Results tagged “Florence”

From the Bibliothèque de Genève, hosted by the excellent e-Codices site, comes a late 15th Florentine Book of Hours, Comites Latentes 54. The book is in a very careful and decorative Italian Gothic, with a couple of the highly-ornate borders that often accompany this scribal hand. The calendar is mosthly empty, with only 128 total entries, about 1/2 ranked high. As common in Italian books there’s a high-than-usual count of popes, and some specific local entries, such as the rare St. Zenobious of Florence 4072.

(DB Id: 239)

Morgan Library - M.361

Morgan Library M.361 is one more of the Italian books of hours, this one from Florence.  The calendar is sparse, perhaps the least populated calendar I've seen so far, with only 118 entries.  The entries are a perfect case study for localizing a calendar though.  Most of the entries are the extremely common ones, Apostles, life of Mary, Jesus and John the Baptist, etc.  There are 3 hapex saints, however, in early summer:

  • May 25 - St. Zenobius, bishop
  • June 6 - St. Alexandrus, bishop
  • July 6 - St. Romulus, bishop and martyr

Of these the first is localized to Florence (Zenobius is regarded as the first bishop of Florence) and the other two to Fiesole, 5 miles from Florence proper. 

(DB Id: 171)

Morgan Library - M.305

We've not yet run out of Italian books from the Morgan LibraryM.305 is localized to Florence, dated circa 1495.  The calendar is nearly complete, containing 340 entries and all 12 zodiac entries, so only 12 empty lines.  It also has a unique color scheme: red for normal, blue for high rank feasts and gold only for vigils (all vigils are gold) and the Zodiacs. The last 2 entries in September (Michael the Archangel and Jerome) are unusual, they're red, but with a gold initial.  There's a manicule pointing to Michael, perhaps an indication of one of the previous owners.  The calendar is filled with errors

  • Several days were omitted in the sequence and their dominical letter/golden number added in the margin
  • The first letter of every month was never written in, there's a gap between the KL and the rest of the word, but no initial (i.e. KL ept[m]ber at the start of September)
  • The last four saints in January were written one line off, with scribal correction

Finally there are many unidentified saints, but it is unclear if these are in error or too specific in localization to be recorded in the more general reference materials.  The hand is a lovely Humanist, with regular capitolization and mostly regular gendering of titles (Sce vs Sci vs Scor[um]).

(DB Id: 170)

An interesting postscript, this MS was rebound in the early 20th century by Marguerite Duprez Lahey in a lovely, if overly tight, light brown Morocco.  There's an outer case in 1/2 leather, 1/2 marbled paper.  The later matches the end-papers

Morgan Library - M.14

Morgan Library M.14 is another Italian Book of Hours, this one is from the 1490s, from Florence and was owned by the Franceschi-Pitti family, their arms are in it.  The calendar is very unusual, in layout, in decoration and in population.  Each month has 3 sides, with an illustration of the sign of the Zodiac in the sky at the start (see f.1r below).  The short Egyptian verses are in the outer margin, in a smaller hand, and there is no KL for Kalends, only the first letter of the month in gold on a jewel-tone background.  The feasts are graded in gold and blue, with blue the most important ones.  The saints are a mishmash of unusual Italian and French saints, many of them heretofore unrepresented in the DB.  With a few minor exceptions, a wrap-around error on King Sigismund (listed on April 30) being the most obvious, the saints are accurate.  There are 2 missing days in the calendar, July 1 and November 12, but the scribe managed to catch Nov. 12 and inserted at least the dominical 'a' interlinearly in blue.  No indication exists that the missing July 1 was noticed.

(DB Id: 164)

m14.001r.jpg

These are the last two of the Morgan Library books from my recent visit, so we'll be back to sharable images soon.  M.80 is a beautifully calligraphed Milanese manuscript written by Sigismondo de'Sigismondi in a flourishy Italian Gothic.  The calendar is rather unremarkable, nothing out of the ordinary.  M.1083 is a Florentine book, possibly by Antonio di Niccolò di Lorenzo.  The calendar is not terribly unusual and the manuscript in general doesn't stand out.  

If I can't share any of the calendar pages from M.80, here's at least the start of the Hours of the BVM, f.13r.

m80.013r.jpg