Leaves from medieval manuscripts, in Latin, on vellum and paper [twelfth to fifteenth century]

23 leaves: (a) fragment of a bifolium most probably from a Milanese Missal once very similar to BnF., lat.1142 (see Manuscrits enluminés d’origine italienne, III (Lombardie-Ligurie), 2005, no.28), 133mm. by 210mm., with a miniature of two female saints with gold haloes in long flowing robes touched in colour washes (for similar Milanese illumination see ibid.no.29), above a red rubric announcing the feast of Mary Magdalene, opening with a red initial with floral penwork, and above the remains of 7 lines of text in a rounded Italian bookhand, other leaf partly cut away but with half of a similar image with kneeling saint in red robes, fragment still mounted on a binding (and with a printed armorial bookplate of François-Tristan de Cambon, bishop of Mirepoix in the Pyrenees, d.1791), and all somewhat faded and with small stains, Italy (perhaps Milan), second half of the fourteenth century; (b) leaf of Hugh of St.Victor, De sacramentis, II,6:V (Migne, Pat.Lat. 176, col.587D), 225mm. by 160mm., remains of double column, 35 lines in a fine early gothic bookhand, capitals touched in red, still mounted on a binding, France, mid twelfth century; (c) leaf from a Lectionary, 360mm. by 270mm., double column, 35 lines in an ornate bookhand influenced by lettre bâtarde, red rubrics,  capitals touched in red, France, fifteenth century; (d) leaf from a large Calendar (probably from a Missal), 350mm. by 265mm., for September-October, ‘KL’ initials finely decorated with penwork, text in red or blue, Italy, fifteenth century; (e) two leaves from a Latin wordlist (most probably a form of Balbus, Catholicon, leaves here from sections for ‘A’ and ‘C’), 325mm. by 230mm., with text set in a series of wide main text columns accompanied by thinner columns with references to where words occur, 66 lines in a professional tiny bookhand, capitals touched in red, paragraph marks in red and blue, large sections of pasteboards from binding adhered to reverses of leaves, Italy, thirteenth century; (f) 4 substantial cuttings from liturgical books, including 2 half leaves bisected laterally and 2 single columns of text, all with penwork decorated coloured initials, and small amount of illumination from edge of another initial preserved at base of first leaf, Italy and France, fourteenth and fifteenth centuries; plus another 13 leaves of fragments (2 on paper) including a text leaf from a late fifteenth-century French Book of Hours with white penwork heightened initials on russet grounds touched with liquid gold, and a small fragment of a chapter list from a thirteenth-century manuscript; almost all recovered from bindings and with stains, holes and damage to edges

Hugh of St. Victor was the “most influential theologian of the twelfth century” (Harnack, History of Dogma, 1899, VI, p.44), and the leading light of the Parisian schools of exegesis in the twelfth century. He died in 1141, and thus item (b) is from a notably early witness to his De sacramentis, perhaps written within his lifetime.