Boston Public Library, MS f Med.77
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Metadata
- DS ID:
- DS3355
- Shelfmark:
- MS f Med.77
- Title:
- Life of St. Augustine : in Latin].
- Place:
- Speyer?]
- Date:
- between ca. 1470 and 1485
- Language:
- lat
- Physical Description:
- Extent: 54 leaves : paper, ill. ; 285 x 200 (196 x 127) mm bound to 30 cm, in box 32 cm
- Former Owner(s):
- A. Rosenthal, Ltd
- Note:
- Ms. codex.
In Latin.
Bibliographic record created by BPL staff based on description by Dr. Lisa Fagin Davis and on entry 68 in the 2016 Beyond Words exhibition catalog (J. Hamburger).
Secundo folio: Ibi augustinus puer ...
Collation: Paper (an unidentified bull's head watermark, two others corresponding to Piccard numbers 75345 and 74842), fol. 54 ; 112−4 (lacking two outermost bifolia, i.e. two leaves before fol. 1 and two leaves after fol. 8), 2-1412 512−2 (final two leaves cancelled; their conjugates, fol. 45 and 46, are loose and laid-in) ; signatures extant on quires 2-5, signed 2us-5us, lower left corner...
Layout: One column, number of lines varies from a few lines to a half page. Bounding lines ruled in brown ink.
Script: Written in a gothic cursive in black ink with red rubrics.
Decoration: 116 ink drawings with colored wash (135 x 130 mm) all depicting scenes from the life of St. Augustine with descriptive captions. Most pages contain one drawing, some pages contain two.
Binding: Early (ca. 1494) half-pigskin over wooden boards, blindstamped floral lozenges, bevelled edges, lacking center clasp, sewn on three split bands (spine missing in part), blank paper pastedown in front, leaf of an incunable pasted-down in back (folio s3 of the Freiburg 1494 edition of Augustine's City of God). Manuscript waste hinges affix upper and lower boards.
Origin: Written in Germany, possibly Speyer. Dated to ca. 1470-1485 and localized based on watermark evidence.
Provenance: Effaced early ex libris on fol. 1, now illegible. Several ownership inscriptions in red on fol. 54v, including: "Hic liber pertinet fratribus eremitaru[m] S. Augustini, 1591" and another, faded, in the same hand: "Johann G[...] S. Augustini Monsaterij Con[...] 1591" (possibly the Augustinian monastery of Constance -- see Courcelle); in a later hand: "En liber antiquus describit in...
Immediate source of acquisition: Purchased by BPL from A. Rosenthal, March 1939 (SDBM 56857).
Call number: MS f Med.77.
Former call number: MS 1483.
Bibliography: Jeffrey Hamburger, et al., eds. Beyond Words: Illuminated Manuscripts in Boston Collections. (Chestnut Hill: McMullen Museum of Art, Boston College, 2016), no. 68; Ellen M. Oldham, "The Life of St. Augustine in Pictures," Boston Public Library Quarterly IV (1952): 20-26; P. Courcelle and J. Courcelle-Ladmirant, Vita Sancti Augustini: Imaginibus Adornata (Manuscrit de Boston... - Keyword:
- Institutional Record:
- https://catalog.mbln.org/Polaris/search/title.aspx?ctx=12.1033.0.0.5&pos=1&cn=8444688
- IIIF Manifest:
- https://ark.digitalcommonwealth.org/ark:/50959/v692tg25c/manifest
- Holding Institution:
