Manuscript on parchment (hairside yellow and speckled) of Cicero, Epistolae ad familiares. With Extract from Aulus Gellius, Noctes Atticae III.8.8: Epistula Fabricii et Aemilii consulum ad Pyrrhum regem. The text was copied ca. 1400 and the border decoration added between ca. 1415 and 1431
Description:
In Latin., Script: Written in a neat fere-humanistic hand by a single scribe, below top line., 14 elegant illuminated initials and partial borders at the beginning of each of the 16 books (the opening pages of Books XII and XV have been excised). Initials, 5- to 3-line, blue with white filigree or red with gold filigree on cusped grounds of gold. Most of the illuminated initials filled with bust-length portraits, presumably of Cicero's correspondents, on red, blue or diapered ground. Some initials filled with vine scrolls with trilobe leaves in red with white highlights against gold ground. Partial borders, scrolling vine with trilobe leaves or acanthus in blue, pink, red and gold with white highlights and green, red and blue with gold highlights. Small figures of angels, dressed in green with gold wings in borders or margins, some playing musical instruments, one holding an open book, one holding the cloth of Veronica. Other marginal figures include the "Agnus Dei" and a pelican piercing its breast. The figures are all characterized by white faces, small angled black eyes, and a preference for green and gold, the green with contour lines in gold. Plain initials alternate red and blue. Rubrics throughout., and Binding: Nineteenth century, France (?). Red velvet case with a dark green gold-tooled label: "M. T. Ciceronis Epistolae Ad Familiares MS. in Membranis". Gilt edges.
Subject (Geographic):
Connecticut and New Haven.
Subject (Name):
Cicero, Marcus Tullius.
Subject (Topic):
Illumination of books and manuscripts, Medieval, Latin letters, and Manuscripts, Medieval
Manuscript, poorly organized, on paper of Ceremonial for visiting a dying nun and for the burial, which served in a bilingual female community in Belgium (probably southern Flanders), where the priest, the abbess or the prioress was French-speaking. The devotional contains various psalms, litanies, prayers, hymns, and the Athanasian Creed
Description:
Script: Copied by four hands: A) writing in Gothica Hybrida Libraria; B) writing in Gothica Semihybrida Libraria/Currens; C) writing in Gothica Cursiva Libraria/Currens; D) writing in a small Gothica Cursiva Currens. A) and B) are the principal hands. Musical notations are found in nota quadrata on 4-line black staves., Decoration: Appears only in red: hadings, underlining, stroking of majuscules, line-fillers, 1-line versals and 1- to 2-line plain initials., Binding: Original Flemish blind-tooled brown calfskin over wooden boards, sewn on three leather thongs. Both covers have frames of triple fillets. Remnants of a brass clasp are fixed to the front board. Red leather tabs preserved. Seems to have been chained at the lower edge of the front board., and In Latin, French and Dutch.
Manuscript on parchment of a calendar in Latin, one page for each month, based on luni-solar computistical data
Description:
In Latin., Script: Copied in Northern Gothica Textualis Formata using only “box”-a., Decoration: Red rubrics; occasional crossing in red of abbreviations such as “epi”, “mr”, “virg”; occasional yellow heightening of majuscules written in black ink; and “KL”-abbreviations treated as 4-line dentelle initials., and Binding: None.
Manuscript fragment on parchment of an antiphonary containing unidentified chants and Holy Saturday, lauds
Description:
In Latin., Script: written in gothic script (littera textualis formata)., and Decoration: the 4-line initial "U" is in blue and red; some of the sketched flourishes outside of the letter have been traced in red and filled with green; inside the letter a floral pattern has been sketched and partially completed; the 2-line initial "O" is red with sketched flourishes only partially completed and filled with green; rubrics in red in the same script as the text; quadrata notation is in black on a 4-line staff in red; punctuated with the punctus.
Manuscript fragment on parchment of a book of hours (litanies) including a litany that includes the following saints: Gereon and companions, Cosmas, Damian, Fabian, Sebastian, Gervase, Protase, Crispin, Crispinian, Chrysogonus, Leodegarus, Lambert, Christopher, Thomas, Demetrius, Blaise, Livinus, Firminus, Silvester, Gregory, Leo, Hilary, Martin, Nicholas, Augustine, and Ambrose
Description:
In Latin., Script: written in gothic script (littera fere bastarda)., and Decoration: each line begins with a 1-line initial "S" in gold on alternating grounds of red and blue; the names of the saints are written on the same line as "Or[a pros nobis]" but are separated from it by line fillers or alternating bands of red and blue decoraed with gold penwork; there is no punctuation.
Manuscript fragment on parchment of a book of hours (Office of the Dead).
Description:
In Latin., Script: written in two sizes of gothic script (littera textualis formata), with a larger script for the canticle and Psalm and a smaller script for the chants., and Decoration: the 2-line initial at the beginning of the Psalm and the 1-line initials at the beginning of Psalm verses are in gold on a ground that alternates between red with blue penwork and blue with white penwork; the interior of letters on the red ground are filled with blue and white penwork, and the interiors of those on blue ground are filled with red and blue penwork; 1-line initials at the beginning of chants are in brown; rubrics written in red in the same script as the text; punctuated rarely with the punctus; hyphenation is in the same ink as the text.
Manuscript on parchment of a Book of Hours with prayers in Dutch. The manuscript is misbound
Description:
In Dutch and Latin., Script: Written in liturgical gothic bookhand by a single scribe. 3-, 2-, and 1-line initials with very fine penwork: gold with dark blue penwork or blue with red penwork. 1-line initials within the text black with one or two red strokes. Line fillers: blue cables. Rubrics in orange-tinted red., Water damage on ff. 8v, 38v and 39v has obliterated some initials; the text is still legible., and Binding: Date? Bookblock tacked to a vellum folder. The light rectangular patch on the front cover, lower left, was probably left by the removal of a shelf tag.
Subject (Geographic):
Connecticut and New Haven.
Subject (Name):
Catholic Church
Subject (Topic):
Books of hours, Illumination of books and manuscripts, Medieval, and Manuscripts, Medieval
Manuscript on paper containing 1) Instructions for a nun, addressed as "ma devote fille", by a priest, containing extensive Latin quotations, followed by their French translations, from the Bible, St. Augustine, St. Bernard, Cesarius of Arles, St. Gregory the Great, Isidore of Seville, St. Jerome, St. John Chrysostom, Macrobius, Origen, Richard of St. Victor ("ung docteur nommé Richart"), Seneca, Thomas Aquinas. 2) The Passion according to the Gospel of St. John, as read in the office of Good Friday (Jn. 18:1-40; 19:1-42), to be read when a nun is dying, in French translation
Description:
In French., Script: Copied by one hand in Gothica Cursiva Libraria/Currens., Watermark: Crowned Lily, var. Briquet 7252 (mostly 1468-1477)., Written in campo aperto in one column, 20-23 lines., Headings and stroking of majuscules in red., and Binding: Nineteenth century. Blue mottled paper over cardboard.
Subject (Geographic):
Connecticut and New Haven.
Subject (Topic):
Didactic literature, French, Manuscripts, Medieval, Women, and Religious life
