Book of Daniel, from a Folio Bible
Read more
Add to Wishlist
Add to Wishlist

Book of Daniel, from a Folio Bible

10 leaves, two columns of 48 lines written in black ink in a round gothic bookhand between four verticals and 49 horizontals ruled in plummet, rubrics of red, letters of running headings and chapter numbers alternately red and blue, initials of red or blue with cusps and flourishing of both colours extending beyond the height of the text to open each chapter, TWO ILLUMINATED FOLIATE INITIALS and HISTORIATED INITIAL WITH TEXT-HEIGHT ACANTHUS BORDER, in pastel colours and burnished gold (tiny area of dampstaining at top of margin of first three folios). 20th-century half pigskin (slightly rubbed at extremities).

CONTENT:

Book of Daniel ff.1v-10v, preceded by the incomplete prologue to Daniel (Stegmüller 494) and followed by the prologues to Hosea (Stegmüller 500 and 507).

These leaves must once have been part of an extremely handsome and elegantly produced folio Bible. The delicate forms of the acanthus sprays, their twisting leaves turning from pale blue to pink and orange and from yellow to orange, point to an origin in Umbria, probably Perugia, around the middle to third quarter of the 14th century.

Provenance:

The Reverend Anson Phelps Stokes (1874-1958): bookplate inside front cover. The noted clergyman in New York and New England, who also directed the philanthropy of his family’s foundation, had this manuscript as no 5 in the listing of his books, De Ricci and Wilson, Census, II, p.2276, where its acquisition from Goodspeed in 1935 and the presence of the Book of Job from the same manuscript, then in the Goodhart collection, New York were also noted. The manuscript passed from his son, the Reverend Anson Phelps Stokes II (1905-1986), Bishop of Massachusetts 1956-70, to the Episcopal Theological School, which in 1974 became part of the Episcopal Divinity School, Cambridge, Mass.

 

REFERENCE #

MS_BZ_1013

CIVILIZATION

Italy, 14th Century

SIZE

H. 32 cm x W. 22.7 cm

CONDITION

Fine Condition

PRICE

Price available upon request

Add to Wishlist
Add to Wishlist
Egyptian Book of the Dead for Min-Her-Khetiu
Read more
Add to Wishlist
Add to Wishlist

Egyptian Book of the Dead for Min-Her-Khetiu

 

Egyptian Book of the Dead for Min-Her-Khetiu

‘Book of the Dead’ is a modern term for a collection of magical spells that the Egyptians used to help them get into the afterlife.  They imagined the afterlife as a kind of journey you had to make to get to paradise – but it was quite a hazardous journey so you’d need magical help along the way.

Prior to the New Kingdom, The Book of the Dead was only available to the royalty and the elite. The popularity of the Osiris Myth in the period of the New Kingdom made people believe the spells were indispensible because Osiris featured so prominently in the soul’s judgment in the afterlife. As more and more people desired their own Book of the Dead, scribes obliged them and the book became just another commodity produced for sale.

From the New Kingdom through the Ptolemaic Dynasty (323 – 30 BCE) The Book of the Dead was produced this way. It continued to vary in form and size until c. 650 BCE when it was fixed at 190 uniform spells but, still, people could add or subtract what they wanted to from the text. A Book of the Dead from the Ptolemaic Dynasty which belonged to a woman named Tentruty had the text of The Lamentations of Isis and Nephthys attached to it which was never included as part of the Book of the Dead. Other copies of the book continued to be produced with more or less spells depending on what the buyer could afford. The one spell which every copy seems to have had, however, was Spell 125.

Featured here are two papyrus fragments from the Egyptian New Kingdom, 18th Dynasty (circa 1400 BCE) of an Egyptian Book of the Dead written for the Royal sandal-bearer of Isis, Min-Her-Khetiu:

The smaller papyrus sheet includes the painted figures of a woman and the dead man, their hands raised in adoration. Between them a column of hieroglyphs gives the name and title of the owner.  Seven columns of hieroglyphs in the center contain the opening of Chapter 7 headed ‘Chapter of Sailing in the Bark of Ra’.  Above this an accompanying vignette of a shallow boat containing the falcon headed Ra crowned with solar disc and flanked by wedjat eyes to signify health and security.  To the right four columns recounting part of Chapter 149,’The Fourteen Mounds’, the illustration above showing a pottery jar with liquid spilling from it.

The longer sheet carries thirty columns of Chapter 125 ‘The Declaration of Innocence’ with a scene showing standing figures of Anubis with the dead man to the left of a kneeling falcon headed god (Horus though he is labelled Thoth) supervising the weighing of the heart against Maat.  Two seated gods above the scales represent the 42 gods who witness the judgement.  Two of the three columns in the center are from Chapter 81a ‘Spell for becoming a lotus’ and on the right side of the sheet are ten columns from the beginning of Chapter 144 ‘Address to the Keepers of the Underworld’ with the paired figures of the horned guardian and reporter of each gate shown at the foot of the column.

Other fragments from the same scroll can be found in the Cairo Museum and the Papyrus Museum, Syracuse, Italy.  This piece is the oldest illuminated manuscript of the Egyptian Book of the Dead in private hands, and among the oldest literary manuscripts (MSS) on papyrus.

Provenance:

Previously Maurice Nahman, Cairo, acquired 1930s; The Schøyen Collection, Norway.

Exhibited:

Kon-Tiki Museet, Oslo, 2002-3

Published Literature:

Barbara Lüscher, ‘Der Totenbuch- Papyrus des Minherchetiu‘ in Studien zur Altägyptishen Kultur, Band 36, 2006.

FOOTNOTES:
1.) The British Museum

2.) Ancient.eu

 

REFERENCE

#SC_EG_1001

CIVILIZATION

New Kingdom. 18th Dynasty, c.1400 B.C.E.

SIZE

H. 14 x L. 33.2 cm and H. 15.5 x L. 88.8 cm

CONDITION

Fine condition

PRICE

Available Upon Request

PROVENANCE

Maurice Nahman, Cairo, acquired 1930s; The Schøyen Collection, Norway. Exhibited: Kon-Tiki Museet, Oslo, 2002-3 Literature: Published: Barbara Lüscher, ‘Der Totenbuch- Papyrus des Minherchetiu’ in Studien zur Altägyptishen Kultur, Band 36, 2006.

Add to Wishlist
Add to Wishlist
Gospel Of John, in Armenian
Read more
Add to Wishlist
Add to Wishlist

Gospel Of John, in Armenian

Four leaves from an extremely early Biblical codex.  4 leaves, with one complete leaf and a lower half (bisected horizontally across the page) from an early Armenian translation of John 10-11, the complete leaf 320mm. by 230mm., double column, 17 lines in dark brown ink in large  and imposing erkat’agir majuscules (the so-called ‘Iron Writing’, the earliest Armenian script to survive in manuscript) with capitals with long trailing descenders, notably similar to British Library, Add. MS.21932, trimmed to edges of text, Armenia, probably ninth or tenth century; plus the lower half of a leaf from a Biblical or liturgical manuscript, 200mm. by 135mm., with remains of double column, 12 lines in light brown ink in a smaller and squarer hand closer to that of Dublin, Chester Beatty MSS.554 and 556, both twelfth century (Catalogue of the Armenian Manuscripts, 1958 II: pls.1 and 4), Armenia, probably twelfth century; all leaves recovered from bindings and with stains, tears, folds and later pen-trials and notes, but overall in fair and sound condition.

Add to Wishlist
Add to Wishlist
Gospel of Mark in Greek - Fragment of a Manuscript
Read more
Add to Wishlist
Add to Wishlist

Gospel of Mark in Greek – Fragment of a Manuscript

This is an extremely early and important witness to the Gospel of Mark, written within decades of the death of Jerome and Augustine of Hippo; it is perhaps from the Imperial library of Constantinople, the last of the great libraries of the ancient world This manuscript is from an important cache of early fragments, discovered in 2003, and reported to have been from a pre-War Armenian collection of antiquities and manuscripts in France. Five Biblical fragments, including the present one, were published by P.M. Head in the Journal of Theological Studies, ns.59 (2008), with short earlier notices in TC: A Journal of Biblical Textual Criticism, 8 (2003), Bulletin of the International Organization for Septuagint and Cognate Studies, 36 (2003) and the Tyndale Bulletin, 56 (2005). They include fragments of Luke (fifth century, and probably the oldest witness to that part of the text), John (late fifth century or even c.500), another fragment of Mark (fifth to sixth century) and Romans (sixth or seventh century). Subsequently, the other fragments have been identified as the oldest extant witness to the Lucianic recension of Jeremiah in Greek (early to mid-fifth century: Head ibid., pp.1-11), the only surviving witness to the Greek original text of the Testamentum Domini Nostri Jesu Christi (fifth century: Corcoran and Salway in Journal of Theological Studies, ns.62 (2011) pp.118-35), and the only surviving fragments of a series of imperial edicts made by third-century emperors and now named the Fragmenta Londiniensia Anteiustiniana (fifth century: Corcoran and Salway in Zeitschrift der Savigny Stiftung für Rechtsgeschichte: romanistische Abteilung, 127 (2010) pp.677-8, and Roman Legal Tradition, 6 (2010). Clearly these fragments of six early Bibles, a pseudo-Apostolic Church Order, and records of imperial edicts were once in a large and important library of the ancient world, in scope and chronological range far beyond that of a wealthy individual. There were large institutional libraries in Upper Egypt (such as that of the monastery founded by Pachomius c.320), Roman North Africa (as used by Augustine of Hippo in the late fourth and early fifth century), Milan (as used by Ambrose in the late fourth century) and Alexandria (as used by Bishop Gregory of Alexandria in the mid-fourth century), but the Eastern Empire was increasingly centred on Constantinople as its outlying territories fell prey to barbarian invasion. Jerome notes that the Lucianic recension of the Septuagint (including the fragment of Jeremiah noted above) was current only in Constantinople and Antioch in the early fifth century, and the collection of imperial edicts has been tentatively identified as also coming from the city. If so, it seems likely that they come from the Imperial Library in Constantinople, founded by Emperor Constantius II (reigned 337-61) as a scriptorium with the express purpose of copying fragile papyrus documents onto more stable vellum. Under Emperor Valens in 372 it employed four Greek and three Latin scribes. It survived a fire in 473, was sacked by the Normans in 1204 during the Fourth Crusade, and eventually destroyed only after the conquest of the city by the Ottoman Empire in 1453. The only other manuscript thought to be from this source is that of the Archimedes Palimpsest, which surfaced first in Constantinople in 1840 and is now in a private collection in America.

 

Reference #

MS_BZ_1006

Civilization

Byzantine

Size

W. 10 cm, H. 2 cm

Condition

Fine Condition

Price

SOLD

Add to Wishlist
Add to Wishlist
He Domenico Manni Collection Of Liturgical Manuscripts
Read more
Add to Wishlist
Add to Wishlist

He Domenico Manni Collection Of Liturgical Manuscripts

7 leaves and one part-leaf, 312 x 215mm — 372 x 265mm: (i) ORIGEN (d.253/4), translated by RUFINUS (d.410), In Numeros Homiliae, in Latin, [Italy, perhaps Tuscany, early 12th century], 2 almost complete leaves, two columns of 34 lines written in a fine rounded Carolingian minuscule bookhand in dark brown ink, the text containing parts of Homily XXVI and XXVII, with a December 1580 inscription in Italian on f.1v, 372 x 265mm; A MISSAL, in Latin, [Italy, probably Tuscany, early 13th century], 2 leaves, two columns of 31 lines written in brown ink, rubrics and initials in red, the text from the Sanctoral containing masses for Saints Zenobius, Romulus, Reparata and Cerbonius, all Tuscan, 311 x 215mm; ROLANDINUS RODOLPHINUS (d.1300), Summa artis notariae, in Latin, [Italy, late 13th or early 14th century], 1 leaf and one part leaf, two columns of 44 lines written in brown ink, rubrics and paraphs in red, the text containing parts of chapters VIII and IX, 320 x 223mm; A BREVIARY, in Latin, [Italy, late 14th century], two leaves, two columns of at least 23 lines, initials in red and blue, rubrics in red, with part of the text for Feria VI in Easter week, ownership inscriptions in Italian, 355 x 275mm (all recovered from bindings, some cropping, staining and creasing). All in modern card bindings.

 

Reference #

MS_BZ_1005

Civilization

Medieval , 1200 C.E. – 1400 C.E.

Size

7 leaves and one part-leaf, 312 x 215mm — 372 x 265mm

Condition

Fine Condition

Price

Price available upon request

Provenance

Baidun Collection, acquired at Christies sale November 2013

Add to Wishlist
Add to Wishlist
Leaf from an Illuminated Manuscript in Latin - Boethius, De Consolatione Philosophiae
Read more
Add to Wishlist
Add to Wishlist

Leaf from an Illuminated Manuscript in Latin – Boethius, De Consolatione Philosophiae

An Illuminated Manuscript On Vellum [Italy (Perhaps Florence), Fourteenth Century] a leaf, 315mm. by 230mm., 22 lines in a high grade angular bookhand, initials formed from ornamental penstrokes and separated from beginning of lines of verse, full border of the continuous gloss of the early fourteenth-century English author William Wheatley (see below) in smaller hand, rubrics and paragraph marks in red, two illuminated initials on blue or pink grounds with scrolling coloured acanthus leaves and large teardrop-like bezants, recovered from the binding of a series of Florentine historical works, partly by the Florentine humanist Matteo Palmieri, with sixteenth-century inscriptions identifying those works on its blank back, with scuffs, rubbing to initials, folds and small holes in places (with minor affect to 3 of glosses), overall in fair and presentable condition.

Reference #

MS_BZ_1010

Civilization

Byzantine, Medieval , 1400 C.E.

Size

H. 31.5 cm x W. 23 cm

Condition

Overall in fair and presentable condition

Price

Price available upon request

Provenance

Baidun Collection, acquired at Sotheby’s sale December 2013

 

Add to Wishlist
Add to Wishlist
List of the Patriarchs of AntiochLIST OF THE PATRIARCHS OF ANTIOCH
Read more
Add to Wishlist
Add to Wishlist

List of the Patriarchs of Antioch

ANTIOCH preceded by the end of a list of the PATRIARCHS OF ALEXANDRIA and followed by a list of the canonical books of the Bible, in Greek, bifolium from a MANUSCRIPT ON VELLUM [Greece?, mid- to late- 10th century] 196 x 153mm. 17 lines ruled in blind written in brown ink in a fine and formal Greek minuscule, headings in uncials, modern foliation 46-47. In a modern cloth binding.

Provenance: (a) the conservative character of the writing is very marked, as is customary with the codices vetustissimi and vetusti of the 9th – 13th centuries. The minuscule slants slightly to the right, the breathings are square and the accents precise, and there is no enlargement of certain letters and intermixing with uncial forms as tends to happen in later centuries, all indicating a possible dating to the 10th century. The list of the Patriarchs of Alexandria ends with Peter IV (642-651), while the list of the Patriarchs of Antioch ends with Anastasius II (599-610), and the scribe has left space for 9 and 10 more names respectively, which would suggest he was copying the text from an earlier manuscript and writing a few centuries after the names listed. (b) ANDRe ROORYCK (1923-2010), sold at Sotheby’s, 5 July 2005, lot 7. An interesting and early bifolium from what would probably have been a compendium of useful religious dates, events, and lists relating to the Greek Orthodox Church. George I (621-630), Cyrus (631-641) and Peter IV (642-651) close the list of Patriarchs of Alexandria (following the Greek Orthodox as opposed to the Coptic Orthodox tradition, after the schism of 536), while the Patriarchs of Antioch run from Peter the Apostle (c.37 – 53) to Anastasius II (599-610).

Reference #

MS_BZ_1003

Civilization

Byzantine

Size

L. 19.6 cm, W. 15.3 cm

Condition

Fine Condition

Price

Price available upon request

Provenance

Baidun Collection

Add to Wishlist
Add to Wishlist
Martianus Capella, on the Marriage of Philology and Mercury in Latin
Read more
Add to Wishlist
Add to Wishlist

Martianus Capella, on the Marriage of Philology and Mercury in Latin

Manuscript Of The Text, In Latin, On Vellum [Germany, Early Twelfth Century] 9 fragments: 2 strips approximately 85mm. by 20mm. and 7 rectangular pieces, each approximately 42mm. by 25mm., one strip and one rectangle cut from same section of text allowing the reconstruction of 4 lines of a single column (35mm. wide): II:132-33, “Philologie frontem illuc ubi … oculis afflaret honores” and on back “sunt inclytam majestatem … hac regali lectica in”, and showing that the original volume was single-column and pocket-sized (with only approximately 21 lines missing between the lines here), other fragments with text from II:109, 110, 113, 130, and another part of 132, text in a fine late Carolingian hand with a pronounced ct-ligature, recovered from a binding of an sixteenth-century printed book from Leipzig, and hence with stains, cockling and splits.

Reference #

MS_BZ_1009

Civilization

Byzantine, Medieval , 1200 C.E.

Size

W. 8.5 cm, H. 2 cm

Condition

Fine condition

Price

Price available upon request

Provenance

Baidun Collection, acquired at Sotheby’s sale December 2013

Add to Wishlist
Add to Wishlist
Nine Fragments From Early Liturgical Manuscripts
Read more
Add to Wishlist
Add to Wishlist

Nine Fragments From Early Liturgical Manuscripts

fragments: (i) 7 sections of leaves from a Missal, 5 triangular in shape (approximately 185mm. by 260mm.) and cut diagonally from the parent leaves, 2 further smaller pieces used as gathering supports (230mm. by 40mm. and 60mm. by 11mm.), the larger showing that the original codex was single column, 24 lines in light brown ink in a fine late Carolingian minuscule leaning to the right, with pronounced ct- and st-ligatures, lines of music in smaller script with simple neumes, rubrics (in ornamental capitals in style of ninth and tenth century) and simple red initials (some with tiny baubles at the head and foot), a few additions in later medieval hands including the apparent folio numbers “xxxi” and “xxxij” in late thirteenth-century script at the head of two leaves, Germany, second half of the eleventh century or c.1100; (ii) two long strips cut horizontally from a Lectionary leaf, each approximately 65mm. by 283mm., with remains of two columns of 7 lines of large and elegant early gothic script, rubrics and 17 one-line initials in red, Germany, mid-twelfth century; all recovered from bindings of early sixteenth-century books printed in Augsburg, and with some folds, scuffs, small stains and red ink oxidised to silver in places, but overall in good condition.

Reference #

MS_BZ_1012

Civilization

Byzantine, Medieval , 1100 C.E. – 1200 C.E.

Condition

Overall in good condition

Price

Price available upon request

Provenance

Baidun Collection, acquired at Sotheby’s sale December 2013

 

Add to Wishlist
Add to Wishlist
Papyrus Fragments of Egyptian Book of the Dead from Ptolemaic Period
Read more
Add to Wishlist
Add to Wishlist

Papyrus Fragments of Egyptian Book of the Dead from Ptolemaic Period

Book of the Dead’ is a modern term for a collection of magical spells that the Egyptians used to help them get into the afterlife.  They imagined the afterlife as a kind of journey you had to make to get to paradise – but it was quite a hazardous journey so you’d need magical help along the way.

Prior to the New Kingdom, The Book of the Dead was only available to the royalty and the elite. The popularity of the Osiris Myth in the period of the New Kingdom made people believe the spells were indispensible because Osiris featured so prominently in the soul’s judgment in the afterlife. As more and more people desired their own Book of the Dead, scribes obliged them and the book became just another commodity produced for sale.

In the same way that publishers in the present day offer Print on Demand books or self-published works, the scribes offered different “packages” to clients to choose from. They could have as few or as many spells in their books as they could afford. Bunson writes, “The individual could decide the number of chapters to be included, the types of illustrations, and the quality of the papyrus used. The individual was limited only by his or her financial resources” (48).

From the New Kingdom through the Ptolemaic Dynasty (323 – 30 BCE) The Book of the Dead was produced this way. It continued to vary in form and size until c. 650 BCE when it was fixed at 190 uniform spells but, still, people could add or subtract what they wanted to from the text. A Book of the Dead from the Ptolemaic Dynasty which belonged to a woman named Tentruty had the text of The Lamentations of Isis and Nephthys attached to it which was never included as part of the Book of the Dead. Other copies of the book continued to be produced with more or less spells depending on what the buyer could afford. The one spell which every copy seems to have had, however, was Spell 125.

Featured here are several papyrus fragments of the Egyptian Book of the Dead from Egypt’s Ptolemaic Era (305 – 30 BCE).  Examining Egyptian art during these 300 years reveals strong continuities in its traditions but also interactions with Greek art, whose forms and styles swept the world with Alexander’s armies. The encounter of the two cultures had many aspects and phases, and is easiest to comprehend by looking first at the new ruling class, its involvements and concerns, and then at religion and the arts in the greater land of Egypt.

 

FOOTNOTES:
1.) The British Museum

2.) Ancient.eu

3.) Met Museum

REFERENCE #

MS_EG_1003

 

CIVILIZATION

Egyptian

SIZE

Varying…

CONDITION

Fine Condition

PRICE

Price upon request

PROVENANCE

Baidun Collection

Add to Wishlist
Add to Wishlist
Partial List of Eparchies in the Byzantine Church with Bishoprics in Asia MinorPartial List of Eparchies in the Byzantine Church with Bishoprics in Asia Minor
Read more
Add to Wishlist
Add to Wishlist

Partial List of Eparchies in the Byzantine Church with Bishoprics in Asia Minor

Greek bifolium from the inside of a gathering with Greek foliation in a later hand, ff. 119, 120. Written on vellum in a small, neat minuscule hand in dark brown ink with section heading, initials, and ornamental penwork divisions in red. It does not appear to have been ruled.
Date: 11th century. See V. Gardthausen, Griechische Palæographie: Zweiter Band: Die Schrift, Unterschriften und Chronologie im Altertum und im byzantinischen Mittelalter, Zweite Auglage (Leipzig: Verlag von Veit & Comp., 1913), Taf. 7.
Provenance: This was formerly in the collection of late Professor David Bitzer of the Union Theological Seminary in Richmond, Virginia, According to De Ricci & Wilson he obtained it from the London dealer Leighton. The consignor was a descendant of Bitzer.
Contents:
The contents follow that of the edition of the Notitiæ by Darrouzès. The list for each eparchy has been supplied from a scanned image of his work in Notitia 1, 144-326, pp. 207-211.

Reference #

MS_BZ_1014

Civilization

Byzantine

Baidun Collection,

acquired at Christies sale November 2013

Condition

Fine condition

Price

Price available upon request

Provenance

Baidun Collection

Add to Wishlist
Add to Wishlist
ROMANESQUE INITIAL 'Q' on a Leaf from a Monumental Bible
Read more
Add to Wishlist
Add to Wishlist

ROMANESQUE INITIAL ‘Q’ on a Leaf from a Monumental Bible

The initial in white, yellow, and blue, the shape of the ‘Q’ formed by an elaborate interlace pattern of white-vine scroll outlined in red, the infill with stylised foliage against a ground of green, 45 lines of text written in a handsome rounded protogothic transitional script in two columns, incipits in uncials touched red, initials in red (approximately 50 words, or 10 lines, trimmed from the bottom of each column, verso with adhesive stains to upper margin, not affecting the text). In a modern cloth binding. The recto opens with the end of thestandard Lucan prologue and continues with the beginning of Luke’s Gospel (Luke 1:1-25) — ‘Quoniam quidam multi conati sunt’; the verso continues with Luke 1:29-76. The layout of the text is unusual and interesting: verse 1 is here treated as the start of the book; often verses 1-4, the Dedication to Theophilus, are treated as a prologue, and verse 5 as the start of the Gospel proper. Both theMagnificat and the Benedictus, two of the six biblical canticles that were sung every week in all monasteries, are here written with enlarged red initials, their incipits in rustic capitals touched with red dots, and with left-justified red initials at the start of each phrase. The first lines of verses 18, 56, and 57 are treated similarly. The abstract, stylised design of the initial, with its intricate white-vine pattern and stark palette of primary colours testifies to the influence in Romanesque decoration of pre-Christian ornamental traditions. The fine example in the present leaf is closely reminiscent of an initial ‘A’ cut from another Romanesque bible, now at the Free Library in Philadelphia (Lewis E M 16:10)

Reference #

MS_BZ_1004

Civilization

Byzantine

Size

L. 38.2 cm , W. 27 cm

Condition

Fine Condition

Price

Price available upon request

Provenance

Baidun Collection

Add to Wishlist
Add to Wishlist
Unrecorded Carolingian Commentary on Psalms
Read more
Add to Wishlist
Add to Wishlist

Unrecorded Carolingian Commentary on Psalms

CAROLINGIAN COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS, in Latin, two bifolia from a MANUSCRIPT ON VELLUM [Italy, 9th century] 280 x 380mm. 4 leaves (2 bifolia), ruled in blind, preserving most of two columns per page, each with 27 lines written in Carolingian minuscule in brown ink, numerous initials in two sizes in red (recovered from a binding, and thus very worn on one side of each bifolium, and with significant losses on three sides). In an archival folder. Provenance: Sotheby’s, 19 June 1990, lot 1. Legible passages of text consist of short phrases of Psalm 67: verses 6, 9-14, 16-17, 19, 22, and 25, presented as short lemmata interspersed by passages of commentary. The eight pages appear to be textually consecutive and would therefore originally have been the central two bifolia of their gathering. THE COMMENTARY IS THUS FAR UNIDENTIFIED, AND PERHAPS NOT PREVIOUSLY RECORDED. In the 9th century there were three main commentaries on the Psalms: Augustine’s Ennarationes in Psalmos, Cassiodorus’s Expositio Psalmorum, and Pseudo-Jerome’s Breviarium; the present fragment is none of these. Other much rarer ones were the Glossa ex traditionum seniorum, Bede’s Titulatio, and the commentary found in the Mondsee Psalter. See M. Gibson, ‘Carolingian Glossed Psalters’, in R. Gameson, ed., The Early Medieval Bible: Its Production, Decoration and Use, Cambridge, 1994, esp. pp.96

Reference #

MS_BZ_1002

Civilization

Byzantine

Size

L. 28 cm, W. 38 cm

Condition

Fine Condition

Price

Price available upon request

Provenance

Baidun Collection, Christies sale November 2013

Add to Wishlist
Add to Wishlist
William Of Moerbeke’s Latin Translation Of Aristotle, Metaphysical
Read more
Add to Wishlist
Add to Wishlist

William Of Moerbeke’s Latin Translation Of Aristotle, Metaphysical

Three Leaves From A Decorated Manuscript On Vellum [Italy, Early Fourteenth Century]

3 leaves (a bifolium and a singleton), each 310mm. by 215mm., single column, 30 lines in black ink in a fine and professional university hand, capitals touched in red, paragraph marks alternately in red or blue, running titles in red “L[iber]” and “Phy[sica]” at head of each leaf, some early erasures and corrections, small flaws in vellum and occasional stains, else in fine condition.

Reference #

MS_BZ_1011

Civilization

Byzantine, Medieval, 1400 C.E.

Size

H. 31 cm x W. 21.5 cm

Condition

Some early erasures and corrections, small flaws in vellum and occasional stains, else in fine condition.

Price

Price available upon request

Provenance

Baidun Collection, acquired at Sotheby’s sale December 2013

 

Add to Wishlist
Add to Wishlist