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SCRIPTURE
Hitda Codex
Darmstadt, Universitäts- und Landesbibliothek Darmstadt, MS 1640
A masterpiece of manuscript production in Cologne in the Ottonian era, the Hitda Codex is a Christian Gospel book with twenty-two full-page miniatures rich in detail and painterly drama. The sumptuous book was produced around 1000-1020. Its extensive series of images of the life of Christ paired with monumental full-page framed moralizing inscriptions is unique in the history of manuscript art.
The book presents the four Gospel accounts of the life of Christ, preceded by a series of explanatory prefaces and canon tables and followed by a capitulary. The miniatures include a dedication image depicting the patron, Abbess Hitda of Meschede.
€ 4,980 € 8,900
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TREATISES / SECULAR BOOKS
Laon Computistical Miscellany
Laon, Médiathèque Suzanne-Martinet, MS 422
This is a handsome manuscript of texts for understanding the reckoning of time and identifying the constellations, which opens with On the Nature of Things by Saint Isidore. Added to this core, which dates from the second quarter of the ninth century, are excerpts from Isidore's Sentences concerned with righteous human behavior and other texts, some copied as late as the end of the century. The computistical texts boast more than sixty colored diagrams and drawings.
€ 2,400
New Copies Available
TREATISES / SECULAR BOOKS
Treatise on Arithmetic and Geometry by Filippo Calandri
Florence, Biblioteca Riccardiana, MS Ricc. 2669
The manuscript was copied and illuminated in the last quarter of the fifteenth century, patronized by Lorenzo de' Medici, "the Magnificent." It was surely intended for the edification and enjoyment of one of his sons, Giovanni or Giuliano. This luxury object offers a glimpse of the practical side of doing business in fifteenth-century Florence.
The illumination includes a full-page portrait of Pythagoras; eighteen pages of elaborated painted multiplication tables; an incipit page with a fully painted border; and eighty unframed vignettes of varying size and complexity, some filling as much as three-quarters of a page.
€ 1,450 € 3,900
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MEDICINE / SCIENCE
Medical and Herbal Miscellany
London, British Library, MS Sloane 1975
The Medical and Herbal Miscellany is a collection of texts, most purporting to be of ancient Greek or Roman authority, that focus on the healing properties of plants and animal substances. Copied and illuminated in England or France, it dates from the 1190s. It is a handsome book, with framed miniatures that all feature some silver and/or gold. More than 200 column miniatures picture the sources for the medicines, and four larger miniatures show medical procedures.
€ 5,980 € 6,800
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ASTRONOMY / ASTROLOGY
Boulogne Aratea
Boulogne-sur-Mer, Bibliothèque municipale des Annonciades, MS 188
The Boulogne Aratea is a Carolingian illuminated handbook of the constellations preceded by a calendar. It was made around 1000 presumably at and for the abbey of Saint-Bertin in St.-Omer. Forty-one framed miniatures embellish its Latin poetic description of the make-up and relative positions of the constellations. Most depict configurations of stars as animals, humans, and objects on bright blue grounds.
Two pages are entirely occupied by a celestial planisphere and a circular planetary diagram, respectively. Lively personifications of constellations, planets, and months populate these images.
€ 2,490 € 2,770
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ASTRONOMY / ASTROLOGY
Ulugh Beg's Book of the Constellations
Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, MS Arabe 5036
Ulugh Beg's Book of the Constellations is a beautifully illuminated copy of the most influential Arabic-language treatise on the constellations of the northern and southern skies. The manuscript was copied around 1430-1440 for the library of the Timurid sultan, Ulugh Beg, presumably within the circle of his court at Samarqand. The ninety-three unframed illustrations of star patterns are remarkable for their delicacy and scientific accuracy.
The human, animal, and hybrid figures and the various objects that embody the constellations are rendered in delicate line drawings with washes of blue, red, brown, and a pinkish flesh tone on the white paper.
€ 5,980 € 6,850
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APOCALYPSES
Illuminated Apocalypse of Lyon
Lyon, Bibliothèque municipale de Lyon, MS 439
MS 439 of Lyon presents the Christian biblical Apocalypse, Saint John the Divine's vision of the end of time, as a series of forty-eight full-page miniatures accompanied by Latin verse inscriptions. It was made in northeastern France—perhaps Cambrai or Arras—around 1450.
Its paintings are the work of the Master of the Missal of Paul Beye. It stands apart from the long tradition of illuminated English and French Apocalypses for its paintings' full-page format and iconographic inventiveness.€ 2,280 € 2,408
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APOCALYPSES
Apocalypse of Saint-Victor
Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, MS lat. 14410
The Apocalypse of Saint-Victor is a lavishly illuminated manuscript of Saint John the Divine's vision of the events leading to the Last Judgment. The manuscript was created in Normandy in the 1320s and draws on the pictorial treatment of John's vision developed in England in the second half of the thirteenth century. Its eighty-three miniatures visualize the various characters, including the majestic Christ of the Second Coming, and the calamitous events described in John's text.
With a miniature at the head of every page, each occupying at least half of the page, the Apocalypse of Saint-Victor is more about its paintings than its text. The episodes unfold relentlessly in brilliant color and precious metals as the viewer turns the book's pages.
€ 2,490 € 2,705
New Copies Available
APOCALYPSES
Toulouse Apocalypse
Toulouse, Bibliothèque d'Etude et du Patrimoine, MS 815
Named after its current home, the Toulouse Apocalypse is a magnificent manuscript of the Christian biblical book of the Apocalypse. Made in England—probably London—around 1330-1340, it is a significant example of the Anglo-Norman tradition of Apocalypse illumination. The manuscript boasts one nearly full-page miniature and 120 smaller miniatures, making it one of the most extensively illustrated examples of the genre.
While the patronage of the codex is unknown, its captivating visual cycle offers insight into the transformations in luxury book ownership and patronage in the late Middle Ages.
€ 2,350 € 2,625
New Copies Available
DEVOTIONAL BOOKS
Carrow Psalter
Baltimore, Walters Art Museum, MS W. 106
The Carrow Psalter is a psalter-hours designed for use in the private devotions of a Christian layperson. Made in East Anglia around 1250-1260, it is named for the nunnery where the book was kept in the fifteenth century.
Its twenty-six full-page miniatures and twelve historiated initials are fine expressions of English Gothic manuscript art, all featuring backgrounds of burnished gold leaf. Most remarkable is the opening initial of the section of the biblical psalms, which features scenes from the life of Saint Olaf.
€ 3,980 € 7,000
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DEVOTIONAL BOOKS
Hours of Cardinal Carafa
Vatican City, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, MS Vat. lat. 9490
The Hours of Cardinal Carafa is a Christian prayer book written entirely in gold and silver on purple-dyed parchment, a tour-de-force of luxury book production. It was written and illuminated by one of the most celebrated scribes of fifteenth-century Italy, Bartolomeo Sanvito, around 1470-1480 in Rome, presumably for Oliviero Carafa. Its illumination includes a full-page image of the Carafa family coat of arms and full-page miniatures of the Nativity of Christ and King David in Prayer..
€ 2,180 € 4,300
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DEVOTIONAL BOOKS
HM Prayer Book
Baltimore, Walters Art Museum, MS W.425
The HM Prayer Book is a collection of splendidly illuminated leaves from a Christian book of hours made for a patron or patrons with the initials HM, which are given elaborate treatment in the book. The small book from which the pages derive was created around 1520-1530, perhaps in Brussels. Its illumination is the work of a follower of the Master of Charles V and include fifteen full-page miniatures, eight three-quarter-page miniatures, and twelve half-page calendar illustrations depicting everyday activities through the months. The elaborately painted borders—many with illusionistic fleshy acanthus vines, flora, birds, and other creatures—are a characteristic feature of manuscript art of early sixteenth-century Flanders.
€ 2,750 € 3,900
New Copies Available
CARTOGRAPHY
Portolan Atlas of Pietro Vesconte
Vienna, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, Cod. 594
Made in Venice, the Portolan Atlas of Pietro Vesconte of 1318 is the earliest surviving European atlas of nautical charts. It is a remarkable object for its format of parchment sheets affixed to thin wooden tablets creating stiff pages that are turned in the manner of the leaves of a book. It comprises ten sheets (about 19 cm square), each folded when the "book" is closed. The first sheet is a calendar diagram; there follow nine nautical maps, charting the coasts of the Black Sea, the Mediterranean basin, and the Atlantic coast of Europe as far north as Scotland.
€ 2,100 € 2,480
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LITERATURE
Riccardiana Virgil
Florence, Biblioteca Riccardiana, MS Ricc. 492
The elegant manuscript known as Riccardiana Virgil contains three main works of Vergilius Publius Maro: the Eclogues, the Georgics, and the Aeneid. The illuminator, Apollonio di Giovanni, decorated the book for the court of the Medici or for a family close to the Medici.
A Renaissance manuscript of extreme interest, this codex displays illuminations in which Aeneas' journey unravels in the splendid Florence of the time of Lorenzo il Magnifico.
€ 4,500 € 8,900
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LITERATURE
Erlangen Epistle of Othéa
Erlangen, Universitätsbibliothek, MS 2361
Created in the Burgundian Netherlands around 1460, the Erlangen Epistle of Othéa is an illuminated copy of a moralizing text by the prolific French author Christine de Pizan. A member of the ducal court, probably the reigning duchess or her son, commissioned the lavish manuscript.
The manuscript's 103 miniatures are in semi-grisaille (with the figures and their settings in shades of gray, the sky a bright blue, and details in gold). They are attributed to Willem Vrelant and his workshop.
€ 4,980 € 9,500
New Copies Available
LITERATURE
Paris Epistle of Othéa
Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, MS fr. 606
Made in 1407-1408 in Paris, the Paris Epistle of Othéa manuscript is one of five codices of Christine de Pizan's works prepared under her supervision for Louis, Duke of Orléans, to whom the manuscript's text is dedicated.
Louis, however, was assassinated before the manuscript's completion, and it found itself in the library of the greatest collector of luxury manuscripts of his time, John de France, Duke of Berry. Its 101 miniatures illustrate the book's moralizing text in the voice of Othéa, the goddess of Prudence.
Available for Preorder
*New Copies Available from Autumn 2024
MUSIC
Pelplin Gradual
Pelplin, Biblioteka Diecezjalna, MS L13
The Pelplin Gradual is an essential witness to Christian Latin chant for the sacrament of the Mass from eastern Europe. It was made at and for the Cistercian monastery at Pelplin in the second half of the fourteenth century.
Its contents include the chants for most feast days throughout the year, notated in the characteristic Hufnagel notation used east of the Rhine River. Its painted decoration comprises ten historiated initials and three marginal scenes, including some with unusual and intriguing subjects.
€ 8,400 € 10,000
New Copies Available
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Photo: Apocalypse of Saint-Victor