Descripción
[Italy and perhaps also southern France, mid-fifteenth century] 8vo, 150 by 105mm, 398 leaves, wanting two single text leaves, else complete, collation: i7 (wanting the first leaf, once the flyleaf and thus a cancelled blank), ii4, iii-v8, vi-xxvi10, xxvii8, xxviii-xxxvii10, xxxviii5, xxxix10, xl7, xli7, last apparently a cancelled blank. Catchwords, text in double column of 33 lines of rounded Italian bookhand, capitals touched in pale yellow wash, rubrics in red, one-line initials in red or blue, 2-line initials in same with contrasting penwork, larger initials in same on square ground in contrasting colour or gold on bicoloured grounds heightened with white foliate penwork and with French-looking spiky seed pods in sprays of foliage emerging from corners into the margin. A few small spots and stains, some fading and old water damage to Calendar, else in excellent condition; mid nineteenth-century brown morocco tooled in gilt by E. Neidrée, boards with floral gilt frames and sprays of foliage at corners, spine in gilt-tooled compartments, erroneous title Horae / B. Virginis / XIIme Siecle , with marbled doublures and gilt edges, brass clasps, in a custom leather box Provenance: 1. Written and decorated for use by a Carmelite friar in the fifteenth century, main text opening Incipit breviarium secundum ordinem fratrum gloriose virginis marie de monte carmelli and entries in the Calendar specific to that Order. In March for the saint-doctors ordinis Camelitarum ; St. Albert of Jerusalem on 7 August as "ordis car (introduced in 1411); St. Martial of Limoges on 7 July, whose feast was introduced by the Carmelites; St. Blaise on his distinctively Carmelite feast on 23 January, montis carmelli ; St. Cyril of Constantinople an early prior of the Order, ordinis camelitarum on 6 March; among others. Due to the movement of Carmelite friars over large distances, their books often reflect influences from a number of places; here the script and most of the decoration is Italian, while a single initial, bicoloured grounds with very French looking spiky seed pods, points towards France. The Calendar reflects the geographical distribution of the Order (see below) with predominantly Italian, southern and central French saints, and very occasional Englishmen such as St. Richard of Chichester. The book was most probably carried by its original owner from Italy to southern France, and then survived the following centuries in a French convent until the secularisation of religious houses around 1800, and the spilling of the libraries of religious institutions onto the open market. 2. Most probably owned by Amans Alexis Monteil (1769-1850), French historian; the records of the BnF. connect his library to that of Janin (the next owner of this book, who also posthumously re-edited Monteil s magnum opus) suggesting that the Rituel a l'usage des Carmes petit in 8v MS. du 15 siècle sur vélin in the sale catalogue of Monteil s library in Paris on 11 June 1850, lot 14, is the present volume. 3. Jules Gabriel Janin (1804-1874), journalist, critic, author and book collector: his gilt tooled leather bookplate (pencil notes on flyleaf say this is no. 19 in his catalogue, and it is indeed in the Catalogue des livres rares et précieux composant la bibliothèque de M. Jules, 1877, as that number, misdescribed as a Horae Beatae Virginis of the XIIIe siècle , following the title on the spine and nineteenth-century pencil notes on the flyleaves). Most probably rebound for him by E. Neidrée (recorded in the Janin catalogue). 4. J.B. Neely (1841-1925), bishop of of Philadelphia, PA: his ex libris on flyleaf. Presumably passing by descent, and still in Philadelphia in 1962 when examined by Dr. James J. John of the Institute for Advanced Studies of Princeton for the Free Library of Philadelphia (correspondence enclosed in book). 5. Re-emerging recently in the US. Please visit our website at www.sokol.co.uk for full description. N° de ref. del artículo L4036
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