Martyrology and miscellany

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Accession number:

MS M.642

Title:

Martyrology and miscellany

Created:

Italy, between 1075 and 1099.

Binding:

South German, 16th-century alum-tawed pigskin over oak boards; blind tooled; central panel with diaper design enclosing a thistle, surrounded by two bands stamped with roses and thistles, one with a vine bearing feeding and pluming storks or cranes; an outer border with foliage in which a large naked archer aims at two birds.

Credit:

Purchased by J.P. Morgan (1867-1943) in 1919.

Description:

190 leaves (1 column to fol. 72; 2 columns from fol. 73 on; 26 lines), bound : vellum, ill. ; 370 x 255 mm

Provenance:

Written for a monastery of San Bartolomeo, possibly San Bartolomeo di Carpineto near Chieti in the Abruzzi; from the 16th-century binding it is conjectured that the manuscript was owned in Germany in the 16th century; purchased by Henry Yates Thompson from Joseph Baer of Frankfurt in May, 1893 (label on inside front cover; catalogue I, 1902, pp. 137-42, no. 8); his sale (London, Sotheby's, June 3, 1919, lot. 11) to Quaritch for J.P. Morgan (1867-1943).

Notes:

Ms. martyrology and other texts; written and illuminated in Italy, probably at the Monastery of Montecassino, possibly for the Monastery of San Bartolomeo di Carpineto, in the last quarter of the 11th century.
Texts: Usuard, Martyrologium (fol. 1-72); forms of profession by the monks of San Bartolomeo di Carpineto (fol. 73-73v); copy of a letter to Charlemagne from Thodemar, abbot of Montecassino (fol. 73v-76); capitula of the Council of Aix-la-Chapelle in July, 817 (fol. 76v-79); list of principal feasts from the Last Supper to Pentecost (fol. 80); Rule of St. Benedict (fol. 81v-134v); homiliary (sermologus) (fol. 135-192v).
The last of the three main texts has been described as a lectionary, but it is most properly a Homilary or Sermologus--Cf. Plummer.
Decoration: 2 half-page and 216 smaller illuminated initials with interlace and and zoomorphic ornament; 1 decorated title page.

Script:

Beneventan script

Language:

Latin

Resources:

Description/Bibliography

Genres:

Martyrologies

Homiliaries

Illuminated manuscripts

Illuminated initials (layout features)

Vellum (parchment)