Square neumes - photo 1
Square neumes - photo 2
Square neumes - photo 3

Square neumes

Lot 38
08.11.2023 11:00UTC +00:00
Classic
Starting price
£ 3 800
AuctioneerCHRISTIE'S
Event locationUnited Kingdom, London
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ID 1053152
Lot 38 | Square neumes
Estimate value
£ 4 000 – 6 000
Square neumes
Two leaves from a Pontifical, in Latin, manuscript on vellum [France or Germany, mid-12th century]
From a portable Pontifical, for the private use of a bishop.

231 x 151mm, 15 lines in a Romanesque bookhand in three sizes, small neat square neumes on a 4-line pale red staff with F-clefs, added but contemporary, rubrics and initials in red. Bound in grey buckram at the Quaritch bindery.

Provenance:
(1) From a cluster of at least 8 leaves bought in 1956 by Bernard Rosenthal from Hans Koch, owner of his father Jacques' firm in Munich when under Aryan management.

(2) Bernard Rosenthal, his I/1: presumably the first item the great bookseller ever owned or catalogued.

(3) Quaritch, Bookhands III, cat. 1088 (1988), no 40.

(4) Schøyen Collection, MS 185.

Text:
The first leaf opens with the rubric 'Ordo in dedicacione ecclesie', followed by two pages of instructions on the transfer of relics to a shrine in the new church, on visiting the new church the day before, on the lighting of 12 candles around the entrance, and so on; the second leaf is part of the service of dedication itself (see Z. Obertynski, The Cracow Pontifical, 1977, p.38, nos.37-39). An adjacent bifolium from the same gathering belonged to Mark Lansburgh, and was sold at Sotheby's, 22 June 1999, lot 20. The manuscript was in gatherings of 8 leaves each, since the corrector on f.2v refers to 'ultima pagina precedentis quaternionis'.

Script and music:
The script is of high quality, widely-spaced and regular, appropriate for a bishop. The lines of music show a very early example of stave-lines and F clefs, almost unknown before the thirteenth century.
Place of origin:Germany
Address of auction CHRISTIE'S
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