First report: 5 lots (updated)

Abbreviations

LB London, Bloomsbury Auctions

LS London, Sotheby’s

6 December 2011

London, Sotheby’s, Sale L11241.

Western Manuscripts and Miniatures

(a) Lot 42.

Ludolph of Saxony, Vita Christi.

Latin, vellum, 157 fols, 330 x 230 mm, complete. Two columns. Spain (Salamanca?), s.XV. Latin text. Some ornamentation to initials and capitals; ‘fine Italianate script’. Copyist: Alvarus Salamantinus. Provenance: ‘iste liber est domus beate marie de s…’ (probably convent of Santa Maria de las Duenas, Salamanca?). Contemporary blind-stamped leather binding.

Estimate: £80,000-£100,000.

Notes: ‘instructions to rubricator remaining’ at the foot of some folios. Extensive discussion in catalogue of possible significance and associations of MS, noting influence of Ludolph’s work on Ignatius of Loyola, and the latter’s later period in Salamanca. Unsold.

MIMSS catalogue number: LS2011120600420005.

5 July 2011

London, Sotheby’s, Sale L11240.

Western Manuscripts and Miniatures

(a) Lot 96.

Franciscus Martini, Compendium Veritatis Conceptionis Virginis Mariae Dei Genitricis.

Latin, vellum, 58 fols, complete. 240x185 mm. Two columns, 34-36 lines. ‘Small cursive hand’. Illuminated; author portrait initial (of 11 lines) on fol. 1r. Scribe: Galserandus. One colour plate in catalogue.

Catalogue identifies MS as “Presentation copy from the author” to the library of the Carmelites in Paris “where he had lived and studied c.1364-c.1380: ‘Iste liber est librarie conventus beate marie de monte carmeli civitatis parysiensis quem dedit eidem frater franciscus martini’.” This is the MS seen there by Pedro de Alva y Astorga (s.XVII), and mentioned as ‘untraced’ by Xiberta in 1931.

From the Bergdal Collection of Joseph Pope, of Toronto (1921-2010). Full provenance history in catalogue.

Estimate: £8,000-£12,000. Hammer price including commission: £21,250.

Notes: summary biography of author in catalogue.

MIMSS Catalogue number: LS2011070500960004.

12 May 2011

London, Bloomsbury Auctions: Sale 35812.

Continental and English Literature & Manuscripts and Modern First Editions

(a) Lot 4.

Alvarus Pelagius: Speculum regum, with other material.

Latin, paper, c. 520 pp., incomplete, some leaves loose and damaged; stained. c.300x85mm. Disbound. Spain or France? s.XV. ‘Gothic bookhand, some initials in red’. The Speculum regum ‘occupies the first c.240 pp.’; the remaining material ‘largely legal’. One colour plate in catalogue.

Estimate: £1,500-£2,000.

Hammer price excluding premium: £3,200.

Notes: summary biography of author in catalogue. Condition precisely as poor as catalogue reports.

MIMSS Catalogue number: LB2011051200040003.

(b) Lot 14.

Cartulary of B. Maria de St Sadurni de Subirats (catalogue mistranscribes this as ‘Sibicat’).

Manuscript in Latin and Catalan, 296 pp. Catalonia. s.XV. One colour plate in catalogue.

Estimate: £1,000-£1,500.

Hammer price excluding premium: £1,500.

Notes: What the catalogue describes as ‘pen and ink diagrams’ are notarial signs. [Prof. Joseph J. Gwara kindly reports that this MS is now (November 2011) in the university library at the Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio.] A group of five paper documents from 1422 related to this matter is item 246 in Catàleg 101 of Llibreria antiquària Farré, Carrer de la Canuda 24, 08002 Barcelona (Febrero 2012), described as “Documents relatius a un benefici fundat a l’església de Sant Sadurní de Subirats (Alt Penedès)”. Reference number R.20072. One document is illustrated in the catalogue.

MIMSS Catalogue number: LB2011051200140002.

7 December 2010

London, Sotheby’s: Sale L10241.

(a) Lot 21.

Ordo ad reconciliandum hereticos...

Liturgical order of service for the conversion of Jews and Saracens. Spain, Isabelline period.

Estimate: £10,000-£15,000.

Hammer price including premium: £11,875.

Notes: a significant liturgical testimony to the period following the conquest of Granada.

MIMSS Catalogue number: LS2010120700210001.