Lot pagina - Van De Wiele Auctions

[ALEXANDER of HALES]

Bifolium from a manuscript of Alexander of Hales, Summa Theologica, the first grand commentary on Peter Lombard's Sententiae, in Latin

[Italy
14th century]

€500 - €700

Two conjoined leaves on vellum, each leaf approximately 320 x 210 mm, each with remains of 62 lines of a small and rounded gothic bookhand, with pronounced lateral compression, paragraph marks in alternate red and dark blue, spaces left for larger initials, recovered from reuse as a pastedown and endleaf in a later binding and hence leaves trimmed at outer vertical edges with loss of a few letters from text columns there, second leaf with more damage (stains and small holes in centre and outer edge of leaf, and abrasion and staining to verso from having been pasted to a board), overall fair condition

From a large format copy of the most important work of the English theologian and author, Alexander of Hales. He studied at the University of Paris and had graduated as a Master of Arts by 1210. He taught in Paris before holding a prebend at Holborn and a canonry of St. Paul's, London, and then an archdeaconry in Coventry and Lichfield. Finally at the age of 50 he joined the Franciscan Order and became the first friar to hold a university chair. He died in Paris in 1245, perhaps of plague

Manuscripts