Beneventan neumes - photo 1
Beneventan neumes - photo 2
Beneventan neumes - photo 3

Beneventan neumes

Lot 27
08.11.2023 11:00UTC +00:00
Classic
Starting price
£ 10 000
AuctioneerCHRISTIE'S
Event locationUnited Kingdom, London
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ID 1053141
Lot 27 | Beneventan neumes
Estimate value
£ 10 000 – 15 000
Beneventan neumes
A partial bifolium from a Gradual, in Latin, decorated manuscript on vellum [Central or Southern Italy, c.1100-1140]
A survival from a beautiful written and decorated Gradual and a clear example of early 12th-century Beneventan notation.

c.206 x 159mm (the leaf); c.206 x 286mm (the bifolium), the leaves not consecutive, 10 lines written in a fine late Carolingian minuscule, blind-ruled, Beneventan musical notation with a red F line and yellow C line, headings in red, capitals touched in red, one white-vine initial 'E' in red outline infilled with blue, yellow and green (used as a pastedown and consequently one side very worn and yellowed, some worming to extremities, cropping to outer margins). Bound in grey buckram at the Quaritch bindery.

Provenance:
(1) Robert Wölfle, Munich, purchased in May 1980 by:

(2) Bernard Rosenthal, his 'I/264'.

(3) Bernard Quaritch, Bookhands of the Middle Ages III, cat.1088 (1988), no 41.

(4) Schøyen Collection, MS 99.

Text:
The text contains parts of the Office for Sundays after Pentecost, beginning on the first recto with the Offertory for the 7th Sunday after Pentecost: '[sacrifici]um nostrum in conspectu tuo hodie'; ending on the verso in the introit for the 9th Sunday after Pentecost 'Ecce deus adiuvat me et dominus susceptor est anime [meae]'; continuing on the second recto with the Gradual for the 12th Sunday after Pentecost '[Benedicam Dominum in] omni tempore' and ending with the introit for the 13th Sunday after Pentecost 'iudica causam tuam et ne obliviscaris [voces quaerentium te]'.

Script and music:
Prof. John Emerson of the University of California, Berkeley, dated the bifolium to c.1100-1140 and localised it to Central or Southern Italy. The script is a very fine and legible Carolingian minuscule, but the musical notation is Beneventan in form, reflecting in its calligraphic precision what Kelly calls 'an uprightness and an elegance that match the maturity of the script' (T. F. Kelly, The Exultet in Southern Italy,1996, p.90).
Place of origin:Italy
Address of auction CHRISTIE'S
8 King Street, St. James's
SW1Y 6QT London
United Kingdom
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