Beschreibung:

Nocturnal in Latin. Carthusian use. [Germany], 1578. MANUSCRIPT ON VELLUM, 289 (of 292) leaves, [18 (1/1 as pastedown; lacks 1/4) 2-11 8 12 10 13 8 (lacks 13/8 = f.90) 14-21 8 22 8 (lacks 22/6 = f.158) 23-35 8 36 10 (36/10 as pastedown)], foliated by the original scribe [14] ccxl [33] (with errors), 120 x 65mm. (4 3/4 x 3 1/4in.), written in brown and red ink in two sizes of small upright bastarda script, the calendar in brown, red and blue ink, frame-ruled in brown ink, single columns of 27 lines, justification (78 x 50mm), 5 HISTORIATED INITIALS in colors and gold or sketched in a grisaille technique employing white on mauve, each with a border or partial border of floral sprays and gold foliage, the first border (f.1r) inhabited by three cherubs and a kneeling figure, 4 other initials in gold on colored grounds, numerous two- or one-line Lombard initials in alternating red and blue, some with mauve flourishing, rubrics in red or underlined in red, foliation and paragraph signs in red, SIGNED AND DATED BY THE SCRIBE AND ILLUMINATOR. Lacks 3 leaves, as above, with loss of text at Easter (f.90) and the feast of St. Andrew (f.158), lower half of the last folio cut away, f. 126 torn with old repairs not obscuring text, original holes in margins of ff.155 and 164, occasional soiling of margins, faint offset from borders, 24 small round holes arranged in a 4x6 square in unwritten areas of f.[3]. BINDING Contemporary blind-tooled calf over wooden boards, two brass clasps, the spine slightly wormed, lacking part of headcap, the joints and raised bands rubbed , in brown calf case. These tools are not found in Kyriss, Schwenke-Sammlung , or Goldschmidt, Gothic and Renaissance Bookbindings. TEXT Instructions and prayer for the feast of St. Bruno (f.[Z]r: Festum beati Brunonis ordinis nostri primi institutoris cum candelis celebratur ; f.[l], 2[v]-[3]r blank except for ownership marks). List of saints according to the categories of the common, with incipits of antiphons for each class of feast (ff.[3]v-[4]v; ff.[5]r-[8]r blank). Calendar tables and calendar (ff. [8]v-[14]v), including Carthusian feasts: Hugh of Grenoble (April 1), Bruno (red, Oct. 6), Festum reliquiarum (red, Nov. 8), Hugh of Lincoln (red, Nov. 17). Proper of the season (Matins only) from the first Sunday of Advent through the twenty-fifth Sunday after Pentecost (ff.1r-157v). Proper of the Saints (Matins only) from Andrew through Katherine (ff. 158r-227v), including the office of St. Bruno (f.219r). Common of the saints (Matins only) (ff.227v-238v). Hymns (ff.238v-240v). Ferial offices (ff.241r-273r). Colophon (f.273v): Finitum est et completum hoc nocturnale sateque illuminatum per fratrem Amelontinum herculens [the remainder erased, partially visible in ultra-violet light] carthusiensem in...anno domini 1518. The feast of St. Bruno, founder of the Carthusian order, was added to the Carthusian calendar only in 1514, an event that probably provided the incentive for copying this nocturnal. A liturgical book related to the breviary, the nocturnal contains the night office, or Matins, only; it is the counterpart of the diurnal, which gives the office for the hours of the day. Nocturnals are much raree than diurnals: Leroquais ( Les bréviares manuscrits des bibliothèques publiques de France , Paris, 1934) lists only two nocturnals (one of them Carthusian), in contrast to sixteen diurnals (of all uses) and eighteen Carthusian breviaries. Brother Amelontinus, who copied and illuminated this manuscript, depicted himself in the inner border of f.1r, a small figure clothed in the white Cistercian habit, kneeling in adoration of the Virgin and child within the initial. The monastery to which he belonged cannot be identified with certainty, since that portion of the colophon (apparently beginning cla ...) has been erased with particular thoroughness. Although many of the Carthusian manuscripts sold by Leander van Ess to Sir Thomas Phillipps came from St. Barbara in Cologne, th