Beschreibung:

JACOBUS DE VORAGINE (c.1228-1298), Legenda aurea , first volume, in the French translation of Jean de Vignay (c.1285-c.1350), ILLUMINATED MANUSCRIPT ON VELLUM [Paris, c.1420]280 x 203mm. 328 leaves: iii paper + 1-41 8 + ii paper, COMPLETE, original foliation in red roman numerals in centre of upper margins on rectos, catchwords in lower margins of final versos, 34 lines in two columns written in brown ink in a bâtarde hand between four verticals and 35 horizontals ruled in grey, justification: 187 x 61-17-60 mm, pricking for verticals and first and last horizontals, gathering 22, ff.169-176, originally ruled for each bifolio to be used as a folio, rubrics in red, paragraph marks alternately in red and blue, numerous two-line initials in burnished gold with grounds and infills of blue and pink patterned with white leading to hairline sprays of burnished gold leaves and gold and blue fleurons in the adjacent margin, one six-line initial with staves in pink and white on a foliate ground of burnished gold with a blue and white infill below ONE MINIATURE ACROSS BOTH COLUMNS WITH BAR AND PARTIAL BORDER of hairline sprays of leaves and flowers in burnished gold, blue, pink and green (miniature rubbed, smudging to opening border, some wear to some margins, small repairs to several margins, narrow staining to six lines of text f.322v). 18th-century calf, spine tooled in gilt in six compartments, lettered in the second, fore-edges speckled red (some scuffing, small tears at head and foot of spine). PROVENANCE: 1. The style of illumination shows that the manuscript was produced in Paris around 1420; there are no original marks of ownership and such a popular text may well have been copied and handsomely decorated for the open market. 2. The Jesuit College in Paris, known as the Collège de Clermont from 1564-1683 and then as the Collège Louis le Grand: Collegii parisiensis societatis jesu inscribed in upper margin of f.1. When the Jesuits were suppressed in 1763, the library was ordered to be sold, as authorised by the inscription in the central margin f.1: Paraphe au desir de larrest du 5 juillet 1763. Mesnil . 3. Gerard Meerman (1722-1771): purchased the library of the Jesuit college in 1764; the paper leaves have a Pro patria watermark of Dutch style. The bulk of his manuscripts passed to his son Jean and were dispersed after Jean's death in 1824, when Sir Thomas Phillipps made extensive purchases. Many of the Claremont manuscripts, however, had already left the Meerman Collection, see V. Rose, Verzeichnis der lateinischen handschriften der köninglichen Bibliothek zu Berlin. I die Meerman Handschriften des Sir Thomas Phillipps , 1893, p.iii. 4. Anne Philippine Thérèse, comtesse d'Yve (1738-1814): armorial bookplate inside upper cover, with Ph. for Philippine wrongly following Thérèse. These bookplates were apparently made after her death, probably by Charles van Hulthem, to identify the remarkable collection of an exceptional woman, 'un phénonome sans exemple dans les annales de la bibliophilie' ( Bulletin du bibliophile , 1891, pp.242-8). The catalogue which became a sale catalogue, lists this volume as no 3303, when the miniature was already 'un peu altérée par le temps', Description d'une très belle collection de livres rares et curieux provenant de la bibliothèque de Mademoiselle la comtesse d'Yve , Brussels, 1819-20. The Countess was collecting from at least 1765; see C. Lemaire in Archives et bibliothèques de Belgique , LXIV, 1993, pp.317-57, this manuscript p.331. 5. Sir Thomas Phillipps (1792-1872): Sir T.P. Middle Hill below lion, stamp inside upper cover with number 199, label on spine. It was among the illuminated manuscripts noted by Durrieu in 1888 ('Les manuscrits à peintures de la bibliothèque de Sir Thomas Phillipps à Cheltenham', Bibliothèque de l'Ecole des chartes , l,1889, no XXI, p.392. British Library, Loan 36/2. CONTENT: Jacobus de Voragine, Legenda aurea in the French translation of Jean de Vignay, headed