Dominican processional

Item Information

Title:
Dominican processional
Title (uniform):
Processional
Creator:
Catholic Church
Former owner:
Maggs Bros.
Auctioneer:
Sotheby's (Firm)
Date:
[1350–1399]
Format:
Manuscripts
Books
Genre:
Illuminations
Manuscripts, Latin (Medieval and modern)--Italy
Manuscripts, Medieval--Italy
Wooden boards
Processionals (Service books)
Gothic scripts
Location:
Boston Public Library
Rare Books Department
Collection (local):
Medieval and Early Renaissance Manuscripts (Collection of Distinction)
Places:
Italy > Emilian (region) > Bologna (province) > Bologna
Extent:
113 leaves, parchment, ill. ; 157 x 120 (110 x 80) mm
Permalink:
https://ark.digitalcommonwealth.org/ark:/50959/fj23bv51j
Terms of Use:
No known copyright restrictions.
No known restrictions on use.
Place of origin:
[Bologna?]
Language:
Latin
Table of Contents:
1. fol. 1-2: Office for the consecration of a priest or nun.
2. fol. 2v: blank.
3. fol. 3-8: The Purification. Decoration: fol. 3, Presentation in the Temple. St. Simeon stands before the altar holding the Christ-child, a woman robed in gray behind him. At left, the Virgin and St. Joseph, who holds a dove for the Temple offering
fol. 3v: Presentation of Mary. St. Anne, and presumably St. Joachim behind her, present the youthful Mary to the priest in the Temple.
4. fol. 8-17: Palm Sunday. Decoration: fol. 8, Christ enters Jerusalem on Palm Sunday. Christ enters on a donkey from the left, a crowd of followers behind him. On the road before him, a man lays a palm frond and his cloak on the ground and a woman offers her infant who holds a palm frond. Two men walk out of the gates of Jerusalem carrying palm fronds.
5. fol. 17-19: Holy Thursday. Decoration: fol. 17, Christ washing the feet of his disciples. Christ kneels at the left before a crowd of nimbed disciples, holding the foot of one on his lap while the other foot rests in a bowl before him. The disciple's sandal lays untied in the lower right corner of the image, and a decorative urn sits on a high shelf behind Christ.
6. fol. 19-31v: Easter. Decoration: fol. 25v, a priest holds a book and says mass before the altar, attended by two monks
fol. 29 (Easter): The Resurrection. Christ emerges from the sepulcher, two soldiers sleeping in the foreground.
7. fol. 31v-35v: Ascension. Decoration: fol. 31v, The Ascension. Christ among golden clouds above, attended by two angels, the Virgin Mary and various disciples (one nimbed) kneeling below.
8. fol. 35v-41v: Assumption of the Virgin (prayers for the Dedication of the Church intercalated, fol. 40-41v). Decoration: fol. 35v, The Death and Assumption of the Virgin. The elderly Virgin lies on a slab, attended by two nimbed disciples and a crowd of onlookers, God the Father in a cartouche behind holding the soul of the Virgin.
9. fol. 41v-47v: Lamentation of Jeremiah. Decoration: fol. 41v, Jeremiah at prayer.
10. fol. 47v-62v: Blessing of the Candles. Decoration: fol. 47v, a monk standing before lectern singing from an open book, before a lit candle and altar.
11. fol. 63-83v: Deathbed rites (feminine pronouns interlinear). Decoration: fol. 64 (Office of the Dead), an elderly man lies on a bed attended by a monk and ministering priest who holds a book.
12. fol. 84-89: reading from Matthew, the Descent from the Cross. Decoration: fol. 84, The Nativity. The Virgin reclines on a rock, Joseph curled up in the left foreground with his chin resting on his hand, the swaddled infant behind the virgin tended by a bull and a donkey, two angels above, one of whom announces the Nativity to a shepherd in the upper right corner.
13. fol. 89-94v: reading from Luke, the Descent from the Cross. Decoration: fol. 89, The Baptism of Christ. Christ stands naked and waist-deep in water, John the Baptist at the left rests his hand on Christ's head as the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove descends from above. Two nimbed figures at the right
14. fol. 95-95v: blank.
15. fol. 96-106v: Office of the Cross. Decoration: fol. 96, The Betrayal. Christ in a crowd of Roman soldiers, Judas embracing him. At the left, Peter holds a knife at Malchus' ear
fol. 100v: Christ before Pilate. Christ, restrained by a servant, presented to the enthroned Pilate
fol. 101v: Christ mocked. Christ, dressed in mockingly noble robes, crowned with thorns and beaten by three men as two kneel in mockery before him
fol. 102v: Christ denuded. Christ stands before the cross, his robes being pulled off by a soldier as onlookers watch
fol. 103v: The Road to Calvary. Christ bearing the cross, led by a Roman, gazing back at the Virgin and Saints behind
fol. 104v: The Crucifixion. Christ crucified, the Virgin swooning at the left into the arms of two nimbed women, John at the right
fol. 105v: The burial. Christ, naked and bloodied, lies on a slab, embraced by the kneeling Virgin (presumably, although the woman is clothed in red). Saints gather behind, including one at left with raised arms
fol. 106v: Crucifixion. A second crucifixion miniature, this one half-page and perhaps by a different artist (though not Simone Martini as claimed by Maggs). Christ crucified, the Virgin swooning at the left into the arms of two nimbed women, John stands at the far right pointing at two descending angels, one of whom catches the blood from Christ's side in the grail. Longinus stands in the background holding his spear, blood dripping from the end. Mary Magdalene kneels in the foreground grasping the base of the cross. A Roman in a tattered tunic raises a long stick with the vinegar-soaked sponge at the tip, a handled-bowl in his other hand.
16. fol. 107: originally blank, death rites added ca. 15th century.
17. fol. 107v-110v: Ritual for the Reception of a Legate (slightly later addition)
18. fol. 110v-113v: Office of the Dead, first nocturn of Matins only.
Notes:
Ms. codex.
Bibliographic record created by BPL staff based on description by Dr. Lisa Fagin Davis and on entry 151 in the Beyond Words catalog (Patricia DeLeeuw).
Origin: Written in Northern Italy (possibly Bologna) in the second half of the 14th century. 16th-century additions throughout, e.g. 52v.
Notes (ownership):
Provenance: Sold Sotheby's London 28 July 1902, lot 761 (collection of James Ward and Alexander Howell); Sotheby's London 15 December 1924, lot 519 to Stevens; Maggs cat. 542 (1930), no. 96; cat. 555 (1931), no. 8; cat. 14 (1939), no. 2; cat. 687 (1940), no. 232; and cat. 802 (1951), no. 4.
Notes (acquisition):
Immediate source of acquisition: Purchased from Maggs in 1954.
Notes (date):
This date is inferred.
Notes (citation):
Bond, W.H. Supplement to the Census of medieval and Renaissance manuscripts in the United States and Canada, 215
Notes (object):
Secundo folio: ... reptium faciem domini ...
Collation: Parchment, fol. i + 113 + i ; 1² (two tipped-in singletons), 2-6¹² 7¹²⁻² (lacking outermost bifolium, i.e. the leaves before fol. 63 after fol. 72) 8¹²⁻¹ 1 (lacking one leaf before fol. 84), 9¹² 10¹⁰ 11⁸⁻¹ (this quire a slightly later addition, final leaf cancelled) ; catchwords preserved in lower center margin of final versoes of some quires. Modern arabic pencil foliation, upper outer corner of each recto.
Layout: Single column, 5 staves of music or 15 text lines. Bounding lines in light plummet. Square Gregorian notation on a four-line staff, c-clef indicated, staves in red, notes in black, some stems, red measure lines added later.
Script: Written in a southern gothic textualis formata in black ink with red rubrics.
Decoration: Two- to three-line initials throughout in red with blue filigree or vice versa; one-staff high initial in colors in foloriate style on fol. 64v (first responsory of the Office of the Dead). 19 two-staff or five- to six-line miniatures with small inset initials in gold and colors, and one half-page miniature (fol. 106v, spuriously attributed by Maggs and later by Faye and Bond to Simone Martini).
Binding: Ca. 17th-century Italian blind-stamped and tooled calf over bevelled boards, fillet turn-ins, round brass cornerpieces, spine in compartments, modern vellum pastedowns and conjugate flyleaves in front and back; stamps include YHS monogram and stylized cherub head.
Notes (bibliography):
Bibliography: Jeffrey Hamburger, et al., eds. Beyond Words: Illuminated Manuscripts in Boston Collections. (Chestnut Hill: McMullen Museum of Art, Boston College, 2016): no. 151; More Books/BPL Quarterly VII (1955): 74.
Notes (language):
In Latin.
Identifier:
06_01_018695
Call #:
RARE BKS MS q Med.135
BPL MS 1559 (no longer used)
Barcode:
39999085498507