Leaf from a Mammoth Lectern Bible

Notes:

Leaf was excised from a larger manuscript., On recto: in the middle of outer column there is a single five-line initial "h" in blue with red penwork details infilled with blue and red pen florishes, and red and blue decorations trailing up and down the column. Larger versal initials are sometimes tipped in ochre wash. Above the initial, running head "TE" alternating red and blue. On verso: The running head "DEV" (Deuteronomy) appears at the top of the page. Minor cuts to the outer edges of the leaf., Manuscript leaf from a Bible written in Latin during the 13th century, containing text from Deuteronomy 5:22-6:25., 2 column of 33 lines, ruled in plummet in Littera Gothica Textualis Formata with lateral compression., and Flanders or South Netherlands, possibly Tournai. Probably broken by Erich von Scherling (Scherling, 102; History of Western Script, 55). Von Sherling’s source seems to have been a bound fragment of leaves from Leviticus 3 to Judges 2. It must have been volume 1 of a 4 volume Bible, of which, 2-3 appear to be Brussels, Bibliothèque royale, MS II.2523, and volume 4 may be Los Angles, J. Paul Getty Museum MS Ludwig 1.9. The Brussels volumes had belonged to Sir Thomas Phillipps, who bought them in the late 1820s with the residue of the library of St Martin in Tournai, noting ruefully that the first volume had been sold in his absence and “destroyed by a bookseller at Brussels” (Phillipps, Catalogus Librorum Manuscriptorum, 1837, entry for MS 2011; A. N. L. Munby, Phillips Studies, III, 1954, 22, n. 1; C. de Hamel in Migrations, Medieval Manuscripts in New Zealand, ed. Hollis and Barratt, 2007, 42-3). The first item in the catalogue of St Martin’s abbey in Tournai in 1615 was ‘Biblia 4. Voluminibus” (Sanderus, Bibliotheca Belgica Manuscripta, 1, 1641, p. 91). The leaf was eventually sold by Swann Galleries (New York, 22 March 1990) as part of lot 75 to the celebrated manuscript collector, Martin Schøyen, in whose collection it was catalogued as Schøyen MS 82 (History of Western Scripts, 102).

Data Provider:

Western Michigan University. Libraries

Subject Topic:

Manuscripts, Latin (Medieval and modern), Manuscripts, Medieval--England, Bible. Latin--Versions--Vulgate, Textura (Gothic script), Decorated initials, and detached leaves

Language:

lat

Rights:

Copyright 2019 Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, Michigan, all rights reserved. The digital version is available for educational use under 'Fair Use' guidelines. For additional permission and further information contact the WMU Libraries.

URL:

https://luna.library.wmich.edu/luna/servlet/detail/WMUwmu~77~77~1222495~160206