Licence: In copyright
Credit: Sales catalogue 1: Lathorp C. Harper, Inc. Source: Wellcome Collection.
8/92 page 2
![with an over-all design of stars enclosed in semi-circles, also showing traces of original gilt. Front cover cracked but securely restored by riveting from the in- side. a Ferrara, ca. 1455. $9,500.00 A magnificent Italian illuminated manuscript of the middle of the fifteenth century in an unusually fine state of preservation. Beautifully illuminated by one of the fine Ferrarese artists associated with the group who executed THE CELEBRATED BIBLE OF BORSO D’ESTE, now in the Biblioteca Estense at Modena. In the wider border of the first illuminated page are the arms of the first owner, a member of the Bojardi family of Ferrara, now extinct: azure a chevron argent (see Rivista Araldica, Vol. 7, 1909, p. 530). This is one of the few illuminated manuscripts on the market that can be considered, without restriction, as being of the finest possible quality with regard to both illumination and condition. It is a masterpiece of the greatest period of the Italian Renaissance. The manuscript must have been written ca. 1455, since the name of Saint Vincent Fer- rer (who was canonized in that year) is found in the Calendar, with the Proper Prayers in the Breviary. The names of other saints in the Calendar indicate that the volume was for the use of an Augustinian convent in Padua. The four beautiful borders are found at the beginning of each of the four sections of the Breviary. The first, at the beginning of the Psalter, is a four-sided border of delicate scroll- ing and diaper work in gold enclosing numerous lozenge and circular motifs (fruit and flowers) in red, blue and green. In the outer and lower margins are five miniature portraits of Saint Joseph, Saint Ambrose, the Child Jesus, the Virgin Mary, and the Archangel Ga- briel, on red and blue backgrounds scrolled in gold. In the center of the lower margin is a coat-of-arms on a red ground: a blue shield barred in silver with the initial “L” thrice re- peated. At the beginning of the text is a fine initial “F” in rose and white on a blue and gold ground with a portrait of a saint with tonsure, in a brown, green and red habit holding a sword and an open book. The second border, at the beginning of the Proprium de Tempore, is of similar design in gold and colors, enclosing three circular compartments containing paintings of a rabbit, a duck and a tiger seated on a rocky ledge. The large initial “P” in rose, white and green, with some blue, on a blue and gold ground, shows Saint Ambrose with mitre and crozier, his right hand uplifted in blessing. The third border, at the beginning of the Proprium Sanctorum, is of the same size and design as the first two, in gold and colors, the three compartments containing the figures of a pigeon, a monkey and a deer, the first on a branch with a background of blue sky, the two latter on backgrounds of fields and rocks. The initial “O” in blue, green and yellow on a gold ground shows Saint Saturninus in a blue robe holding a book and palm branch on a deep red background. The fourth border, harmonizing in design with the others, is at the beginning of the Commune Sanctorum. The compartments contain miniatures of a deer reclining in a field, an oriole on a branch with one claw raised, and two does resting on a ledge. The initial “F” shows SS. Peter and Paul, the former in a blue and yellow robe holding a key, the latter in a blue, green and red robe with his left hand resting on a sword. [2]](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b33160296_0008.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
No text description is available for this image
No text description is available for this image
No text description is available for this image