An Unrecognised Book of Hours Made for Philip the Good [Part I]

Northampton, MA, Smith College, MS. 288, fol.45r

[All images of this manuscript are from Digital Scriptorium]

In a previous post I mentioned that ten medieval manuscripts belonging to Smith College have been put online via Digital Scriptorium; they include one that I did not see when I visited the College a year ago.

Skimming through the Digital Scriptorium images this summer my interest was piqued by MS 288, a Book of Hours whose first text (after the calendar) has a rubric which mentions the Duke of Burgundy and provides the scribe's name, Dominic of Burgundy:

Northampton, MA, Smith College, MS. 288, fol.14r
[Source - All images from Digital Scriptorium]

An Unrecognised York Breviary in New York

Earlier this year I catalogued a Missal of the Use of York, one of only a dozen known to survive, with an interesting provenance, owned by someone who wanted to sell it to a public institution. Maggs handled the deal and everyone involved is happy with the result: it is now at Lambeth Palace Library.

In the process of cataloguing it I became familiar with the features that distinguish the Use of York calendar from the much more common Use of Sarum, as outlined by Richard Pfaff, The Liturgy in Medieval England: a History, 2009, pp.445–62.

While browsing Digital Scriptorium (from which all the images below are taken) in advance of a recent visit to the Grolier Club, New York, I noticed that their MS 3 has most of these features.

Another Manuscript Commissioned by Jean(?) Budé

The University of Liège has recently digitized some of its most important illuminated manuscripts. Among them is a very unusual volume, MS Wittert 39:

A Girardot de Préfond Manuscript in New York Public Library

For several years I have wondered to whom this bookplate belongs:

New York, Public Library, Spencer MS 76, fol.i verso
Image: Digital Scriptorium

Archinto Catalogue Online

Some time ago I was pleased to discover that Google Books included an 1863 auction catalogue of books from the library of Count Carlo Archinto of Milan, as I had encountered important medieval manuscripts from this library at the Bodleian and Getty Museum.

Those I have seen are in distinctive green vellum-covered bindings. Two of the three Archinto MSS in Digital Scriptorium have such a binding, for example:

Typical Archinto binding
San Francisco, State of California, Sutro Collection MS 7
Source

A Leaf of Pietro Ursuleo's Psalter-Passion Sequences in Eagle Rock

The small collection of medieval leaves in Special Collections in the Library at Occidental College in the Eagle Rock area of Los Angeles has yet more interesting items to offer.

Among them is a leaf from a Psalter with Passion Sequences, written by the humanistic scribe Pietro Ursuleo of Capua (d.1483).

The recto contains the text of Psalms 58:11-18:

and the verso continues with the last two words of Psalm 58; a long titulus to Psalm 59; and the text of Psalm 59:1-10:

Ege Leaves at Occidental College

The Ege leaves in the Occidental College collection include:

• Psalter; France, mid-13th century
• Gwara HL10
• Psalms 119:136-154
• Apparently with a pencil folio number "14"
• de Ricci, Census, II, p.1938–9, no.12, tells us that Ege had bought the manuscript in 1922 from Adler, Munich, and that before disbinding it it had only 82 leaves, containing Pss.70-150 and canticles, misbound.
• Despite being correctly attributed to France by de Ricci, Ege attributed it to Germany

The Church Congress Exhibitions

I occasionally encounter a manuscript with a circular paper label printed in blue with the words "Church Congress Exhibition", or occasionally "Ecclesiastical Art Exhibition", and a number added by hand:

  

Alphonse Labitte (1853- )

I occasionally encounter catalogue descriptions which mention an anonymous bookplate, variously described by different cataloguers, but recognisable from its device/motto on the scroll below the shield "EXCELSIOR":

Baltimore, Johns Hopkins University, John Work Garrett Library, Gar 6
http://www.digital-scriptorium.org