Lot 59

Alulfus of Tournai, De Expositione Novi Testamenti, and St. John Chrysostom, De Compunctione Cordis, in Latin, decorated manuscript on vellum [Italy (Piacenza), c.1200]

Estimate

30,000 - 50,000 GBP

bidding is closed

Description

Vellum

168 leaves, 320mm. by 220mm., complete, collation: i-xxi^{8, double column, 38-41 lines in brown ink in a neat early gothic bookhand, rubrics in red, numerous one- to 4-line simple red or blue initials (some with penwork),}thirteen larger initials (nine almost third-page at least: fols.1r, 3r, 22v, 35r, 57v, 74r, 86v, 87r, 96r; four of approximately 8 lines: fols.128r, 137r, 140r, 143v) in variegated red and blue with elaborate penwork infill of flourishes and scalloping patterns (often in contrasting colours), medieval repairs to leaves throughout, some cockling of leaves at end, many leaves reattached to volume on guards, leaves at each end water-damaged (with significant soiling to borders of first 14 leaves, and loss of areas of text from last 2 leaves), overall good condition, modern dark red leather over early wooden boards, two leather clasps

Provenance

provenance

1. Evidently written for the Cistercian abbey of Chiaravalle della Columba in Piacenza: ex libris at end of text on fol.168v in hand of main rubricator: "Liber Sancte Marie de Columba". The community was founded by St. Bernard of Clairvaux in 1135, and was suppressed in 1810.

2. Apparently Bishop Paolo Giovio (1483-1552), the historian and humanist; acquired by him along with a number of other codices from this monastery; sale by his descendents Christie's, 1 June 1977, lot 172, to Kraus.

3. Bergendal MS.36; bought by Joseph Pope from Kraus in March 1983: Bergendal catalogue no.36; Stoneman, 'Guide', pp.180-81; M. Ferrari, 'Biblioteche e scrittori' in Archivio ambrosiano 40, 1980, no.91; 'Dopo Bernardo' in San Bernardo e l'Italia, 1993, p.274; Pope, 'The Library', p.159; Kristeller, VI, p.456.

Catalogue Note

text

The works of Alulfus of Tournai (d.1144) are very rare. "When this one was drawn to the attention of Father Boyle he was so taken aback at hearing the name of a medieval writer of whom he had never heard previously that his guard of humility dropped for a moment and he exclaimed quite involuntarily 'Alulfus, Alulfus, that is funny, I thought I knew them all'" (J.Pope, 'The Library', p.5). Alulfus was a Benedictine monk in the great monastery of St. Martin in Tournai in the late eleventh and early twelfth century. He served under its first abbot, the bookish Odo, and may well have been one of Odo's disciples who founded the community in 1092. He held office as the monastic librarian there for forty-seven years, and under his guidance the library and scriptorium increased exponentially, quickly coming to be renowned throughout Europe. He was a devotee of the works of Gregory the Great, and his De Expositione Novi Testamenti reads in part like a compilation of Gregory's works rather than a work in its own right. It is published in Migne, Pat. Lat. 79, cols.1137-1424.

Abbot Hermann of Tournai in his Restauratio sancti Martini Tornacensis remarks on the large numbers of scribes to be found in the monastery (as many as twelve in the scriptorium at any one time) and the excellence of their script, and he notes that their books were frequently requested by other houses to be used as exemplars. The present manuscript is a notably early copy of this work, and evidently from a Cistercian house. It was most probably copied from an exemplar from Tournai itself.

On fol.157v there follows the De Compunctione Cordis of St. John Chrysostom (c.347-407), the theologian and patriarch of Constantinople, opening "Cum te intueor beate Demetri ..." (with an initial 'D' in error).