Pseudo-Augustine, Soliloquium animae ad Deum and other works including the Confessio beati Augusti ad Deum ascribed to Alcuin, in Latin, illuminated manuscript on vellum [North-east Italy (probably Padua or Friuli), c.1450-60]

Estimate

30,000 - 50,000 GBP

bidding is closed

Description

Vellum

102 leaves (plus 2 vellum endleaves), 238mm. by 150mm., complete, collation: i⁹ (first leaf a cancelled blank), ii-x¹⁰, xi³(i a singleton), catchwords, single column, 27 lines in an elegant humanistic hand, rubrics in pale red (some in ornamental capitals), a few capitals set off in margin, 2-line initials in alternate red and blue, three large illuminated initials (fols.1r, 52r and 68r) of splendid quality, in pink or blue with interlacing knotwork highlighted in white tracery, on thick burnished gold grounds within black frames, the gold with delicate pouncing picking out floral patterns, some small spots, slight flaking to gold in places, and last leaves with use of reagent in lower borders to decipher an old erased annotation, else in outstanding condition, remains of “Soloquia / Contemplationis / De spiritu et anima” in ink on fore edges, contemporary elaborately blind-tooled brown leather over bevelled wooden boards, with eight-pointed stars containing knotwork within frames of similar knotwork and a gilt fillet formed of interlocking ‘S’ shapes (binding “modo florentino” as described by Hobson, 'Humanists and Bookbinders', 1989, pp.18-19 and 28-9, nos.11, 12 and 22-23; and cf. the similar binding in Carsara, 'La Libreria di Guarnerio d’Artegna', 1991, pl.LX), small chips at base and skilfully rebacked, else excellent condition

Provenance

provenance

(1) Most probably written and illuminated in Padua, perhaps for Guarnerio d’Artegna (1410-66), a bibliophile, follower of Pope Eugenius IV and holder of the office “litterarum apostolicarum abbreviator” from 1436. The script is notably similar to the hand of the scribe Battista da Cingoli, who copied manuscripts between 1449 and 1461 for Guarnerio (his manuscripts donated to the Biblioteca Guarneriana di San Daniele del Friuli for public use, forming one of the first public libraries in Italy). Those manuscripts also have the distinctive strapwork initials found in this volume and he, or an associate, may also have been the illuminator (cf.Carsara, pls.XIX, LII, LXXII-III and LXXXV).

(2) Erased late fifteenth-century inscription on fol.101v: “Post discessum meum sit libellus iste Cassandre predillecte filee mee per me sibi domo relictus/ Munera paterni monumentum et pignus amor / Sim memor ispe tui sis memor ipse mei” (After my departing, this little book should go to my dearest daughter Cassandra to whom I have left my home / Gifts of paternal memory and token of love / I will be your memory, so that you may be mine).

(3) Ambroise Firmin-Didot (1790-1876) of the formidable book-collecting and producing Firmin-Didot family (see Jammes, ‘Les mss de la collection d’Ambroise Firmin-Didot’ in Les Didot, 1998, pp.91-103): his leather oval bookplate inside front board; his sale in 1882, lot 30.

Catalogue Note

text

This is a splendid Renaissance manuscript, and contains two rare texts, the De bona voluntate (opening “Eice o homo quod malum est ut …” on fol.101r; the comprehensive In Principio database recording only one other copy: Vatican, BAV. Reg. lat. MS.62, fol.37v), and the Confessio beati Augusti ad Deum, ascribed to the intellectual father of the Carolingian renaissance, Alcuin (fol.100r; Oberleitner, Die Handschriftliche Uberlieferung der Werke des heiligen Augustinus I.1, 1969, p.403, notes only two manuscripts: Rome, Bib. Nat. centr.351 and Vatican, BAV. Reg. lat. MS.468, and to these In Principio adds Reg. lat. MS.62).

The rest of the volume contains a large collection of works which were thought in the Middle Ages and Renaissance to be St. Augustine’s, but are now doubted. The book opens with a table of contents and the Soliloquium animae ad Deum (fol.1r: Migne, Pat.Lat.40, 863-98), a text which commonly precedes the Confessions in early medieval copies; the Liber de contemplatione Domini (fol.50v: Migne, Pat.Lat.40, 951-68), in fact a compilation of the works of John of Fécamp, Bernard of Clairvaux, Hugh of St-Victor and Anselm; and the Liber de spiritu et anima (fol.65v: Migne, Pat.Lat.40, 779-832), a compilation of early works including Gennadius, Cassiodorus and Bede, as well as those of Hugh of St-Victor and Bernard of Clairvaux.