Beschreibung:

THOMAS AQUINAS (c.1225-1274). Commentary on the III Book of the Sentences, in Latin, ILLUMINATED MANUSCRIPT ON VELLUM [Cambrai c.1385] 310 x 210mm. 204 leaves, 1-17 12 , COMPLETE, roman quire numbers and catchwords on final versos and later signature marks on first six folios of gatherings 1-7, two columns of 45 lines written in black ink in a small gothic bookhand between four verticals and 46 horizontals, top, bottom and central pairs ruled across marginas, an additional pair for running headings and one across bottom of lower margin, all ruled in plummet, paragraph marks, and letters of headings alternately of red and blue, each Distinctio opening with four-line 'puzzle' initial with staves of red and blue and penwork flourishing and cusped baguettes of the same colors and extending the height of the text, two-line initials of red or blue with flourishing of the other colour, line-fillers of red and blue, HISTORIATED INITIAL AND THREE-SIDED BORDER WITH TERMINAL GROTESQUES on opening folio (very slight cropping of upper border on f.1 and some oxidization of lead white affecting initial and border). 19th-century brown morocco gilt incorporating earlier etched calf covers, spine gilt in six compartments, tools including lattice roll and flower sprays, brown calf lettering-piece; cloth slipcase. PROVENANCE: 1. This manuscript is a polished professional product, well-organized and punctiliously and discreetly corrected. One might suppose with the work's importance as a study text that it was produced by the university book-trade, yet the decoration and illumination points to the manuscript not having been made in the capital but to the east in Hainaut or Cambrai. 2. Purchased Dawson's Bookshop, 1 February 1944 -- donated to SMS 1944. The explicit refers to the author as Thomas of the Order of Preachers, which suggests that the scribe was not himself a Dominican. Piety, nonetheless, informed his final sentences and he concludes his work with a pair of moralistic couplets ('Unless he is made accustomed to virtue while he is young, the old man will not know how to turn from vice'), and his final line is to hope that the scribe will live with Christ. CONTENT: St Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on the Third Book of the Sentences of Peter Lombard , followed by contents ff.1-204. Peter Lombard composed his Sentences in the late 1140s as an aid to study of the Bible and the Church Fathers. Extracts from Scripture and Patristic texts were organized systematically by subject and arranged into four parts. They became the accepted compilation of theological doctrine, and by the early 13th century were the official manual for students of theology at the University of Paris. While there Thomas Aquinas was obliged to spend the second and third years of his degree of Master of Theology in study of the Sentences . The substance of the courses given by candidates for a Mastership took the form of commentaries. Aquinas's commentary, written during the 1250s, is regarded as his first great work, and it has been suggested that all his major conclusions are already to be found in it. The commentary on the Third Book considers the efficient cause of the soul's return to God, with a consideration, in particular, of the nature and consequences of the Incarnation. ILLUMINATION: The initial shows St. Thomas, seated at a desk, lecturing -- presumably on the Sentences -- to a group of attentive, tonsured students. The style of the initial and its accompanying border is closely related to that of a group of manuscripts, including the Bute Psalter (Los Angeles, J.P. Getty Museum, Ms 46), localizable to Cambrai and its surrounding area. The figure style, the muted palette combined with highly burnished gold and the dragon stave all recall the Pontifical of Cambrai (Toledo, Archivo de la Catedral, Ms 56.19) and associated manuscripts datable to the 1270s: F. Avril in L'Art au temps des rois maudits , exhib. cat., Paris 1998, pp.291-293. In precise handling