Beschreibung:

Psalter, in Latin, illuminated manuscript on parchment [Florence, first half of sixteenth century (probably soon after 1536)] 213 leaves (plus an original pastedown and an endleaf at each end), complete, collation: i12, ii-xx10, xxi11 (the last a singleton with the final 7 lines of text), single column, 13 lines in black ink in a rounded late gothic Italian hand, rubrics in red, 1-line initials in blue with red penwork or liquid gold with purple penwork, 3-line initials in burnished gold on bi-coloured grounds in blue and green heightened with white penwork, one historiated initial ‘B’ (opening “Beatus vir …”) in pink with green and blue tendrils, enclosing a half-length portrait of a bearded King David before a wide blue sky, all on thick burnished gold ground, full decorated border of single-hair rinceaux and acanthus-leaf sprays terminating in golden bezants and fruit, the whole enclosed on inner and outer sides by thin coloured frames, a putti at the height of the page and a coat-of-arms of a cardinal (see below) at the foot, slight water damage in places throughout, areas of main text with ink flaking away (and in part overwritten later), 145mm by 105mm., in contemporary panel-stamped leather over thin wooden boards with floral roll-stamps enclosing small portraits, these surrounding central depiction of Christ in Majesty or Eve in Garden of Eden picking apples and handing them to Adam, rebacked in nineteenth century, some cracking to edges of spine, metal cornerpieces, gilt-edged and gauffered, two leather clasps with metal ends Provenance: (1) Written and illuminated in Florence in the first half of the sixteenth century, most probably immediately after 1532, for Cardinal Jerome de Auria (an ecclesiastic from Genoa, who served as commendator to the church at Nebbio on Corsica, until his election to the cardinalate in 1536, an office he held until his death in 1558; not ‘Conrad, Bishof von Osnabruck’, d. 1508 as suggested by a previous owner’s pencil notes at front): with de Auria’s arms as cardinal in the bas-de-page of fol.15v (a sable eagle, wings spread and facing left, on a gules ground, within a wreath enclosing a cardinal’s hat and tassels: cf. A. Ciaconii, Vitae et res gestae Pontificum Romanorum et S.R.E. Cardinalum, 1677, III, cols. 501-02). The book may have been a gift to de Auria from a Franciscan supporter from Florence: the Calendar has St. Francis in red in the Calendar (4 October); and other prominent saints of the order including Catherine of Siena (29 April), Bernadino (25 May; with his translation also in the same month), Nicolas de Tollentino (10 September) and other confessors of the order. Most surprisingly, the Calendar includes the extremely rare English saint, Gilbert of Sempringham (4 February), the founder of the Gilbertine Order, who was imprisoned at the age of ninety for assisting the exiled Thomas Becket, dying in 1189/90 and being canonised in 1202. There were no Gilbertine foundations outside of Britain and Ireland, but numerous business relationships in the wool trade existed between Gilbertine houses and Florentine merchants (cf. Golding, Gilbert of Sempringham and the Gilbertine Order, 1995, p.425), and the saint is occasionally found in Florentine books (cf. the contemporary Book of Hours sold in Sotheby’s, 3 December 2013, lot 49) and was perhaps introduced by Gilbertines visiting northern Italy. (3) Fritz Hasselman, the late nineteenth-century Munich architect; with his blue inkstamped monogram on fol. 2v. His collections of miniatures and works-of-art were dispersed by auction on 24 November 1892 and 31 May 1894 respectively, and his book collection was probably sold privately at the same time. (4) Thore Virgin (1886-1957) of Qvarnfoss, Sweden; his bookplate and probable acquisition date “28 sept. 1916” in pen on endleaves. Sold for his heirs in our last sale, 6 July 2016, lot 110, buyer defaulted. Text: This volume contains a Psalter, adapted for practical use in the celebration