Manuscript fragment on parchment bifolium (thick) of Passion of St. Bartholomew (25 August). Text is continuous
Description:
In Latin., Script: Written in neat but somewhat uneven Beneventan script. Passages added in cramped text hands, (ca. 1250), in lower margins, f. 2r-v., Leaves trimmed with some loss of text along upper and outer margins; portions of f. 2v illegible due to paste and offset impressions of leather turn-ins and wooden boards., and Bifolium used as flyleaf and pastedown.
In Latin with some Dutch headings., Script: Copied by one Northern scribe writing Southern Textualis Formata (Rotunda) with some Humanistic features (Capital A, straight d alternating with Gothic d)., Headings in red. Lavish decoration in Ghent-Bruges style. Rectangular line-fillers in red, blue, green and gold. Trompe-l'oeil initials (1 line, 2 lines, 3 lines (rarely), 5 lines) consist of twisted branches in mat gold projecting shadow on a square background in red, blue or green. Full-page miniatures are painted on the verso of inserted singletons and are framed by four-margin borders which have their counterpart on the facing text page. Text miniatures (height: 7-8 lines) are painted in regular quires and are accompanied by four-margins, mostly floral borders., and Binding: Partly original binding in blind-tooled brown calf by the Bruges binder Ludovicus Bloc (1484-1529). The original binding is inset in brown morocco by F. Bedford (?) On each cover a panel with eight animals in tendrils, surrounded by the inscription in Roman Capitals "Ob laudem Christi librum hunc recte ligavi Ludovicus Bloc", is stamped four times; between the upper and the lower panel imprints is a five-compartment frieze containing animals. On the modern blind-tooled spine gold-tooled modern inscriptions "HORAE / B.V.M. / TORNACENSIS" and "MS./ BRUGES / C. 1520". Gilt and gauffered edges. White parchment endleaves.
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 parchment a Book of Hours, use of Rome, notable for its elaborate cycle of illumination; with a full calendar in French
Description:
In Latin and French., Script: Written in a gothic book hand by a single scribe., Large miniatures, facing text pages, and Calendar pages are in architectural frames, gold with red and blue panels; the frames of the miniatures are inscribed with the opening words of the text along the lower edge. A few small miniatures (14- to 6-line) are inserted in the text. Historiated borders in outer and lower margins, framed by red and gold columns and/or a red and gold bounding line; upper border, a thin panel, either pink with gold filigree and gold foliage, or flowers and acanthus on gold and parchment grounds., The series of 12 Sibyls on ff. 51v-61v are accompanied by texts on scrolls in the lower border (except f. 56v), most of which correspond to the set used in the painted decoration of the Roman palace of Cardinal Giordano Orsini (d. 1438). The texts in MS 411 are often garbled and misspelled. On the page facing each Sibyl, or on the same page (f. 56v and f. 61v) are border scenes from the life of Christ, to which the prophecies are supposed to refer, and appropriate biblical passages on a scroll in the lower border., and Binding: Twentieth century. Dark blue velvet case. Bound by J. Greenfield in the Yale Conservation Studio, 1984-85.
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 fragment on parchment of a passionary containing two lives of St. Cassian
Description:
In Latin., Script: written in Beneventan script., and Decoration: the Prudentius life is written in poetic stanzas; six-line decorated initial is outlined in brown; 1-line initials are brown uncials; punctuated with the punctus, punctus elevatus, and punctus versus.
Manuscript on parchment of a Book of Hours with Calendar (rather empty) and headings in French
Description:
In Latin., Script: Written in formal batarde script; ff. 238r-241v in a different hand than the preceding folios, but probably almost contemporary., Thirteen undistinguished historiated initials (6-, 4-, and 3-line), ca. 1460-70, blue or pink with white highlights on brown grounds with gold highlights. Six other initials (ff. 13r, 17r, 27r, 107r, 155r, and 195r) enclose carefully studied flowers. Scatter and compartmentalized borders of average quality added later, ca. 1480-1500, for the most part to pages with historiated or flower initials, similar to borders in manuscripts of the "Ghent Associates"; the majority with acanthus branches, flowers, and birds, or flowers alone scattered on backgrounds of pink, bright blue, slate blue, gold and/or black, or flowers set within a lattice of twigs, the diamonds so formed alternately pink and blue (f. 123r) or green, pink and blue (f. 238r). Three borders (ff. 27v, 69v, and 136v) with thistles, brown and blue or brown and green, touched with gold, arranged in a wallpaper-like pattern over grounds of slate-blue or red cross-hatched with lines in a darker shade of the same color. In the border on f. 107r, a grotesque with the torso of a man and the hind legs of a large cat; on f. 185r the same, holding a bow., 2-line initials in gold on pink and blue with white highlights, except on ff. 238r-241v, gold on blue and brown with white highlights. 1-line initials in blue with red penwork, or gold with black penwork, or black with a red stroke; a few spaces for such initials have not been filled. In the text, headings and marks for antiphons in red; in the calendar, headings for months, dates, and important feasts also in red. Line-fillers: two oblique lines, blue or gold, with dots attached., and Binding: Eighteenth century. Brown calf. Paste-decorated edges. Rebacked. Spine stamped with gold leaves and the words "GETEY BOEK".
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 (watermarks trimmed; unidentified) of various prayers
Description:
In German and Latin., Script: Text written in formal gothic by one scribe. Prayers added on the flyleaves, front and back, by several later hands in italic of the 17th century and later. 2- and 1-line initials in blue-grey or orange-tinted red. 1-line initials within the text, with red stroke. Extensive rubrication in orange-tinted red., and Binding: 16th-17th centuries. Sewn on three single, round, vegetable fiber cords laced into wooden boards. "Made" endbands glued on and extending onto the outer face of the boards. Red edges and numerous place marks of vellum or tawed skin on the fore-edge. The spine rounded and lined. Covered in dark brown calf with two brass catches on the upper board and brass clasps hinged to the lower. The lower board is detached and one clasp and some leather at head and tail of the spine are wanting.
Subject (Geographic):
Connecticut and New Haven.
Subject (Name):
Augustinians. and Catholic Church
Subject (Topic):
Manuscripts, Medieval, Monasticism and religious orders, and Prayers
Manuscript on parchment of Book of Hours printed in Paris, Thielman Kerver for Guillaume Eustace, 20 June 1500. The illuminated leaves, from a Book of Hours for the use of Rouen, between 1475 and 1500, were inserted into the printed Book of Hours before the present-day binding was made (ca. 1600).
Description:
In Latin., Script: Copied by one hand in Northern Gothica Textualis Formata., Decoration: Headings in red. Heightening of majuscules in yellow. Rectangular line-fillers decorated with red, blue and gold; 1-line dentelle initials; 2-line foliate initials; 4-5 line historiated initials (artt. 3 and 14); arch-topped miniatures (described above) above 3-4 lines of text, accompanied by 3- or 4-line foliate initials. The pages containing miniatures or historiated initials have full flower and acanthus borders, which may contain additional scenes or grotesques (see artt. 2, 4, 5, 11, 12). The woodcuts are coloured by hand throughout the book. Text pages containing a 2-line foliate initial have outer-margin or inner- and outer-margin borders (the latter on ff. 42 bis r and 64r)., and Binding: Red morocco similar to that of Beinecke MS 662.
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 parchment of Book of Hours, with Full calendar in French
Description:
In Latin and French., Script: Written in elegant batarde., Fourteen full-page miniatures in elaborate architectural frames, gold, with marbelized columns on plinths capped with a lintel or arched, scalloped or triangular pediments, with swags and putti. Twenty-five small miniatures, 13- or 12-line, in black and gold frames, one, f. 106v in a gold and magenta arched frame. Calendar with twenty-four small miniatures in upright rectangular brown and gold frames in outer margin; occupations of the months on rectos, signs of zodiac on versos. 6-line initials with full-page miniatures, blue curling scrolls filled with red, blue and green flowers against gold or gold flowers against red; red and gold grounds with gold filigree. 3- to 1-line initials, gold, against red or blue grounds. Line-fillers and KL monograms in the same manner. Feasts alternate red and blue, with important feasts in gold. Rubrics throughout., and Binding: 18th-19th centuries. Brown calf, gold-tooled, in a reddish-brown gold-tooled box lined with a paste paper. Traces of two fastenings.
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 parchment of a Psalter, with astrological notes, a Calendar, and other litanies and prayers
Description:
In Latin., Written by two scribes in tiny gothic textura. Scribe 1: ff. 2v-91v; Scribe 2: ff. 91v (last folio of quire 8)-95v. Several later hands have added scribbles, prayers, and inscriptions on ff. 1r-2r, 10r, 95v, 96r, 97v, 98r, 99r., Small (6-line) and rather crude historiated initials. The initials for Ps. 52 (the Fool) and Ps. 109 (the Trinity) are missing. In each initial, the figure drawn in black and colored pink, green, and/or blue on a gold ground; the initials attached to cusped, tapering bar border, blue, red, and gold, with white highlights, with ivy terminal, black with red and green leaves. Gold and blue calligraphic initials (2-line), with blue and red penwork respectively; 1-line initials, alternating red and blue. KL monograms, gold on red and blue, with white highlights. Because the initial I was placed in the margin without an inset space in the text, the illuminator often missed it (e.g., for Ps. 70 on f. 42r; for Ps. 113 on f. 62r, and for Ps. 125 on f. 68v)., and Binding: 15th-16th centuries. Resewn on three two-layered tapes of tawed skin attached to wooden boards. The endband cores are of tawed skin with a tawed skin braid at the head, a new endband added at the tail. The spine is square and the cover adhered to it. Covered in tawed skin, originally pink, with corner tongues. Cover repaired at spine and two corners and two silver clasps added. In a flexible grey leather pouch.
Subject (Geographic):
Connecticut and New Haven.
Subject (Name):
Catholic Church
Subject (Topic):
Astrology, Illumination of books and manuscripts, Medieval, Manuscripts, Medieval, and Psalters