An Illuminated Manuscript On Vellum [Italy (Perhaps Florence), Fourteenth Century] a leaf, 315mm. by 230mm., 22 lines in a high grade angular bookhand, initials formed from ornamental penstrokes and separated from beginning of lines of verse, full border of the continuous gloss of the early fourteenth-century English author William Wheatley (see below) in smaller hand, rubrics and paragraph marks in red, two illuminated initials on blue or pink grounds with scrolling coloured acanthus leaves and large teardrop-like bezants, recovered from the binding of a series of Florentine historical works, partly by the Florentine humanist Matteo Palmieri, with sixteenth-century inscriptions identifying those works on its blank back, with scuffs, rubbing to initials, folds and small holes in places (with minor affect to 3 of glosses), overall in fair and presentable condition.
Reference #
MS_BZ_1010
Civilization
Byzantine, Medieval , 1400 C.E.
Size
H. 31.5 cm x W. 23 cm
Condition
Overall in fair and presentable condition
Price
Price available upon request
Provenance
Baidun Collection, acquired at Sotheby’s sale December 2013
An Illuminated Manuscript On Vellum [Italy (Perhaps Florence), Fourteenth Century] a leaf, 315mm. by 230mm., 22 lines in a high grade angular bookhand, initials formed from ornamental penstrokes and separated from beginning of lines of verse, full border of the continuous gloss of the early fourteenth-century English author William Wheatley (see below) in smaller hand, rubrics and paragraph marks in red, two illuminated initials on blue or pink grounds with scrolling coloured acanthus leaves and large teardrop-like bezants, recovered from the binding of a series of Florentine historical works, partly by the Florentine humanist Matteo Palmieri, with sixteenth-century inscriptions identifying those works on its blank back, with scuffs, rubbing to initials, folds and small holes in places (with minor affect to 3 of glosses), overall in fair and presentable condition.
Reference #
MS_BZ_1010
Civilization
Byzantine, Medieval , 1400 C.E.
Size
H. 31.5 cm x W. 23 cm
Condition
Overall in fair and presentable condition
Price
Price available upon request
Provenance
Baidun Collection, acquired at Sotheby’s sale December 2013
ANTIOCH preceded by the end of a list of the PATRIARCHS OF ALEXANDRIA and followed by a list of the canonical books of the Bible, in Greek, bifolium from a MANUSCRIPT ON VELLUM [Greece?, mid- to late- 10th century] 196 x 153mm. 17 lines ruled in blind written in brown ink in a fine and formal Greek minuscule, headings in uncials, modern foliation 46-47. In a modern cloth binding.
Provenance: (a) the conservative character of the writing is very marked, as is customary with the codices vetustissimi and vetusti of the 9th – 13th centuries. The minuscule slants slightly to the right, the breathings are square and the accents precise, and there is no enlargement of certain letters and intermixing with uncial forms as tends to happen in later centuries, all indicating a possible dating to the 10th century. The list of the Patriarchs of Alexandria ends with Peter IV (642-651), while the list of the Patriarchs of Antioch ends with Anastasius II (599-610), and the scribe has left space for 9 and 10 more names respectively, which would suggest he was copying the text from an earlier manuscript and writing a few centuries after the names listed. (b) ANDRe ROORYCK (1923-2010), sold at Sotheby’s, 5 July 2005, lot 7. An interesting and early bifolium from what would probably have been a compendium of useful religious dates, events, and lists relating to the Greek Orthodox Church. George I (621-630), Cyrus (631-641) and Peter IV (642-651) close the list of Patriarchs of Alexandria (following the Greek Orthodox as opposed to the Coptic Orthodox tradition, after the schism of 536), while the Patriarchs of Antioch run from Peter the Apostle (c.37 – 53) to Anastasius II (599-610).
The area of Luristan, in western Iran, was home to a rich tradition of bronze-working in the early part of the first millennium B.C.E., producing an array of finely-crafted and distinctive objects unique to the region. This intricately-cast standard finial was originally intended to sit atop a ceremonial staff to be carried in a procession; the bell-shaped socket at the lower end was designed to enable attachment.
The finial represents, in highly stylized form, the ‘Master of Animals’, a deity considered ancient even at the time this piece was made, and who probably had origins in Stone Age hunters’ cults. The figure has a cylindrical body, with three faces along its length. With a pair of slender arms, it fends off two serpent-like creatures. The lowest part of the figure has an exaggerated, oval-shaped torso and stands on a pair of short, bowed legs.
Manuscript Of The Text, In Latin, On Vellum [Germany, Early Twelfth Century] 9 fragments: 2 strips approximately 85mm. by 20mm. and 7 rectangular pieces, each approximately 42mm. by 25mm., one strip and one rectangle cut from same section of text allowing the reconstruction of 4 lines of a single column (35mm. wide): II:132-33, “Philologie frontem illuc ubi … oculis afflaret honores” and on back “sunt inclytam majestatem … hac regali lectica in”, and showing that the original volume was single-column and pocket-sized (with only approximately 21 lines missing between the lines here), other fragments with text from II:109, 110, 113, 130, and another part of 132, text in a fine late Carolingian hand with a pronounced ct-ligature, recovered from a binding of an sixteenth-century printed book from Leipzig, and hence with stains, cockling and splits.
Reference #
MS_BZ_1009
Civilization
Byzantine, Medieval , 1200 C.E.
Size
W. 8.5 cm, H. 2 cm
Condition
Fine condition
Price
Price available upon request
Provenance
Baidun Collection, acquired at Sotheby’s sale December 2013
