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

Unidentified Hurault? Arms in a French Book of Hours

I am currently trying to identify some arms that appear twice in a Book of Hours, made in Paris(?) in the first half of the 16th century. They appear filling a half-page space at the end of the Extracts from the Four Gospels:

and again, rather cropped, in the lower border at the beginning of the Hours of the Virgin:

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?

A Thérouanne Book of Hours at Occidental

Occidental College has a very interesting and unusual Book of Hours, one of whose features is a unique(?) image of its patron saying the rosary.

 I provide a fairly detailed textual and iconographic descriptions below, but first the known details of its provenance.

A Dispersed Copy of John of Wales's Communiloquium

Leaves of a fine copy of the Communiloquium or Summa Collationum of John of Wales (alias John Waleys / Joahnnes G[u]allensis) are to be found in a wide variety of collections, and they occasionally appear on the market.

One framed leaf, at Occidental College, provides information about their provenance, otherwise unavailable.

On the back of the frame is an old typescript label:

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:

A Leaf from a Fine English Psalter, c.1200

Occidental College has an extremely appealing leaf of an English Psalter of circa 1200, containing Psalms 20:1-21:6:

The fact that the Psalm 21 initial is enlarged (three lines in height, instead of Psalm 20's two-line height) suggests a Benedictine connection: Psalm 21 was one of the Benedictine divisions of the Psalms, being the first Psalm said at Matins on Sundays.

The leaf recognisably comes from a very handsome but somewhat defective volume of 129 leaves offered by Maggs Bros., Catalogue 1262: Illuminated Leaves and Historical Documents  (Christmas, 1998), item 7, and again in European Bulletin, no.23: Illuminated Miniatures, Manuscripts, and Single Leaves 1000-1900 A.D., Catalogue 1366 [December, 2004], item 1, with a colour reproduction:

The Maggs description reports that it was previously Christie's, 2 July 1975, lot 290, when it had "140 leaves (including one replacement leaf at the beginning)".

Of the leaves that had been removed from the volume between 1975 and 1998 were:

• Maggs Bros., Bulletin 12, no. 25
• Maggs Bros., Bulletin 13 (July 1986), nos. 32, 33
• Maggs Bros., Bulletin 15 / Catalogue 1103, no. 55
• Maggs Bros., Bulletin 22 / Catalogue 1249 [April 1998] no. 4, with reproduction. Pss.17:39-18:7
• Sotheby's, 17 June 1997, lot 20 (a)

EDIT 25 April 2014

I have just noticed that the volume was sold at Sotheby's, 23 June 1998, lot 45, with a description listing several single leaves that had been extracted since 1975.