"Ancient Illuminated MSS in the Library at Calveley"

My interest was aroused by the description of of a 19th-century album that will be sold next week, whose catalogue description does not have an image:

I asked the auctioneer to send me some photos, and I have just received the images. The title-page is shown above.

Donato and Ercole de Silva

When cataloguing the pre-1500 manuscripts of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia recently, I needed to identify the owner of an Italian ink-stamp, in a copy of Macer, De virtutibus herbarum, in the form of a seal with the legend "COMES DONATUS SILUA":

and so I was pleased to discover that two of the standard reference books are available online:

A Italian Cistercian Breviary, in Newark, NJ

While in New York recently, I not only crossed the East River to go to Brooklyn, but also crossed the Hudson to go to Newark, New Jersey, because I had been in touch with Nadine Sergejeff at the Public Library, and she had kindly agreed to show me their medieval manuscripts. The one I was most interested to see is a Breviary, briefly described by Bond & Faye as being Cistercian, and perhaps from Lombardy:

The Brölemann Catalogues

Manuscripts collected by Henry-Auguste Brölemann between 1824 and his death in 1854, which descended to his grandson Arthur Brölemann, and were eventually sold by his great-granddaughter, Mme. Etienne Mallet in 1926, are scattered around the world.

They are easily recognised by Arthur's bookplate, and a blue-edged octagonal label in the lower left corner of the front pastedown, apparently applied by Henry-Auguste, of at least four similar but slightly different designs:

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 Manuale from the Augustinian Convent of Sts James and Christopher, Steterburg (Lower Saxony)

Having discussed one of Occidental College's two medieval codices in a previous post, we can turn to the other: a fascinating German nuns' book – a manuale – whose origin can be deduced from its textual contents.

But before turning to its origin, what can we tell about its more recent provenance?

Soranzo - Canonici - Sneyd

Today I learned that there will be an exhibition in Florence next year, at the Galleria dell'Accademia, called La fortuna dei Primitivi: Tesori d'arte dalle collezioni italiane fra Sette e Ottocento, dedicated to 18th- and 19th-century Italian collecting of "primitives".

It will include a section about Lord Ashburnham and another about Matteo Canonici. This reminds me of a manuscript that sold at Bonham's in London a year ago:

The foliation in the middle of the lower margin shows (not mentioned in the Bonham's catalogue) that it comes from the collection of Jacopo Soranzo (1686-1761):

The Post-Medieval Provenance of the Taymouth Hours (BL, Yates Thompson MS. 13)

I have recently read and reviewed Kathryn A. Smith, The Taymouth Hours: Stories and the Construction of Self in Late Medieval England (The British Library: London, 2012).

I have often argued that the post-medieval and even modern provenance of medieval manuscripts can provide valuable clues to their medieval origins and owners, and the Taymouth Hours may be a case in point. I will consider the manuscript's provenance in two parts: here considering its post-medieval homes, working backwards from the present, and then its origin patron in a subsequent post.

The manuscript was bequeathed to the British Museum by the widow of Henry Yates Thompson in 1941. It had escaped being sold in the three Yates Thompson auctions of 1919-1921 because Yates Thompson had given it to her a few years earlier: in 1917 he inscribed its flyleaf as follows:

"This volume, one of the
choicest of my English MS.S.
I gave to my dear wife on her
birthday Jan[uar]y 10th 1917 to
mitigate her grief at the
news that I intended to sell
my collection of 100 illumi-
nated MSS.
                 [signed:] HYT."

The first flyleaf has Yates Thompson's bookplate annotated, as usual, with the acquisition details:

"57": the number of the MS in Thompson's collection,

"nee.e.e": the price he paid, using his price-code "bryanstole", i.e. "£500 0s. 0d."

"Earl of Ashburnham May 1897": the source and date of acquisition.

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

The Abbé Charles d'Orléans de Rothelin's MSS

The catalogue of the library of the Abbé Rothelin (1691-1746), printed in 1747 and used for his auction in 1749, is now available online through Google books.

M. Marion, 'Une bibliothèque ecclésiastique: les livres de l'abbé de Rothelin', Revue française d'histoire du livre, 56 (1987), pp. 201-11 states that only 27 items in the catalogue are pre-1500 MSS. Finding them among the more than 5000 lots would be tedious if it were not for an index at the back of the catalogue listing the lot numbers of MSS (including the post-medieval ones). Many are books of hours, but there are also non-religious texts such as the Roman de la Rose, Chronicles, etc.

Among the manuscripts are the Bible historiale illuminated by Jean de Bruges, presented by Jean Vaudetar to King Charles V, now in the Meermanno-Westreenianum Museum in The Hague, and the Sherborne Missal at the British Library:


A blog-post elsewhere provides a biography of the Abbé and usefully reproduces his bookplate: