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LECTIONARY

Lot 141
10.07.2024 10:30UTC +00:00
Classic
Sold
£ 11 340
AuctioneerCHRISTIE'S
Event locationUnited Kingdom, London
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ID 1249783
Lot 141 | LECTIONARY
Estimate value
£ 10 000 – 20 000
LECTIONARY
Lectionarium sanctorale secundum consuetudinez Monachorum nigrorum de observantia ordinis almi Patris Benedicti congregatationis eiusde sancti Benedicti Vallisoletani. Montserrat [at the monastery press, by Joan Rosembach], 1524.
Unique vellum copy of an exceptionally rare lectionary, printed at the monastery of Monsterrat by Joan Rosembach of Heidelberg, 'the greatest of the printers of Catalonia'. One of the last works printed at the famous monastery press, the year after the Lectionarium Dominicale (1523). No copy sold at auction since this (and a paper copy) sold at Paris in 1891, when it was acquired by the renowned Spanish bibliophile, Don Ricardo Heredia y Livermore, count of Benahavis.

‘In 1518 the abbot of the great Benedictine house of Montserrat, some twenty-five miles from Barcelona, called upon Rosembach to print liturgical works for the abbey, which had already been the scene of a similar operation in 1499-1500. Some account of what took place, derived from records now in part lost, was printed by Méndez in 1796. Rosembach took with him a team of eight assistants, whose names are preserved. Work began on 30 July 1518 and before the settling day, 22 March 1522, there had been printed 500 missals […], 701 breviaries, 800 diurnals and 1000 Horae. In addition a large number of indulgences […] A magnificent lectionary in Rosembach’s types printed at Montserrat in the winter of 1523 and the spring of 1524 [the work present here] must have resulted from a second visit’ (Norton, F.J. Printing in Spain 1501-1520, Cambridge, 1966, p. 106). Only 4 copies have been recorded. Palau records a defective copy in the library at the abbey of Monsterrat only and notes a copy on vellum and a defective copy on paper, both once in the monastery of Santo Domingo de Silos but subsequently untraced since the monastery's library sale at Paris in 1878, and Wilkinson locates one copy at San Millan de Cogolla. Palau 13390; Mendez, Tipographie Espagnole, S. 166; Wilkinson, Iberian Books, 5771.

Folio (335 x 225mm). 2 unnumbered leaves [title and 3 page index], and 234 (of 236) foliated leaves (lacking fols. 29 [e1] and 36 [e8]), gothic letter, 36 lines, plus headline within woodcut scroll, double columns, printed throughout in red and black on vellum, title within woodcut border formed of 4 cuts, large central woodcut of St Benedict with monks, 2- and 4-line woodcut initial letters, 4-line woodcuts of saints, 15-line woodcut of St Benedict with two kneeling monks on fol. 28v, repeated on 97r, full-page woodcut on verso of final leaf of Montserrat monastery within a woodcut border (title and second leaf slightly shorter at head and fore-edge with minor repairs at lower fore-edge slightly affecting a few letters, 4-line woodcut figure excised from fol. 160 with loss of some text, stains in folios 185-7 and 203-6, natural flaws in folios 198 and 199 with loss of some text, damp-stain at upper margin of quires aa-cc, final few quires with minor wear at lower corner [not affecting text], cropped pen-and-ink drawing of [Christ’s?] head on fol. 147v). Early 20th-century paneled tan pigskin by Gustaf Hedberg (1859-1920) of Stockholm, spine in five compartments with raised bands, green cloth ties. Provenance: Monastery of Santo Domingo de Silos (inscription in red ink on title), probably the copy sold by the monastery at their sale of books and manuscripts in Paris, 1 June 1878, lot 9 [“Exemplaire sur peau de vélin. Belle impression en rouge et noir, exécutée au monastère de Montserrat, en lettres de forme, sur deux colonnes, avec figures sur bois dans le texte. Le volume a souffert de l’humidité, mais dans la marge inférieure seulement et sans que le texte soit atteint.”; Catalogue de livre rares … et de manuscrits de IXe au XVIIIe siecle (Paris: Librairie Bachelin-Deflorenne, 1878); lot 1 in the sale was a 2 volume Gutenberg bible printed on vellum – Don Ricardo Heredia y Livermore, count of Benahavis (1831-1896), his sale, Huard et Guillemin, Paris, 1891, part 1, lot 140 (‘manquent les ff. 29 et 36’) – Jacques Rosenthal (bookseller, 1854-1937) offered in his catalogue 27 [c. 1900], item 593, described as ‘De la plus grande rareté’ and ‘Malheureusement l’exemplaire est mal conservé, les coins inférieurs étant entièrement détruits, toutefois sans perte de texte, les ff. 29 et 36 manquent.’ – Baron Per Hierta (1864-1924; manuscript note in ink on preliminary blank dated 1907); Hierta had the volume rebound by the Swedish royal bookbinder Gustaf Hedberg (1859-1920) of Stockholm, who presumably cropped the waterstained lower edge.

Auction house category:Books and manuscripts
Address of auction CHRISTIE'S
8 King Street, St. James's
SW1Y 6QT London
United Kingdom
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10.07.2024 – 10.07.2024
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