering with inner two bifolia in that gathering most complete with losses only to outer edges of outermost columns on a single leaf each, and outer two bifolia with large missing sections horizontally across middle of each bifolia, overall with scuffs, stains, traces of glue, missing sections and holes, fair condition, each complete leaf: 360 by 265mm.  The text here, a commentary on the Lord's Sermon on the Mount according to the Gospel of Matthew by Augustine of Hippo (354-430), is of crucial importance as a witness to the early form, or rather forms, of the Bible as used by its author in Early Medieval North Africa. A number of early Latin translations of various Biblical books were in simultaneous use in the region in the late fourth century, with Augustine himself venting his frustration in his epistle 71 on 'the endless diversity of the Latin translators [of the Bible]', that often forced the reader back to the original Greek. Thus, in around 400 he warmly embraced Jerome's new Vulgate text as soon as it became available. However, the commentary here was written in 393 or 394, before that watershed in his writings, and it bears witness to the cacophony of Vetus Latina readings that preceded the Vulgate and were used in the West in the very first centuries of Christianity. The text here contains about a hundred Vetus Latina readings, usually of only a word or two, which indicate a strong reliance on a variety of North African translations (as reconstructed from Cyprian's quotations), as well as less expected readings from non-African codices (such as Vercellensis of c. 400, the fifth-century Veronensis, the sixth-century Bezae Cantabrigensis and sixth-century Brixianus; see J. Mizzi, 'The Latin Text of Matt. V-VII in St. Augustine's, De Sermone Domini in monte', Augustiniana, 4, 1954, pp. 450-94). A handful of these readings survive on the leaves here, including "perceperunt" for Matt. VI:2 and 5 and perhaps also "glorificentur" for Matt. VI:2.The hand here with its delicate letterforms and thin nib have close parallels with that of a leaf from a tenth-century liturgical manuscript from Regensburg, sold in our rooms, 9 December 2015, lot 3.

Fragments of bifolia from a manuscript of Gratian, Decretum, in Latin, on parchment, still in situ on the binding of two volumes of Iosephi Mascardi, Conclusionum Omnium Probationum, Turin: Io. Baptistam Beuilaquam, 1590 [France, late twelfth century] Substantial remains of two bifolia, reused around the spines of two large printed volumes, each leaf with double columns of 43 lines of an excellent early gothic bookhand, glosses added in border and interlineally in tiny script, red rubrics, paragraph marks and chapter nos., simple red initials (often tall and thin, one with a tail that undulates to the base of the border), one large decorated initial formed of parallel bands encased within curling penwork, the rest of the boards covered with leaves from a fifteenth-century French manuscript (apparently on various land estates; some of these leaves lifted and wanting), the whole outer side of boards then tinted with yellow wash, some scuffs, stains, scrawls, small holes and tears, overall in fair and legible condition, each manuscript cutting approximately 350 by 440mm. See also previous lot.

Confirmation by Wiemar, son of Warin, of his father's grant of a garden in his park to the Hospital of St. Leonard in York, manuscript document in Latin, on parchment [England (York), last decades of twelfth century] Single-sheet document, with 11 long lines in an elegant English semi-secretarial hand, some text washed out through old water damage, one corner folded in, one large split at top and another at foot, folds and scuffs, but mostly legible, reverse with 3-line contemporary endorsement, 120+22 x 152mm.; in foolscap envelope with notes and record of Phillipps' number (from Sotheby's sale) From the celebrated collection of Sir Thomas Phillipps (1792-1872), his MS. 40,969; then passing to Lionel and Philip Robinson of W.H. Robinson Ltd., who operated from the same rooms in which this auction is held; sold by Sotheby's 13 April 1981, lot 216(b), to Alan G. Thomas, London bookdealer (1911-92); his posthumous sale in Sotheby's 21 June 1993, lot 11 (part 2), to Martin Schøyen (his MS. 1675/2) and thereafter kept in his London library. Northern English charters of this great antiquity are exceedingly rare, and the witness-list here begins with Hamo, the 'cantor' of York Minster.

Grant by Abbot Peter and the community of the Cistercian Abbey of St. Mary, Woburn of local fields and a mill pond to William de Medmenham, in confirmation of an agreement before the king's court at Westminster, fine monastic charter in Latin, on parchment [England (Woburn, Bedfordshire), dated 1203/04] Large single-sheet document, with 13 long lines in an early English court documentary script, with ornamental elongated ascenders, capitals decorated with penstrokes, modern pencil '2' on turnup, reverse with Early Modern and modern endorsements, some folds and few tiny holes, else in excellent condition, seal tag present, but seal wanting, 120+23 by 170mm. This is perhaps one of only three recorded items from the "Registra, computos, rotulos curiae, cartas originales, etc." of Woburn Abbey that the antiquarian James West informed Thomas Tanner were among the holdings of the Duke of Bedford, with Tanner then reporting this in the 1744 edition of the Notitia Monastica. No part of the archive could be located by G. Scott Thomson in 1933 ('Woburn Abbey and the Dissolution of the Monasteries', Trans. of the Royal Historical Society, 4th ser. 16, pp. 129-60, especially 151-2), and there are indications that the Duke no longer had access to this archive even in the 1740s (ibid., pp. 152-3). Scott Thomson suggests that the charters may have fallen to figures such as one Ralph Starky, who in 1619 who was accused of taking "diverse leger books of diverse monasteries" as well as charters and other documents from the Court of Augmentations on its dissolution, or were left in the custody of the bailiffs of the estate and thus did not pass to the ducal archive at Woburn. Apart from the discovery of this item, the only other charters of the house are British Library, Add. Charter 6026 (a grant to the abbey of the reign of John) and Add. Charter 19932 (a confirmation to the abbey of the time of Henry III), these acquired form the collections of the antiquary G. Baker in 1844 and the 1st Viscount Hatton, respectively. This charter re-emerging in the collection of Ian Woodner (1903-1990) of Manhattan, real estate developer, artist and collector, whose substantial collections passed to his daughters, Dian and Andrea Woodner, and were dispersed by Christie's (this 23 June 1993, lot 32); acquired at that sale by the late Jeremy Griffiths of Oxford, and sold by him to Martin Schøyen (his MS. 1688/1), and thereafter kept in his London library.Woburn Abbey was founded as a Cistercian house in 1145 with monks from Fountains Abbey in Yorkshire. Despite being one of the wealthiest houses in England, little is known in detail or with certainty of its history. Thus the emergence of any record, no matter how small, adds significantly to the history of the house. The last abbot received the oath of supremacy from the royal visitors in 1534/5, but came to regret it, and died soon after conscience-stricken over his cowardice. The house was suppressed in 1547, and the estate was gifted by Henry VIII to John Russell, the first Earl of Bedford. It currently houses the splendid art collection of the Dukes of Bedford. Almost nothing survives from its medieval library, with Ker recording only one extant manuscript (N.R. Ker, Medieval Libraries of Great Britain, 2nd ed., 1964, p. 205: Oxford, Balliol College, 178A, a twelfth-century Florus diaconus) and two incunables (British Library, IB 118, and Cambridge, St John's, Bb.6.17).

Grant by Richard Bowyer, prior of the Augustinian Priory of St. Thomas the Martyr, Baswich, Staffordshire, of land called "Gardenscroft" next to the priory's land, and other estates, to Edmund, Earl of Ferrars, in Latin, manuscript on parchment [England ('Chartley', probably Stowe-by-Chartley, near Baswich, Staffordshire), dated 10 December 1433] Single-sheet document, with 14 long lines in English secretarial script, indentured at head, in outstandingly fresh condition, 159+23 by 275mm., seal tags present with red wax seal of the abbey in pointed oval form showing the priory with an enthroned St. Thomas Becket (compare British Museum seal cast lxxii.41, and that attached to British Library E 329/373 dated 1433), the present one in excellent condition: chipped at edges, but not cracked Provenance: 1. Written for the Augustinian Priory of St. Thomas Martyr, Baswich. The house was founded in 1174 by canons from Darley Abbey in Derbyshire, only one year after the canonisation of its dedicatory saint, Thomas Becket. It received royal patronage in the 1240s and following that came under the protection of the Earls of Ferrers, but the wealth and popularity of the house began to crumble from 1400 onwards and few records survive of the final century of its existence (however, a manuscript codex of Augustinian Observances from the house survives in Cambridge University Library, Add. MS. 3572). The house was dissolved in 1538.2. June O'Donnell (d. 1979) of Guilford, who also owned the Orcadian charters sold in our rooms, 8 July 2020, lot 79, and the English Book of Hours with a particularly dark and menacing Middle English rhyming anathema sold in our rooms, 7 December 2020, lot 66.3. Alan G. Thomas (1911-92), London bookseller (and here with his signed cataloguing); his posthumous sale in Sotheby's, 21 June 1993, lot 11 (part 11), to Martin Schøyen (his MS. 1675/10) and thereafter kept in his London library. Text:A truncated version of the text here was published from a now-lost copy of the charter that was once part of Phillipps MS. 7910 (see F. Parker, 'A Chartulary of the Priory of St Thomas ... Stafford' in Coll. Hist. Staffs, 8:1, 1887, p. 188), but until now the full text has not been known.

Copy of an agreement of William, Lord Fitzhugh, and Abbot John of the Cistercian Abbey of Jervaulx in 1437, concerning a quarrel over land in Feldom, in Latin, large manuscript document on parchment [England (Richmond, North Yorkshire), dated 27 September 1597] Large single-sheet document, with 41 long lines of main text copying the agreement of 1437, plus another 10 lines of endorsement at foot, in an ornamental calligraphic English secretarial hand with capitals, ascenders and descenders with penwork flourishes (the notarial mark in the same hand, at the foot, recording the scribe's name as William Fothergill), reverse with short contemporary endorsement, some small spots, stains and folds, overall in excellent condition, 460 by 470mm.; in foolscap envelope with notes from Sotheby's sale Provenance: 1. Jervaulx Abbey was founded in 1145, and dedicated to the Virgin in 1156. It grew quickly to be one of the great Cistercian houses of medieval England, and in June 1537 its last abbot, Adam Sedburgh, joined the Pilgrimage of Grace and was hanged, with the monastery then forfeit to the king. This early closure during the Dissolution, as well as the blowing up of the building with gunpowder and robbing the roofs of lead, ensured that very little survives of the archive of Jervaulx, and only ten manuscripts from their library can now be traced (N.R. Ker, Medieval Libraries, 2nd ed., 1964, p. 105, all in grand institutions in the United Kingdom or Ireland). The estate of Feldom came to them in the thirteenth century, and was granted by the Crown to Matthew Stuart, 4th Earl of Lennox, alongside the abbey itself in 1540. The present document must be a copy made as part of a subsequent land dispute, proving the abbey's claims to Feldom, and thus also the claims of their legal heirs.2. Sir Thomas Phillipps (1792-1872), this his MS. 40,402; passing after his death to his heirs, and thence to Lionel and Philip Robinson, whose book dealership operated from the rooms in which the present auction is held. Sold as part of the Phillipps' collection in Sotheby's, 13 April 1981, lot 216 (part i).3. Alan G. Thomas (1911-92), London bookseller; his posthumous sale in Sotheby's 21 June 1993, lot, 11 (part 13), to Martin Schøyen (his MS. 1675/12) and thereafter kept in his London library.

Charter of Trubadus, son of Petrus Raimundus, recording his sale of property in Canavels, to John, son of Dominic de Villa, perhaps on behalf of the Church of Olià de Cerdanya, in Latin, manuscript document on parchment [Catalonian Pyrenees (Olià in Cerdanya), dated 27 August 1197] Single-sheet, 21 long lines in the precise southern European early Gothic bookhand of "Encapius ecclesie ulianus canonicus" who attests the document at its foot, with signs and signatures of four canons of the Church of Olià de Cerdanya in same place in different hands, endorsed in Spanish in eighteenth-century hand on verso, good condition on thick and heavy parchment, 260mm. by 160mm.  This is a fine twelfth-century charter from a region of Europe poorly represented in the historical record. Olià is now a small village at the foot of Serrat de Nas, and the church from which this document comes no longer exists.

Grant by Johan de Arcenay and his wife Phelipe, to her paternal relative, Johan Debor Valeit, of their rights and interest in twenty-seven livres of money granted to her, in Old French, manuscript document on parchment [western France (Loudun, dept. Vienne), dated 1277] Single-sheet document, with 20 long lines in a neat and legible early gothic secretarial hand, initial embellished with penwork dots, medieval endorsements on reverse, nineteenth-century precis of details and number "3" added at head of obverse, one small 'V'-shaped cut in middle of text (but without loss to text), remains of seal tag present, but seal wanting, folds and a few spots, else in outstanding condition, 165+14 by 198mm. Early documents in vernacular French are both valuable witnesses of the transactions they record as well as the language they are written in. Before the beginning of the twelfth century only a handful of witnesses to Old French survive, with the works of Chrétien de Troyes (fl. 1160s-1180s) and the chansons de geste part of a blossoming interest in vernacular composition in France. The present document is a securely dateable and localisable record of this, only a century later.

Ɵ Jerome, Commentarius in Sophoniam 3:1-7, in Latin with a few words in Greek, manuscript on parchment [Germany, late tenth or early eleventh century]Single leaf recovered from a binding and hence with losses to blank margins at corners and midpoint, single column of 26 lines of a squat and square Romanesque bookhand, with a tongued 'e', a dotted 'y', a strong st-ligature and a pronounced lean to the right, folds, stains, small holes and discolouration on reverse concomitant with later reuse in binding (but loss of legibility for only 3 lines on reverse), overall fair condition, 260 by 190mm.; in modern cloth-covered binding Provenance: 1. Bernard Rosenthal (1920-2017) of California, his I/214; acquired by him from Joseph Rubinstein of San Francisco in October 1970 (with copy of the late Prof. Marvin Colker's report on the leaf for Rosenthal included here). 3. Quaritch cat. 1147 (1991), no. 80, sold to Martin Schøyen (his MS. 627) and thereafter kept in his London library. Text:This commentary on Zephaniah was written by Jerome between about 390 and 406 AD. It is first recorded in a manuscript of c. 800 (BnF., lat. 10,600) only a century or so before the present leaf.

Papal indulgence for the Hospital at 'Ronceval' (Roncevaux in the high pass over the Pyrenees), in Latin, illuminated manuscript on parchment [southern France/northern Spain (Pyrenees), soon after 9 August 1471] Very large charter, written on a whole sheepskin, with remains of skin from legs at corners and neck at top (this with hole and once used for suspension, suggesting the item displayed on a wall at one time), on 54 long lines in a small and professional secretarial hand, important initial words in main text in liquid gold, blue, burgundy and probably silver (now oxidised to black), two large diapered initials in blue and pink on angular edged gold grounds encased within foliage with coloured seedpods and flower heads as well as gold ivyleaves and bezants, one large and somewhat rustic miniature at head of skin of the enthroned Pope before a host of cardinals handing a sealed document (with the name of Pope Sixtus [IV] on it) to a kneeling tonsured monk all on a tessellated silver-grey floor, below these large coats-of-arms: the crowned arms of France, the papal arms of Sixtus IV with three-tiered crown and large silver keys, and most probably the arms of the Order, contemporary endorsement (presumably by papal notary) at foot, folds, tears to edges, some scuffs, else good and presentable condition, 830 by 570mm. On first inspection one could be forgiven for thinking that the illumination here has been added later, but the metallic parts are oxidised in places in the same fashion as the opening words of some sentences, and we would then have to explain why the scribe left nearly a third of the skin at the head of the page when he began to write. In fact, much here seems rustic or unpolished, including the fact the date given in the document (30 May 1470) is before the beginning of the papacy of the Pope who is named in the miniature and whose arms are atop the document. On that, it seems probable that the grant was initially made by Paul II, and then after his sudden death on 26 July 1471, his successor Sixtus IV (Pope from 9 August 1471) endorsed it and was painted onto the document.This document was not made in the papal curia, and must be a product of the beneficiary, here the hospital at Roncesvalles/Roncevaux (named in endorsement on obverse) high in the Pyrenees on the main pass between southern France and northern Spain (elevation: 1057m./3648 ft above sea level, and now in modern Navarre in Spain). The hospital there was initially a Hospitaller foundation, but from the thirteenth century at least were staffed by a sub-group of the Augustinian Canons Regular known as the Brethren of the House of St. Nicholas and St. Bernard of Monte Jovis (see J. Brodman, Charity and Religion in Medieval Europe, 2009, pp. 116-19, especially n. 63), whose mother-house sat high up in the Great St. Bernard Pass in the Swiss Alps. These monks committed themselves to offering assistance to pilgrims travelling through the mountains (they still offer help to tourists and skiers). Records of their famous dog breed (Saint Bernards) used initially as guard dogs and then to help in searches for lost travellers, survive from the late seventeenth century. The house at Roncevaux was dissolved in 1835, and its goods scattered.Manuscripts from southern France are rarer than their northern peers, and those written and illuminated on top of the Pyrenees far more so. 

‡ Document of the Raad van Vlaanderen, reissuing a long grant of Andries Velle, bailiff, and other officials and men of the villages of Voormezele for estates there and in nearby Dikkebus and Vlamertinge, in favour of Roegier Stutin and others, in Flemish, manuscript on parchment [Flanders (probably Gravensteen in Ghent), dated 8 May 1460] Large single-sheet document, in 78 long lines of a small Flemish secretarial hand, opening words in enlarged calligraphic letters, endorsed on turn up on behalf of the council, slits for seal tag, but no seal tags or seal present, endosements of various dates on reverse, damage to head of document repaired with paper on reverse, folds and slight discolouration overall, else in good condition, 513+98 by 645mm. The 'council of Flanders' emerged gradually as a ruling institution over the region, with Duke Philip II the Bold (1342-1404) attempting to found a permanent court at Lille, but Ghent, Bruges, Ypres and the Brugse Vrije refused to recognise its authority. By 1407 it had consolidated its hold over most of Flanders and was relocated to Ghent and its formal statutes were issued in 1409. It then continued as the highest legal authority in Flanders until 1795, when the Austrian Netherlands were annexed by the First French Republic. Few of its surviving records date from as early as the present document, and the grant here and its reissue are not to be found in J. Butinx, Inventaris van het archief van de Raad van Vlaanderen, 1964-79, but Vormezele is noted in a document of 1497-98 (ibid., no. 27799). ‡: A double dagger (‡) indicates that the lot is being sold whilst subject to temporary importation and that VAT is due at the reduced rate (5%) if the lot remains in the UK.

Three leaves from two manuscripts of the records probably from a Bohemian or Austrian church, in German and Latin, on parchment and paper [Bohemia or Austria, fifteenth century] Three leaves: (a) two leaves from a list of donations to a church, from a manuscript on parchment in German, these with single column of approximately 37 lines in a number of German vernacular hands, recording donors' names and details of their gifts in blocks of text, each entry beginning with a calligraphic initial, some ornamental cadels to uppermost lines of entries, somewhat washed out and hard to read in places, spots and stains, overall fair, 261 by 183mm.; (b) single leaf in German and Latin on thick paper, with similar records mentioning several times Peter Vochs 'zu Prage', Nyclaus Kaum and Nyclus Bom 'zu Gretz' (Graz in Austria), Nyclaus Berg 'zu Neuberg' (probably Neuberg an der Mürz) and Nyclus Wint "Swydinicesis" (Świdnica in Poland), with entries in black and red (black for the German; red for the Latin), double column of 34 lines, rubrics in black sections in red, trimmed at top with loss of a line from one column there, small holes , some discolouration, overall fair condition, 204 by 158mm.These leaves have survived together, perhaps reused in the same later binding together, and may come from the records of a single church, apparently in Bohemia or Austria.

Doctoral diploma issued by the lawyer Nicolo dall'Armi on behalf of the University of Bologna for Jacques Salteur, in Latin, illuminated manuscript on parchment [Italy (Bologna), dated 16 February 1547] Single large document, in 34 long lines of a late humanist hand, plus a 4-line subscription by the notary Lodovico Ale de'Federici of Bologna and a single line by Nicolo dall'Armi in less careful hands, one-line capitals throughout in gold (including those opening each name in witnesses), the name of the beneficiary in one-line blue and gold capitals, the first line in enlarged version of same, space left for opening initial 'I', splashes of ink in places, some folds (causing small textual losses in a few places) and small spots, seal and seal tag torn away probably accidentally, this causing one large tear through middle of foot of document extending two thirds of height, this repaired through laying down on heavy paper, with loss of only a few letters from 5 lowermost lines, overall fair condition, 440 by 580mm. This diploma is unusual as it was granted to a non-Italian. Its beneficiary was Jacques Salteur (1510-78), seigneur de Landaise, de Chatel et de Culoz, in the Ain department of the French alps, who served as a senator in the short-lived Chambéry parliament during the French occupation of Savoy in 1536-59. This document evidently kept in his family archive there, and with a nineteenth-century summary in the corner of the reverse in French. 

‡ Six initials on cuttings, with five humans, including a hunter with a bow and a hare slung over his shoulder, a cat and a finely drawn hunting hound, from two illustrated manuscripts on parchment [France, twelfth century] Six figure initials, each trimmed to edges: (a) fine penwork hound, his fur picked out in lappeting penstrokes, with his torso and front paws through an initial 'O' touched in purple-brown wash, as he turns his head to look at the text behind him, reverse with remains of single column of 8 lines of a good Romanesque hand written with a thin nib, and with a strong ct-ligature, text too slight and obscured to allow identification, mid-twentieth-century "#66" and "ABE" in pencil, initial 42 mm. diameter, whole cutting 70 by 65mm., France, first half of twelfth century; (b) five cuttings from the same manuscript: (i) a hunter cut from an unknown initial, in red robes, leading two dogs by chains and with his bow slung over his shoulder from which hangs a dead hare suspended by its feet, 110 by 75mm., (ii) a 'R' formed by a priest in a red tunic and green and blue robes preaching or blessing two kneeling supplicants (one wearing a pale green robe), the figures linked by a single blue and red acanthus leaf frond, 75 by 77mm., (iii) a 'C' in blue and red enclosing a male saint's bust, he wearing blue robes edged with green with rectangular designs picked out on it, and a pale green halo, this with what is probably a mid-twentieth-century "ABE" on reverse in pencil, 50 by 50mm., (iv) an 'I' formed from a standing saint in green and blue robes, 90 by 125mm., (v) an initial 'I', formed from a stylised lion, rearing up and with foliage emerging from its roaring mouth, on blue, green and grey wash grounds, this with mid-twentieth-century "#66" and "ABE" in pencil on reverse, 95 by 22mm., all apart from hunter with remnants of text on reverse, in good pre-gothic bookhand with capitals stroked with red penwork, that on item (ii) enough to permit identification as from Augustine's Sermo 142 ("... [da]ndo redim[ere. Bonum est ieiunare] fratres; sed me[lius est eleemosy]nam dare. Si quis [sic for 'aliquis'] [utrumque] potest ['facere' inserted here'] [duo sunt bona:] si vero non [potest, melius e]st eleemosynam [dare. Si p]ossibili[tas n]on [fuerit ieiunandi, eleemosyna sufficit sibi sine ieiunio; ieiunium sine elee]mosy[na] ..."), France, mid-twelfth century; all in item (a) here somewhat scuffed, with small stains in places and paper adhering to reverse from previous mounting, overall fair and presentable condition; once framed together and with card mount from that framing with darkened sections showing that they were together in this form for some decades From the collection of Vladimir Gregorievitch Simkovitch (1874-1959), Russian émigré to Germany then America, professor of Economic History at Columbia University, New York. The dog jumping through the initial 'O' here as if it were a hoop is finely executed and suggests Parisian work in its understanding of shading and its use of penwork to create the texture of fur. However, while the other cuttings are more rustic in quality, they also include a rare scene from everyday life: a hunter leading dogs and carrying his bow and a dead hare. The palette, notably the use of vibrant reds alongside dark muted greens finds parallels throughout central and south-western France (see for example W. Cahn, Romanesque Manuscripts, 1996, no. 31 and 26, from south-western France and Tours, respectively). The simplistic facial modelling and the large pupilled eyes are in line with other manuscripts from the same regions, such as the mid-twelfth-century Cartulary of Vierzon (BnF. Lat. 9865: ibid., no. 6). Any examples of drawings of humans of this great antiquity are of significant rarity on the market, while those performing secular tasks such as hunting are almost absent from it.‡: A double dagger (‡) indicates that the lot is being sold whilst subject to temporary importation and that VAT is due at the reduced rate (5%) if the lot remains in the UK.

Two leaves from a Psalter, with a lion and a griffon in the initials, in Latin, illuminated manuscript on parchment [France, early thirteenth century (probably before 1230)] Two leaves, each with single column of 18 lines of an angular early gothic bookhand, with biting curves, lateral compression, and wedged clubbing to ascenders, written above topline, red rubrics, one-line initials in gold on pink and blue grounds, 2-line initials in orange-red or blue on burnished gold grounds, each leaf with one such initial enclosing an exquisitely painted lion or a blue winged griffon who looks back over his shoulder at the text, small scuffs and spots in places, paper adhering in places from last mounting, else in excellent condition, each 165 by 125mm. From the collection of Roger Martin (1939-2020) of Grimsby. Other leaves from the same parent manuscript can be found in Quaritch, cat. 1270, Bookhands of the Middle Ages VI (2000), no. 33; our rooms, 27 October 2011, lot 4; and Pirages, cat. 47, nos. 20 and 49.

Leaf from a Psalter, with a large historiated initial, in Latin, illuminated manuscript on parchment [northern France (probably Rouen), mid-thirteenth century] Single leaf, with a large historiated initial 'C' (opening "Cantate domino canticum ...", Psalm 97), in thin pale pink bars, enclosing a green panel heightened with white circles, enclosing a group of tonsured monks standing either side of an open book on a green lectern and singing, all before a brightly burnished gold ground, the whole initial on blue grounds decorated by rows of red dots, the whole within a gold frame, two other large initials in gold on blue and pink grounds, one-line initials in gold or blue with contrasting penwork, line-fillers in same, paragraph marks in blue or red encased in penwork, single column of 25 lines of a high-grade early gothic bookhand (Psalm 96:7-99:3), with ornamental cadels to lowermost line, one small hole, some folds and scuffs, the large initial and another on reverse rubbed in places, overall fair and presentable condition, 248 by 170mm. Provenance:1. The parent manuscript was most probably produced in Rouen for a Franciscan convent between the years 1235 and 1255: its Litany contains SS. Romanus and Ouen, and has Francis at the head of the confessors. St. Elizabeth of Hungary, canonised in 1235, is in the original hand, but St. Clare, canonised in 1255, is an early addition.2. William Tasker, nineteenth-century American collector; reappearing Sotheby's, 17 June 1997, lot 54, with other books once belonging to him in lots 45 and 63, 67 and 75.3. Andrew Stewart of Gillingham, bookdealer, and offered as individual leaves in his cats. 50, 53, 57 and 60 (1998-2001); another leaf was offered by Maggs Bros., cat. 1283, Illuminations (1999), no. 1.4. This leaf from the collection of Roger Martin (1939-2020) of Grimsby.

Ɵ Two leaves from a large Romanesque Bible, in Latin, manuscript on parchment [northern Italy, late tenth or early eleventh century] Two large single leaves, each with single column of 33 lines in an elegant and quirky Romanesque bookhand (with 2 Kings 22:9-23:14 and 1 Chronicles 1:36-2:38), enlarged initials in same hand set off in margins, a few small erasures with contemporary corrections, slightly darkened at edges, a few wormholes, slightly cockled, else good condition, each leaf 330 by 240mm.; in modern cloth-covered binding (small stains in two places to front cover) Provenance: Quaritch acquired from an American collector in 1993 and then sold to Martin Schøyen (his MS. 1766), and thereafter kept in his London residence. Script:Even though these leaves were recovered from reuse in a binding they are remarkably fresh, with the flesh-side of each the colour of butter. The script is extremely refined, and the scribe's frequent bulging of the base of the bowl of the 'u' to the left is often mirrored by other minims in the word, giving the whole a flowing appearance as if leaning to the right.

Large leaf from a Lectionary, with a large illuminated initial, in Latin, illuminated manuscript on parchment [northern France (probably Paris), c. 1300] Single large leaf, with large initial 'M' (opening "Maria Magdalena a magdalo castro ...", the reading from the Golden Legend for the Feast of St. Mary Magdalene) in fawn and blue, heightened with white circles, enclosing two dragon- and bird-bodied drolleries, with a beaked bird's and a human girl's heads, on burnished gold grounds, the whole initial on blue and fawn grounds within a pale green and red frame, a large red and blue goose-like bird with a green head stretching to peck at a golden bezant atop the initial, and coloured bars descending the entire length of the border terminating in an angular knot of foliage and two sprays of foliage, initials in red or blue with densely curling penwork in contrasting colour, red rubrics, one blue paragraph mark, double columns of 24 lines of an angular gothic bookhand with notable lateral compression, some small scuffs, spots and stains, slight chipping to gold in places, leaf slightly cockled overall, else good condition, 485 by 357mm.; mounted on card in a wooden frame (without glass) From the collection of Jean-Baptiste Colbert de Beaulieu (1905-95), medical doctor, coin collector and author, and honorary research-director of the Centre national de la recherché scientifique: his circular inkstamp on leaf, and note on back of frame evidently in his hand recording details of leaf and that he bought it in Paris in 1937.

Leaf with prayers that follow a Litany, from a Book of Hours with border scenes most probably from the life of St. Alexius, in Latin, illuminated manuscript on parchment [France, mid-fifteenth century] Single leaf, with full borders of acanthus leaves and other coloured foliage terminating in gold ivyleaves and seedpods, these borders with roundels in the vertical margins with small miniatures, the figures identified by hairline white inscriptions in French within the miniatures, single birds in the bas-de-page of both sides, 2-line initials in red or blue on coloured grounds heightened with liquid gold penwork (these enclosing delicately painted human faces), line-fillers in same, text block enclosed on three sides by gold and coloured bars, rubrics in gold, single column of 13 lines of a late gothic bookhand, small spots, else excellent condition, 185 by 145mm.  This leaf is from the same parent-manuscript as a leaf with a scene from the life of St. Alexius that was sold in Sotheby's, 6 July 2000, lot 27, and identified there as in the style of the Coëtivy Master. Other leaves can be found in Ferrini, cat. 1 (1987), nos. 83-5; Maggs Bros., Bulletin 21 (1997), no. 47; at least three leaves sold by C.E. Puckett; and the Jeanne Miles Blackburn collection (see exhibition catalogue of Cleveland Museum of Art, 1999, no. 49, p. 52, that leaf with scenes from life of St. Catherine of Alexandria). The parent manuscript was owned by E. Clark Stillman (1907-95), university professor and cultural attaché of the United States in Belgium, later fellow of the Pierpont Morgan Museum and a partner in the dealership of Lathrop C. Harper. From the collection of Roger Martin (1939-2020) of Grimsby.  

Leaf from a Book of Hours, with a two-faced drollery in the border, in Latin, illuminated manuscript on parchment [France (probably Paris), 1460s] Single leaf with single column of 14 lines of a late gothic bookhand, initials in blue touched with white on gold grounds, line-fillers in same, one decorated border panel of coloured and gilt acanthus sprays enclosing other foliage and fruit, with a fantastical grotesque at its centre formed from a bird body, with the head of a long-horned goat, and a long eared toothy face like a crocodile with a yawning muzzle emerging from its bottom, small spots, else excellent condition, 130 by 98mm. From the collection of Roger Martin (1939-2020) of Grimsby.