Ɵ Leaf from an Atlantic Bible with a large white vine initial, text from Job 1:1-4; 1:7-3:2 with prologue of St. Jerome, in Latin, decorated manuscript on parchment[Italy (Tuscany), first half of the twelfth century] Large cutting from lower part of a once vast leaf, with a large initial 'V' ("Vir erat in terra ...", the opening of Job) in pale red and blank parchment band, intertwined with and enclosing a swirling mass of thin acanthus leaf sprays on pale pastel blue, red, dark green, beige/yellow, brown and perhaps once silver grounds (the latter now oxidised and crystalline with areas of metallic sheen), red and black tall ornamental capitals opening text, remains of double column of 25 lines in a bold proto-gothic bookhand, showing many earlier features such as a ct- and NT-ligature and a 'r' that descends below the baseline, torn at edges, some spots and stains, darkened on reverse, but overall a good initial in bright condition, 300 by 230mm.; in cloth-covered card binding, with Bernard Rosenthal's cataloguing Provenance: 1. Erwin Rosenthal (1889-1981), of Berkeley, California, art historian and antiquarian bookseller; personal gift to his son Bernard Rosenthal (1920-2017) in 1956, "to encourage me in the formation of this collection".2. Quaritch cat. 1147, Bookhands of the Middle Ages V, 1991, no. 12.3. Schøyen Collection, London and Oslo, their MS 668, acquired from Quaritch in June 1990. Decoration:The initial here, with its thin white vine branches that cross the body of the initial in several places, compares closely to other Tuscan examples, such as those in a Passional, probably made in the second quarter of the twelfth century in San Gimignano (now San Gimignano, Bibl. Comunale, cod,1: K. Berg, Studies in Tuscan Twelfth Century Illumination, 1968, fig. 66), another Passional, made in the second quarter of the twelfth century in Florence (Florence, Laurenziana, Mugel. 13: Berg, fig. 74) and a copy of Augustine's commentary on the Gospels, made in Siena in the first half of the twelfth century (Siena, Bibl. Comunale, F.I.2: Berg, fig. 461). However, none of those employ silver alongside their pastel palettes. Silver is notoriously difficult to use in book arts, but had enjoyed some popularity in the Carolingian centuries, and appears in occasional grand Romanesque volumes (cf. the Genesis page of the Bible of St. Mary de Parc which has silver beast masks at its corners and silver interlace around the main initial: reproduced in W. Cahn, Romanesque Bible Illumination, 1982, fig. 90).
