Michele de Massa (1298-1337) - photo 1
Michele de Massa (1298-1337) - photo 2
Michele de Massa (1298-1337) - photo 3
Michele de Massa (1298-1337) - photo 4

Michele de Massa (1298-1337)

Lot 4
11.12.2024 00:00UTC +00:00
Classic
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CHRISTIE'S
AuctioneerCHRISTIE'S
Event locationUnited Kingdom, London
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ID 1349672
Lot 4 | Michele de Massa (1298-1337)
Estimate value
£ 8 000 – 10 000
Michele de Massa (1298-1337)
De quattuor virtutibus cardinalibus, in Latin, decorated manuscript on vellum [Italy, 14th century]
A rare appearance on the market of the Augustinian Michele de Massa's treatise on the Cardinal Virtues, written within the same century as the author's life: apparently no other copy has appeared at auction.

197 x 145mm. i + 24 + i leaves, complete, collation: 1-212, catchword survives, 2 columns of 41 lines, ruled space: 153 x 50mm, rubrics in red, paraph marks alternately in red or blue, initials in red or blue with penwork in contrasting colour, contemporary and near-contemporary maniculae and annotations in margins (one leaf with contemporary stitched repair to margin, a few smudges and stains, annotations in margins occasionally cropped, else in good condition). Bound in 19th-century green marbled paper over pasteboards (a little scuffed).

Provenance:
(1) Giovanni Cavacia (Cavazza or Cavazzi?): 16th/17th-century inscription on f.24v 'Editus a Fratre Michaelle de Massa ordinis Sancti Augustini De Quattuor virtutibus moralitatis ad usum Magistri Johannis Cavacie de Car[hium?, ie Chieri?]'.

(2) Johann Baptist Erbinger von der Burg, Lord of Steisslingen (b.1739), Knight of Malta and Canon in Constance: his armorial bookplate on inside upper cover. 'No. 118' has been added in an 18th- or 19th-century hand to the top of f.1.

Contents: Michele de Massa, De quattuor virtutibus cardinalibus, beginning: 'Regna remota iustitia non sunt nisi magna latrocinia' ff.1-24v.

Michele de Massa (1298-1337; also known as 'Michele Beccucci', from a doubtful association with the noble Beccucci family, or ‘Michele di Massa Marittima’, where he was likely born) was an Augustinian scholar, lecturer and commentator who served as ‘diffinitor’ of his Order during the General Chapter held in Venice in 1332. He composed commentaries on Peter Lombard's Sententiae (which survive today in three manuscripts in Bologna and Rome) and on the Gospels of Matthew and Luke (which survive in full and abridged forms in only a handful of manuscripts), as well as sermons and shorter, more popular devotional works on the life and Passion of Christ (used as a basis for Ludolph of Saxony's Vita Christi) and on vices and virtues, as in the present manuscript. These shorter works appear to have circulated in significant numbers, particularly in northern Germany and the Rhineland, and were translated into Dutch and German during the 15th century.

Morton Wilfred Bloomfield et al. in their Incipits of Latin Works on the Virtues and Vices, 1100-1500, (1979), nos. 5124 and 5142, and the Mirabile website list 8 manuscripts, with 4 of those dating to the 14th-century like the present copy (in Bordeaux, Bibliothèque Mériadeck, MS. 267; Ferrara, Biblioteca Comunale Ariostea, MS. II 58; Paris, Bibliothèque Mazarine, MS. 727; and Toulouse, Médiathèque José Cabanis, MS. 230). The text is rare to the market, with seemingly no other copy appearing at auction on Rare Book Hub, and no copies on the Schoenberg Database.
Place of origin:Italy, Europe
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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11.12.2024 – 11.12.2024
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