Script: Gothic characters in red and black ink. Musical notation in black square notes on a red four-line staff. Decoration: Eighteen large painted initials, 660 smaller initials, and 138 larger initials of which 57 are historiated. Three of the initials are signed: fol. 1r, fol. 54v, fol. 131r. Mather suggests costumes of figures in historiated initials date illuminations to circa 1480-1490. Decoration: Larger, illuminated initials added ca. 18th c. to fill empty spaces left (possibly because producers ran out of money or time), possibly at the time of rebinding. Smaller initials, in humanist style, are original. Binding: Leather over heavy oak boards. Iron bosses and leather straps. Parchment cover linings. The front cover lining is a leaf of an 18th century manuscript; the back cover lining is the last page of the manuscript itself. Parchment fly-leaf at the beginning has on the verso a Tabula in the same hand as the foliation Provenance: George D. Smith sale, Part I (Anderson Galleries, New York, May 24 1920), Lot 987. Provenance: Gift of Alfred Clark Chapin. Purchased on behalf of the Chapin Library from James F. Drake. Large format choir book in later binding, containing readings for Christmas and the feasts of St. Stephen, Thomas Becket, St. Sylvester. Collating not anticipated to be useful as most leaves are singletons, taken from a smaller animal. The argument has been made that the initial "G" on fol. 54v with the inscription "F. F. Stephano" is written in by the scribe, naming himself, but it is equally likely that the initial references St. Stephen, whose mass readings begin on fol. 112r. Fol. 131r, however, contains another instance of the same name, "Frate[r] Estefano," so further investigation into the "Estefano" in question will repay.
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