An Effaced Ink Stamp Deciphered

Two years ago I wrote about a prayerbook that had belonged to Henry Yates Thompson. I mentioned that it had an inscription apparently in Portuguese, but I did not reproduce it, except as transcribed by M.R. James:

I also did not mention, because I was unable to read it, that the inscription is adjacent to a thoroughly-effaced ink-stamp. But with some more time and effort I think I have been able to read both, and thus see how they relate to one another.

Pietro Ursuleo - An Attribution Confirmed

[Source]

A few years ago I suggested in a blog post that the script of a Psalter at the Walters Art Museum could be attributed to the scribe Pietro Ursuleo.

The Provenance of the NYPL-Duke Bible

[Continued from the previous post]

Before turning to its origin, what is known about the later provenances of the Duke and NYPL volumes? In brief, they are as follows:

A Manuscript Divided Between New York and North Carolina

I first became interested in the medieval manuscripts of the Bibliotheca Swaniana in the 1990s, when I encountered one at the Bodleian. At some point I compiled a list of manuscripts from the Swaniana in some rudimentary webpages, to which I added occasionally. One of the first posts I wrote after starting this blog in December 2010 concerned two MSS from the collection.

A Cistercian Missal From the Library at from Vyšší Brod, Formerly Owned by Otto Ege

[Source]

In two previous blog posts (here and here) I added to what was previously known about a well-known Cistercian Missal apparently broken-up by Otto Ege, often referred to as FOL 2, because leaves of it were included as no.2 in his portfolios of Fifty Original Leaves.

CH3MB6RP9T & M2TH5RF8CK

Mentioning a price-code in a recent post, I realised that I have not yet mentioned on this blog that there is a now a second edition, much expanded, published last year, of of The Price-Codes of the Book-Trade, whose first edition (2010) I described here.

At an eye-watering $175 for a 90-page octavo I doubt that many readers of this blog will buy their own copy, but it may be worth finding out where a library copy can be consulted. Worldcat lists about 20 copies in the US, 3 in the UK, one in Canada and one in Australia. There are certainly others in research libraries; in London, the Warburg Institute has a copy, for example.

Here are a few images to give a flavour of the contents (as usual, click the images to enlarge and make the text readable). From the Introduction:

From the main body of the book:

From the Afterword:

And here are the full title-page details (the choice of title was not mine):

Cuttings at the Free Library, From "The Property of a Gentleman" in 1923

[Source]

Looking recently in a Sotheby's catalogue from 26 March 1923, and two following days, I realised that the present whereabouts of a large number of cuttings could be identified quite easily. This provides a nice example of how a single solid clue can be pursued to reveal a great deal more.

The clue in this case is the description of some distinctive iconography.