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BOOK OF HOURS, use of Rome and St Gallen, in Latin, ILLUMINATED MANUSCRIPT ON VELLUM
BOOK OF HOURS, use of Rome and St Gallen, in Latin, ILLUMINATED MANUSCRIPT ON VELLUM [Switzerland or southern Germany, c.1480] 152 x 105mm. 111 leaves: 1 6(of 8, lacking i + ii), 2-4 8, 5 7(of 8, vi cancelled blank), 6-8 8, 9 7(of 8, viii a cancelled blank), 10 7(vii a singleton), 11-12 8, 13 7(of 8, viii cancelled blank), 14 8, 15 5(of 8, iv cancelled, vii + viii cancelled blanks), 17 or 18 lines written in black ink in a semi-cursive bookhand between two verticals and 19 horizontals, with two pairs of horizontals extending across margins, ruled in plummet, justification: 99 x 67mm, rubrics in red, some versal initials touched red, text flourishing sometimes extending into lower margin, one- to three-line initials alternately in red and blue, occasional penwork drolleries in margins, TWENTY-FIVE BURNISHED GOLD INITIALS, two- to five-lines high, the infills stamped with flowerhead, star or disk tools, each with accompanying spray in the border of pink, green and/or blue acanthus and disks of burnished gold with red penwork decoration, LARGE HISTORIATED INITIAL with similar three-sided border encorporating half-length figure (lacking at least one leaf, some smudging or loss of pigment, some gold initials rubbed, short marginal tear to one leaf just touching text, some outer margins closely cropped). A GERMANIC LEDERSCHNITT BINDING OF THE LAST QUARTER OF THE 15TH CENTURY, SIGNED BY MONOGRAMMISTS on the upper cover: calf over bevelled wooden boards, central panel with cut-leather design depicting St Peter (upper cover) and St Paul (lower cover) within cut-leather foliate border, outer frame, central bevels and raised double-cord spine bands outlined with blind fillets, spine compartments undecorated, turn-ins tooled with a blind roll, two fore-edge clasps (repairs at spine, front pastedown renewed, small sections of leather missing, one clasp-leather replaced). PROVENANCE: 1. The liturgical use for the Office of the Dead, and the inclusion in the suffrages of St Gallus and St Othmar, associate this manuscript with the Benedictine Abbey of St Gall. The use of the Office of the Dead is a variant of the St Gall series that is associated with St Emmeram, south of Bamberg. That this Hours was made for the use of a professed monk, rather than for the private devotional use of a lay person, is implied by the inclusion of rubrics for singing in the choir and approaching the altar (f.59v). Furthermore, the historiated initial which opens the Office of the Dead depicts two Benedictine monks, one holding his book of prayers to be said over the coffin between them, which suggests that this prayerbook was made for a member of a Benedictine house in the locality where the variant use was adopted. The style of illumination is consistent with an origin in southern Germany in the late 15th century. CONTENT: Office of the Virgin, use of Rome ff.1-45v: matins f.1 (lacking opening), lauds f.11v, prime f.19v, terce f.24, sext f.29v, none f.34v, vespers f.39v, compline f.43v; seasonal variants and suffrages ff.46-68, Office of the Dead, use of St Gall, followed by prayers to be said on anniversaries of the deaths of priests, abbots and others ff.69-98v; section of indulgenced prayers, opening with an indulgenced prayer on the Passion, 'Salve gloriosum caput nostri redemptoris' ff.99-111v. AN IMPORTANT ADDITION TO THE CORPUS OF CUIR CISELé BINDINGS, SIGNED BY THE ARTIST, MONOGRAMMIST S. It is remarkable for its quality, rarity and condition. Despite Adolf Schmidt having examined it, the binding seems never to have been published; it does not appear in the comprehensive Corpus der Gotishen Lederschnitteinbände aus dem deutschen Sprachgebiet by Schmidt-Künsemüller (1980). The Corpus records fewer than 400 examples of cuir-ciselé bindings, very few of which are signed by the artist; NO OTHER EXAMPLE OF THE WORK OF MONOGRAMMIST S IS KNOWN IN THIS OR OTHER MEDIA. Only a handful of cuir-ciselé bindings are in private hands, and no finer example has come