?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 8,000 - $ 12,000
(ILLUMINATED RELIGIOUS MANUSCRIPT.) [Oratio Manassae; Libellus undeviginti psalmorum; Orationes quaedam Gallice; Aliquot locorum communiumex Paulo atque Augustino decerptorum.] illuminated manuscript in greek, latin, and french, written in black ink with headings and occasional passages in red, on vellum. with eight miniatures in colors and gold, over 20 initials of 4 to 8 lines with floral decoration, and small gold initials and line fills throughout on alternating blue, red, and green ground. [72] leaves. 95x65 mm, contemporary red morocco; occasional light marginal soiling, blank corner off last leaf; cloth slipcase. France, mid-16th century, not before 1540
superbly executed near-miniature illuminated devotional manuscript, including Greek and Latin versions of the apocryphal penitential prayer attributed to Manasseh, King of Judah, and a short prefatory note identifying an unpublished manuscript from the Abbey of St. Victoire in Paris as the source for the Greek text. The note appears to have been copied from the 1540 folio edition of the Vulgate produced by Robert Estienne, which contained the first printing of the Greek version of the prayer.
contents: note to the reader in Latin (1v, 1r blank); Prayer of Manasseh in Greek (2r-4r) and Latin (4v-6v); prayer in Greek and Latin excerpted from Ecclesiasticus 23 (7r-v); coats of arms (8r-v, see below); 19 Psalms in Latin (9r-52v); miscellaneous prayers and excerpt from 2 Thessalonians 2 in French (53r-57v); and Latin excerpts from the Pauline Epistles and writings of St. Augustine on doctrinal topics such as faith and works, justification, free will, etc. (58v-72r, with 58r and 72v blank). The miniatures show kneeling penitent (9v); Nathan rebuking David (14v); the Crucifixion (27v); the crucified Christ being offered sponge of vinegar (35v); Christ''s Victory over Death (40r); Christ in Majesty (45v); kneeling penitent (52v); and The Last Supper (54v).
provenance: unidentified 16th-century patron, defaced coat of arms on 8v and 56v; 17th-century owner, coat of arms (quarterly, Chertemps and Colbert) on 8r and 72r; the London bookseller John Cochran, item 55 in his 1829 catalogue of manuscripts, marked down as item 43 in his 1837 catalogue; the Lyon manuscript collector Henri-Auguste Brölemann, by descent to his great-granddaughter Madame Étienne Mallet, lot 183 in her sale at Sotheby''s, 5 May 1926; Frederick S. Peck, (1868-1947), Rhode Island politician and collector, armorial bookplate.
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![ILLUMINATED RELIGIOUS MANUSCRIPT. [Oratio Manassae; Libellus undeviginti psalmorum; etc.] Mid-16th century, not before 1540](https://catalogue.swanngalleries.com/thumb//\016\603016tn.jpg)
![ILLUMINATED RELIGIOUS MANUSCRIPT. [Oratio Manassae; Libellus undeviginti psalmorum; etc.] Mid-16th century, not before 1540](https://catalogue.swanngalleries.com/thumb//\016\603016_view 2_02tn.jpg)