Beschreibung:

Miniature Book of Hours, Use of Rome, in Latin, opulently illuminated manuscript on parchment [north eastern Italy (Veneto), c. 1480] 210 leaves (plus 2 modern endleaves at back), complete, i12, ii-ix10, x6, xi8, xii6, xiii-xx10, xxi4, xxii8, xxiii6, catchwords and some cropped signature marks, single column, 12 lines in a fine late gothic bookhand (all in dark brown apart from opening page and last words: laus Deo meo. Memento mei, these in liquid gold), red rubrics (except for frontispiece where rubric also in liquid gold), one-line simple initials in red or dark blue, 2-line in burnished gold or dark blue with elaborate scrolling foliate penwork in contrasting colours (often filling upright border and occasionally picking out birds nestled among the flower heads or cherub heads), nine 4-line illuminated initials (fols. 28r, 52r, 57v, 63r, 67v, 72v, 82r, 100r and 107r) in pink on gold grounds with petal-like pounced shapes enclosing each initial, the bodies of the initials enclosing blue flowers with finely pounced stems and extending into tightly curling sprays of coloured acanthus leaves set on wide gold borders in upright margins, these accompanied by single-line foliage with gold bezants and coloured flower heads in upper margin and bas-de-page, four historiated initials in pink with white penwork, with full border of scrolling double hairline penwork foliage, held together by gold bezants and enclosing coloured flower heads, occasional panels with coloured acanthus leaves on burnished gold panels, the frontispiece with full border in same decorated panels, each historiated initial page with large roundels set in bas-de-page showing deer, a realistic pet monkey and the arms of the original owner, small losses to gold at outer edges of frontispiece and from occasional initials within volume, tiny amount of flaking from blue sky behind right-hand putto, else excellent condition, 91 by 65mm.; English seventeenth- or eighteenth-century russet morocco tooled in gilt with double fillet and palmette borders, spine gilt in five compartments with quatrefoil and foliate tools, edges of boards gilt with a foliate diaper (wormhole and small splits at edges of spine), in red morocco fitted case Provenance: 1. Written and illuminated for a Renaissance bishop or abbot, most probably Paulus Justiniani (d. 1485), papal ambassador to Christian I of Denmark and Charles VIII of Sweden and Norway as well as bishop of Bergen, Norway (from 1457), and then after 1460 bishop of Noli, north-west Italy. The iconography of the arms at the foot of fol. 13r, a kneeling angel argent on azure, is exceptionally rare, but can be found as here as a variant for the Justiniani/Giustiniani family, and with different tincture in the arms of the Angeli family. As far as we can discern no member of the Angeli family became a bishop or abbot in the second half of the fifteenth century, and the only candidates from the Justiniani/Giustiniani family are that above and the chronologically implausible St. Lorenzo Giustiniani (1381-1456), bishop and patriarch of Venice, and Pietro Giustiniani who took office in Pedena, Austria, in 1434. 2. In England during the seventeenth or eighteenth century, and evidently bound there then. Perhaps acquired by an English visitor to north-west Italy on the Grand Tour. 3. Edward Whittaker Hennell (1842-1918), friend of Bram Stoker, noted bibliophile and collector of prints, engravings, paintings and musical and scientific instruments, whose Byron collections passed to the Lilly Library: his large circular Facta non verba bookplate inside upper cover. 4. Martin Breslauer (1871-1940), Berlin bookseller, relocating to London in 1937. 5. William Foyle (1883-1965), British bookseller; his sale of his library from Beeleigh Abbey (one of the largest private libraries of the twentieth century) in Christies, 11-13 July 2000, lot 38, for £37,600. Text: The book comprises: a Calendar (fol. 1r); the Office of the Virgin (fol. 13r), with Matins