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

Beneventan neumes

Lot 33
08.11.2023 11:00UTC +00:00
Classic
Starting price
£ 4 800
AuctioneerCHRISTIE'S
Event locationUnited Kingdom, London
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ID 1053147
Lot 33 | Beneventan neumes
Estimate value
£ 5 000 – 8 000
Beneventan neumes
A leaf and a fragment from a Beneventan Antiphonal, in Latin, decorated manuscript on vellum [Abruzzi, c.1200]
Fragments from a large Antiphonal from the Abruzzi, with Beneventan script and notation, with sister leaves at the Vatican and in the Czech Republic.

One leaf and one strip; the leaf: c.393 x 203mm, 8 partial lines written in a large, rounded Beneventan minuscule, 8 lines of Beneventan neumes on a single red F-staff; the strip: c.200 x 53mm, 4 lines of text and 5 of music; 2 large initials in leafy designs infilled with red and yellow (both fragments recovered from bindings, the full leaf folded over at the bottom from use as a wallet binding, horizontal crease, a few stains and smudges, margins cropped with loss of text). Bound in grey buckram at the Quaritch bindery.

Provenance:
(1) In a letter to Dr Schøyen dated 6 September 1992, Virginia Brown localises the manuscript to the Abruzzi. In her entry for this manuscript in A Second List of Beneventan Manuscripts III (1994), p.317, she identified a sister leaf at the Vatican, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Chigi S V 4, fasc. 11. Another fragment is at Litoměřice, Czech Republic, Státní oblastní archiv (unnumbered - on this see V. Brown, A Second New List of Beneventan Manuscripts IV [1999], p.328).

(2) The single leaf was evidently used as a wrapper for a 16th-century Italian notarial manuscript: 'Decreti dal 1561 sino a[l] 1564 N.34' is inscribed on the flap, and the same dates are again inscribed on the verso, along with 'della Congreg[azion]e' and 'Decreti Congregazioni' on the spine. Various other inscriptions in a later Italian hand.

(3) The single leaf was in the collection of Gian Ludovico Mazza, of Rome; the strip was offered at Sotheby's, 17 December 1991, lot 3 ('A fragment of a Gradual written in Beneventan minuscule'): both were purchased by:

(4) Bernard Quaritch, acquired in 1992 by:

(5) Schøyen Collection, MS 1597.

Text:
The text of the large leaf is for Feria 3-4 before the Nativity, starting on the current verso as bound from '[Ut cognoscamus Domine, in terra viam tuam, in omnibus] gentibus salutare tuum' to 'Propter Sion non tacebo donec [eg]rediatur ut splendor iustus eius. Laudemus'. The text of the strip follows, with Feria 5-6: the large decorated 'C' opens Feria 6: 'Constantes [estote videbitis auxilium] domini'.

Script and music:
These fragments present a classic example of Beneventan script of Montecassino type. To the modern eye this is one of the more difficult medieval scripts to read, because so many of the letter-forms are unfamiliar: ‘e’ looks like a figure ‘8’ with an open lower bowl, ‘a’ is shaped similar to a Greek alpha, which in turn can be confused with the letter ‘t’ which looks like an ‘oc’ ligature, the ‘ci’ ligature appears like a reversed Greek beta (‘ß’), and so on. The music is of Beneventan type on a single red F-staff.
Place of origin:Italy
Address of auction CHRISTIE'S
8 King Street, St. James's
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