Item Details

An Uncommonly Substantial 13th Century Lectionary,
With Decoration beyond the Usual Cistercian Austerity

AN EXTREMELY LARGE, VERY IMPRESSIVE EARLY DECORATED VELLUM MANUSCRIPT LECTIONARY IN LATIN.

(1256-59). 464 x 311 mm (18 1/4 x 12 1/4"). 221 leaves. Double column, 30 lines per page in a fine early gothic rotunda hand. (Lacking a section of eight folios after folio 193, and two folios following folio 196.)

Very possibly original oak boards, recent red morocco spine. Rubrics in red, eight large, ornate initials (ranging in size from 60 to 95 mm. tall), 139 four- to six-line initials, and more than 1,000 two- to three-line initials, all painted in red or blue with varying degrees of elaboration in the contrasting color (a few of the larger capitals with green wash highlighting). Pope, "Bergendal Collection Catalogue: One Hundred and Twenty-Five Manuscripts," No. 83. A scattering of tiny wormholes to boards, otherwise the binding sturdy and attractive. First two leaves with two-inch triangular piece missing from one column, affecting six or seven lines of text; another smaller hole on second leaf patched in the 17th century (with missing text filled in), folio 88 missing a piece from the tail edge at hinge, with loss of three lines of text, final leaf with a portion of the tail margin missing (minor loss), marginal annotations trimmed on half a dozen leaves, occasional minor stains or soiling, a couple dozen pages with evident natural sprinkled grain (but with none of the usual darkening) on the hair side, other trivial imperfections, but in most ways a remarkably well-preserved handsome and fresh manuscript, the text very legible throughout, the vellum mostly very clean and of high quality, and the pleasing decoration without significant defects.

At 464 mm. tall and containing 221 leaves, this is a very large, very substantial, and very attractive liturgical text from the middle of the 13th century. While a Lectionary can be understood to be any book containing a collection of readings to be employed in a liturgical context, the present volume was used specifically as part of the Divine Office, that cycle of daily devotions discharged at the prescribed canonical hours by the clergy and by members of religious orders. As early as the 11th century, but not widely until the end of the 13th, texts for the Divine Office came to be contained in a single book, the Breviary. Before that time, there were various volumes containing different parts of the Divine Office (in addition to the Lectionary, there were Psalters, Antiphonals, Collectars, Martyrologies, and other books); the present manuscript comes from that earlier stage of liturgical evolution. More precisely, our manuscript consists of both the Temporal and Sanctoral of the Summer part of a Cîteaux type Lectionary (including the period from Easter Sunday through the last Sunday in Pentecost), as described by Réginald Grégoire in "Cîteaux: Commentarii Cistercienses," xxviii, 133-207, an article examining a Dijon manuscript produced in ca. 1180. The manuscript was probably prepared for the Abbey of Chiaravalle della Colomba in Piacenza sometime between 1256 and 1259. The locale is supported by the inclusion of a Collect for Antoninus of Piacenza, the patron of both the cathedral and diocese of Piacenza, where there are many churches dedicated to him. The manuscript can be dated based on the inclusion or omission of saints' days: in the calendar are St. Lambert (canonized in 1246), St. Edmond (1247), and St. Peter Martyr (1256); in addition, there are marginal additions in an original hand of St. Dominic and St. Francis, who were added to the calendar in 1255 and 1259, suggesting that these canonizations were occurring at the time the manuscript was being prepared. Among specific Cistercian inclusions in the Sanctoral are Robert of Molesme (29 April), founder and first abbot of Cîteaux, on folio 112r; the special office for Bernard of Clairvaux (20 August), folios 147v-149v; Malachy (2 November), whose cult originated at Clairvaux, on folio 184v; and Edmund of Abingdon (16 November), an archbishop of Canterbury who died in 1240 in France and was buried in the Cistercian abbey at Pontigny (folio 190r). As a reflection of the rigorous asceticism embraced by the Cistercians, and in keeping with the order's tradition of reserved embellishment, our manuscript does not have any illumination or historiation, but the decoration is nevertheless very pleasing. There are more than 1,000 initials, many of them intricate and expansive, and a number of them could be considered elegant. There is also a singular moment of whimsy, as a bearded human face stares amusingly out of a capital "D" on folio 16r. The general austerity of Cistercian decoration is compensated for by an emphasis on clarity of scribal hand, and that feature is very notable in the present manuscript. This conspicuous legibility is particularly important since our volume would have been used for the Night Office held in a dark church in the dead of night (the service normally beginning at around 2:30 a.m.). More than one scribe worked on our book, but the text as a whole is extremely regular and comprises a good example of a transitional early gothic rotunda hand. It is known that in the 16th century much of the library of the Abbey of Chiaravalle della Colomba came into the possession of the renowned humanist Paolo Giovio (1483-1552), Bishop of Nocera, an intimate of the Medicis, and one of the most eminent historians and biographers of his age. Although an immoral sycophant in his private life and political alliances, he was sonorous, lively, vivid, and charming as an author. Giovio's descendants held the codex for more than 400 years, until its sale at Christie's in 1977. It was purchased by H. P. Kraus, who sold the book to the previous owner in 1986. Once Lectionaries were subsumed liturgically, they generally became obsolete books, and many of them were neglected or broken up for other uses, often as structural elements of bookbindings (for example, all that remains of the 13th century lectionary of the important 12th century Cistercian abbey of Eberbach in the Rheingau is a single leaf used as the cover of the tax register for 1529-1617 in the nearby village of Kiedrich--see Nigel Palmer, "Zisterzienser und ihre Bücher," p. 317). As a result, Lectionaries from this period, and especially Lectionaries intended for Cistercian use, are quite rare. Very few have appeared on the market since the 1977 Christie's sale: while a tally of ABPC listings would not necessarily represent all pertinent auction results, it is nevertheless revealing to note that in ABPC since 1977, only one manuscript predating ours described as both "Cistercian" and "Lectionary" is listed (only seven books of any kind described as "Cistercian" appear). And, excluding leaves and small fragments, of all the lectionaries listed before the 15th century, only four have measurements approximately as big as ours. We know of one other similar manuscript currently on the market, also produced (some 30-40 years earlier) in Northern Italy and also owned by Giovio; it is smaller (measuring 281 x 208 mm.), shorter (containing 162 of 172[?] leaves), and more expensive (being priced at the approximate equivalent of $170,000). Single leaves from a manuscript like ours show up from time to time in the marketplace (where they are priced at well over $1,000 each), but the appearance of an imposing 13th century book like this one represents a special occurrence. (ST12084)