![BIBLE, with Prologues, in Latin, DECORATED MANUSCRIPT ON VELLUM, [England, 13th century]](https://www.christies.com/img/LotImages/2014/CKS/2014_CKS_01550_0006_002(bible_with_prologues_in_latin_decorated_manuscript_on_vellum_england_1053456).jpg?w=1)
![BIBLE, with Prologues, in Latin, DECORATED MANUSCRIPT ON VELLUM, [England, 13th century]](https://www.christies.com/img/LotImages/2014/CKS/2014_CKS_01550_0006_006(bible_with_prologues_in_latin_decorated_manuscript_on_vellum_england_1053456).jpg?w=1)
![BIBLE, with Prologues, in Latin, DECORATED MANUSCRIPT ON VELLUM, [England, 13th century]](https://www.christies.com/img/LotImages/2014/CKS/2014_CKS_01550_0006_000(bible_with_prologues_in_latin_decorated_manuscript_on_vellum_england_1053456).jpg?w=1)
Details
BIBLE, with Prologues, in Latin, DECORATED MANUSCRIPT ON VELLUM, [England, 13th century]
109 x 75mm. 491 leaves, contemporary pagination in ink in upper margins followed here, LARGE PENWORK INITIALS opening biblical books in red and blue, extensive marginalia in 13th-century hands (imperfect at beginning and end, Acts following Apocalypse, opening and final leaves soiled and cropped, some warping and marginal cropping throughout). SIXTEENTH-CENTURY ENGLISH STAMPED CALF inscribed: ‘Lex Domini imam[cu]lata convertens animas. 1569. I.C.’ on upper board and ‘Si quis sermonem meum servaverit mortem non videbit in eatern[um]’ on lower board. Early vellum dust jacket, originally a deed.
PROVENANCE:
1) This Bible was produced in England in the 13th century: the volume was clearly used for extensive and detailed study, and displays many contemporary study aids: the columns of each book, for example, are divided into sections using letters of the alphabet and Arabic numerals. Especially towards the beginning of the volume, the scribe will often write the chapters continuously, with the rubricator adding the chapter numbers in the margin: this is a common feature of scribal practice and layout of the early half of the 13th-century. 2) The manuscript was evidently still in England in the 16th century: the binding, dated 1569, carries the initials ‘I.C.’, perhaps JOHN CAWOOD (1514-1572), bookbinder and Royal Printer to Queen Mary. 3) 17th-century vellum dust jacket, originally a deed for the division of property 4) Gifted to RALPH THORESBY (1658-1725), antiquarian, diarist, fellow of the Royal Society and museum keeper on 6 April 1701; his sale, Musaeum Thoresbyanum: collection of coins and medals, manuscripts, curiosities, 7 March 1764, lot 49. 5) Sotheby's, 23 February 1925, lot 455. 6) REV. DR. JEREMIAH ZIMMERMAN (1848-1937) of Syracuse, New York, his gift in c.1928 to THE LUTHERAN THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY, Gettysburg, Pennsylvania (De Ricci, Census, 1937, II, p.2001). 7) Maggs Ltd., April 1974, no 964, item 174, short description pasted into lower cover.
CONTENT:
Vulgate Bible with the Prologues attributed to St Jerome, ff.1-491 (lacking beginning of the Prologues, the end of the Acts and possibly the Interpretation of Hebrew names).
An appealing heavily annotated 13th-century English pocket-bible in a handsome 16th-century English binding with early 17th-century English dust jacket.
109 x 75mm. 491 leaves, contemporary pagination in ink in upper margins followed here, LARGE PENWORK INITIALS opening biblical books in red and blue, extensive marginalia in 13th-century hands (imperfect at beginning and end, Acts following Apocalypse, opening and final leaves soiled and cropped, some warping and marginal cropping throughout). SIXTEENTH-CENTURY ENGLISH STAMPED CALF inscribed: ‘Lex Domini imam[cu]lata convertens animas. 1569. I.C.’ on upper board and ‘Si quis sermonem meum servaverit mortem non videbit in eatern[um]’ on lower board. Early vellum dust jacket, originally a deed.
PROVENANCE:
1) This Bible was produced in England in the 13th century: the volume was clearly used for extensive and detailed study, and displays many contemporary study aids: the columns of each book, for example, are divided into sections using letters of the alphabet and Arabic numerals. Especially towards the beginning of the volume, the scribe will often write the chapters continuously, with the rubricator adding the chapter numbers in the margin: this is a common feature of scribal practice and layout of the early half of the 13th-century. 2) The manuscript was evidently still in England in the 16th century: the binding, dated 1569, carries the initials ‘I.C.’, perhaps JOHN CAWOOD (1514-1572), bookbinder and Royal Printer to Queen Mary. 3) 17th-century vellum dust jacket, originally a deed for the division of property 4) Gifted to RALPH THORESBY (1658-1725), antiquarian, diarist, fellow of the Royal Society and museum keeper on 6 April 1701; his sale, Musaeum Thoresbyanum: collection of coins and medals, manuscripts, curiosities, 7 March 1764, lot 49. 5) Sotheby's, 23 February 1925, lot 455. 6) REV. DR. JEREMIAH ZIMMERMAN (1848-1937) of Syracuse, New York, his gift in c.1928 to THE LUTHERAN THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY, Gettysburg, Pennsylvania (De Ricci, Census, 1937, II, p.2001). 7) Maggs Ltd., April 1974, no 964, item 174, short description pasted into lower cover.
CONTENT:
Vulgate Bible with the Prologues attributed to St Jerome, ff.1-491 (lacking beginning of the Prologues, the end of the Acts and possibly the Interpretation of Hebrew names).
An appealing heavily annotated 13th-century English pocket-bible in a handsome 16th-century English binding with early 17th-century English dust jacket.
Special notice
No VAT on hammer price or buyer's premium.
Brought to you by
Eugenio Donadoni