Bible : Old and New Testament : in Latin. v.1

Item Information

Title:
Bible : Old and New Testament : in Latin. v.1
Title (uniform):
Bible. Latin. Vulgate
Former owner:
Duprat, Antoine, 1463-1535
Former owner:
Coudray, Charles Lenormand du
Former owner:
Phillipps, Thomas, Sir, 1792-1872
Former owner:
Conde, José Antonio, 1765-1820
Former owner:
Château d'Anet
Former owner:
Bernard Quaritch (Firm)
Auctioneer:
Sotheby's (Firm)
Former owner:
Beatty, A. Chester (Alfred Chester), Sir, 1875-1968
Date:
1225–1250
Format:
Manuscripts
Genre:
Illuminations
Manuscripts, Latin (Medieval and modern)--France
Manuscripts, Medieval--France
Inscriptions
Gothic scripts
Location:
Boston Public Library
Rare Books Department
Collection (local):
Medieval and Early Renaissance Manuscripts (Collection of Distinction)
Places:
France > Île-de-France (region) > Paris
Extent:
1 v. : parchment, ill. ; 440 x 317 (320 x 207) mm.
Permalink:
https://ark.digitalcommonwealth.org/ark:/50959/8910kn919
Terms of Use:
No known copyright restrictions.
No known restrictions on use.
Restrictions:
Access to physical copy/copies by appointment only. Please contact Boston Public Library Rare Books and Manuscripts Department for further information.
Place of origin:
[Paris]
Language:
Latin
Table of Contents:
1. fol. 1: [General prologue] Incipit epistola sancti ieronimi presbiteri ad paulinum de omnibus divine hystorie libris/ Frater ambrosius [Stegmüller 284]
2. fol. 4: [Prologue to Genesis] Desiderii mei [Stegmüller 285]
3. fol. 5: Genesis. Initial: [I] with eight round compartments (six days of creation, God enthroned, and the Temptation of Adam and Eve), a crucifixion scene at the bottom (full page-height)
4. fol. 29: Exodus. Initial: Moses (with horns) leading the Jews (in conical hats) across the Red Sea (eight-line)
5. fol. 50: Leviticus. Initial: Two priests (one of whom is presumably Aaron) present two sheep to the altar as sacrifice (eight-line)
6. fol. 64: Numbers. Initial: God stands at the right holding a book, gesturing towards Moses at the left who holds one of the tablets of the Ten Commandments (seven-line)
7. fol. 86v: Deuteronomy. Initial: Moses places the tablet into the Ark, watched by one of the Jews (seven-line)
8. fol. 100v: [Prologue to Joshua] Tandem finito [Stegmüller 311]. Initial: Joshua with book and unfurled scroll gazing up at God, whose face appears in the heavenly aperture at the top (8-line)
9. fol. 112: Judges. Initial: Gideon (?) in full mail with spear and armorial shield (three lions facing left, on red), gazing up at the face of God in the heavenly aperture above (eight-line)
10. fol. 123v: Ruth. Initial: in four compartments, from top to bottom, Elimelech, Naomi, and her two sons (25-line [I])
11. fol. 125: [Prologue to 1 Kings] Viginti et duas [Stegmüller 323]
Notes:
Ms. codex.
Bibliographic record created by BPL staff based on description by Dr. Lisa Fagin Davis.
Origin: Written in Paris in the second quarter of the 13th century. Branner, in Manuscript Painting in Paris, attributes this manuscript to the "middle period" of the eponymous du Prat atelier (Branner, p. 78-80 and 218)
Notes (ownership):
Provenance: According to Peter Kidd, "the unidentified words and paraphs on the first pages of the original two volumes (now vols.I and III) show that this comes from the library at the Chateau d'Anet, which was sold in 1724 after the death of Anne of Bavaria. (The characteristic marks consist of a number followed by a paraph, the former sometimes written in words in French, sometimes in numerals.) The Bible is therefore doubtless the very first item of the catalogue." (unpublished correspondence)
Provenance 2: The manuscript was divided into four volumes when bound in the current 18th-century boards, with unidentified gilt monogram stamps in the corners and spine compartments of the bindings. In the Sotheby’s sale of 7 June 1932, these are tentatively identified as the monogram of Joseph Bonnier, Baron de la Mosson (1702-44), although comparison of the stamps to the Bonnier monogram reproduced in A. Bouvenne, Les monogrammes historiques (Paris, 1870), p. 37, suggests that this identification is spurious; the monogram stamps remain unidentified.
Provenance 3: Later owned by José Antonio Conde y García (1766–1820), Librarian of the Royal Library, Madrid: the Bible was lot 970 in his sale by [Robert Harding] Evans, Catalogue of Rare, Curious, and Interesting Spanish Books, and a Few Miscellaneous Articles, Forming the Library of Don. J. Antonio Conde ... Which will be Sold by Auction by Mr. Evans ... July 6, and Four Following Days, 1824; Ca. 18th-/19th-century dealer's annotations inside each rear cover.
Provenance 4: Sold by Thorpe in 1830 to Sir Thomas Phillipps (Ms. 4259) (SDBM 194757), his ex libris on the verso of the first flyleaf of each volume. Purchased from the Phillipps estate in 1920 by Sir Alfred Chester Beatty, his number 54 (written on verso of each front flyleaf) (Millar II:48-53) and his sale at Sotheby's, 7 June 1932, lot 13 (SDBM 5517) to Quaritch. Offered by Quaritch three times: 1932 (cat. 465, nr. 105), 1941 (cat. 594, nr. 4), and 1946 (cat. 637, no. 589) (SDBM 187605, 51578, and 69811). Various modern notes on verso of front flyleaf.
Notes (acquisition):
Immediate source of acquisition: Purchased by the BPL in 1946 from Quaritch.
Notes (date):
[between 1225 and 1250]
Notes (citation):
Bond, W.H. Supplement to the Census of medieval and Renaissance manuscripts in the United States and Canada, page 211
Notes (object):
Secundo folio: (vol. I) ... entiam autem non ...
Collation: Parchment, four codices; (vol. I) fol. ii + 125 + ii; (vol. II) fol. ii + 167 + ii; (vol. III) fol. ii + i + 133 + ii; (vol. IV) fol. ii + 169 + ii ; volumes too tightly bound to collate, following collations are based on those given in Millar’s Chester Beatty catalog: (vol. I) 1-10¹² 11⁶⁻¹ (final folio used at the beginning of Volume II); (vol. II) 11 (continued)¹ 12-13⁸ 14-17¹² 18¹⁶ 19⁸ 20¹⁶ 21⁸ 22¹⁶ 23⁸ 24¹⁶ 25⁸ 26⁸⁻² (last two leaves cancelled); (vol. III) 27-37¹² 38¹²⁻¹¹ (final eleven leaves used at the beginning of Volume IV); (vol. IV) 38 (continued)¹¹ 39-51¹² 52²; the manuscript was originally two volumes of 292 and 302 leaves (vol. I+II and III+IV), each of which was subsequently divided mid-quire. A parchment flyleaf from the beginning of the original second volume is preserved after the paper flyleaves at the front of what is now vol. III. Modern pencil arabic foliation, upper right corner each recto, numbers the four volumes consecutively from 1 to 594, those numbers used here for reference.
Layout: Two columns, 43 lines. Bounding and writing lines in light plummet, vertical bounding lines doubled.
Script: Written in an early gothic bookhand in black ink with red rubrics. Three-line penwork initials throughout in blue or red with red and blue filigree into margins.
Decoration: 64 six-line initials in colors on gold with floriate infill and gold-fillet frames (at the beginning of each prologue); 82 historiated initials, mostly six-line (at the beginning of each book; consult description by Lisa Fagin Davis for full listing). On the opening folio of vol. I and vol. III, a late 15th-century gilt architectural border and, in the lower margin, the arms of the first known owner, Cardinal Antoine du Prat (1463-1535).
Binding: 18th-century goatskin over boards, gilt-tooled cornerstamp monograms (unidentified), filigree turn-ins and board edges, spine elaborately gilt in compartments with the same gilt monogram in each, gilt-stamped brown leather labels on spine reading "BIBLIA SACRA" and "TOM I" (II, III, IV), all edges gilt, marbled pastedowns and conjoint flyleaves in front and back, upper edge slightly trimmed; each volume housed in a custom early 20th-century red cloth clamshell box lined with white velour, by J.S. Wilson and Son, Cambridge, England, with title gilt-tooled on spines: "BIBLIA SACRA/ I (II, III, IV)/ MS/SAEC. XIII".
Notes (bibliography):
Bibliography: Lugt, F. Les Marques de Collection de Dessins & d'Estampes (Amsterdam, 1921); Millar, E.G. The library of A. Chester Beatty: a descriptive catalogue of the western manuscripts (Oxford, 1927-30), II:48-53; Haraszti, Zoltán. "Early Bibles and Liturgical Books." More Books/BPL quarterly XXIII (1948), p. 252; The Phillipps Manuscripts: Catalogus Librorum Manuscriptorum in Bibliotheca Thomae Phillipps, Bt. (repr. London, 1968), nr. 4259 (p. 66); Munby, A.N.L. The Dispersal of the Phillipps Library (Phillipps Studies 5) (Cambridge, 1954), p. 72; Branner, R. Manuscript Painting in Paris During the Reign of Saint Louis (Berkeley, 1977), pp. 78-80, 218-219.
Notes (language):
In Latin.
Identifier:
06_01_016983
Call #:
RARE BKS MS pf Med. 104 v.1
MS 1532 (no longer used)
Barcode:
39999085232278