Beschreibung:

JOHANNES NICOLETTUS DE IMOLA (c.1372-1436). Lectura in librum secundum Decretalium , in Latin, DECORATED MANUSCRIPT ON PAPER [?Padua, 1431-1447] 2°, 424 x 287mm. 332 leaves (later foliation in ink omits f.11): 1-19 10 , 20-21 8 , 22-32 10 , 34 6 (of 10, vii-x cancelled blanks), COMPLETE, catchwords written horizontally, most in banderoles, in lower margins of final versos, signatures, vellum sewing guards, written in black ink in a cursive gothic bookhand in two columns of 65 lines between 4 verticals and above 65 horizontals ruled in plummet, justification typically: 300 x 73-35-76mm, some headings in red, paragraph marks alternately in red and blue, numerous large initials alternately in red with blue or purple penwork infills or in blue with red penwork infills, some with marginal extensions, THREE HISTORIATED INITIALS, two with acanthus extensions with birds and a putto forming borders, one with penwork extensions in red and green, ONE LARGE MINIATURE across both columns, running headings added to upper right corners of rectos, perhaps in the 15th-century hand that accompanies the marginal annotations, with sketches on ff.4, 168, 196, 246, 281, 302 and 316v (profile heads), 16 (Franciscan tertiary), 101 (wolf), 102v (open book), 268 (horse), slips of paper with 15th-century notes at ff.308 and 310 (cropped into some catchwords and signatures, lower corner of f.285 folded and so untrimmed by binder, discolouration of some margins, a few wormholes, repair to edge of f.333). Eighteenth-century mottled calf, spine gilt in compartments with gilt lettering-piece, red edges (slightly rubbed, wormholes to spine). PROVENANCE: 1. The arms of Eugenius IV, f.1, date the manuscript's completion and decoration to 1431-1447. The three men praying at the feet of St James and the man in the initial below wear similar clothes: gowns of red or deep pink, two with chaperons in the contrasting colour, with brown-grey sideless surcoats. They are presumably lawyers and members of a confraternity dedicated to St James. It was common for official books in Bologna, part of the Papal States, to bear the papal arms but the style of the decoration, with the free interpretation of Bolognese forms, suggests that this copy might have been made in Padua, where colour-washed drawings were more favoured. Johannes de Imola taught in both Padua and Bologna and a Paduan copyist might have preserved the papal reference as a compliment to the author, since Imola was also officially part of the Papal States, or as a reference to the highest ecclesiastical authority. The Guild of Notaries in Padua generally revered the local patrons, Sts Prosdocimus and Giustina, but the cult of St James had achieved great prominence in the city during the lordship of the Carrara, who dated the establishment of their rule from his feast-day. 2. Library shelf mark Tab 22 at top of f.1. CONTENT: Johannes de Imola. Lectura in II librum decretalium , opening Incipit secundus liber decretalium. De iudiciis: Rubrica. Circa Rubricam adde quod diffinicio actionis...De quo vult. Casus pactum de non declinando... , f.1, and ending Sic ob hoc nomen domini benedictum ex hoc nunc et usque in seculum. Amen. f.333. The colophon gives the date of Johannes de Imola's completion of the lecture series in the morning of 26 June 1425. Pope Gregory IX issued the Decretals in 1234 as a revised and updated compilation of canon law, the authorised version to be taught in the universities of Bologna and Paris. The organisation of the Decretals in five books was followed in the commentary by the great canon and civil jurist, Johannes de Imola, 'famous throughout the world', as the colophon of the present manuscript states, where the date of 1425 is given for the completion of Book II, On Judgements . When Johannes died in 1436, Books IV and V were still to write as reference works, although their content must have been embodied in lecture notes. The colophon here seems to refer to the completion of t