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[ENGLISH BIBLE LEAVES]

Five leaves from a illuminated manuscript Bible most probably from medieval Oxford, in Latin, manuscript on vellum

[England (probably Oxford)
second quarter of the thirteenth century]

€2.000 - €3.000

Five single leaves, each with text in double column of 43 lines of a tiny university hand, the lines of text numbered in tiny Arabic numerals every 5 lines down the central gutter (see below), red rubrics, running titles in alternate red or blue capitals at head of pages, eight initials in pink or blue, enclosing sprays of coloured foliage terminating in tiny coloured acanthus leaves and gold bezants, on grounds in contrasting colours, and with green wash used around the initial as a frame, one initial with a gold animal head at its top and legs and a tail picked out in its body, small amount of marginalia, edges slightly darkened, small tears and spots, slight cockling, else excellent condition, each: 161 by 110mm

From a Bible identified as English and probably from Oxford on the basis of the distinctive numbering of its lines of text in the central gutter, in Arabic numerals, every 5 lines (see Peter Kidd's blog of 28 March 2020). As Kidd deduces, the parent volume appeared in Piasa, 16 April 2007, lot 41, and before that Sotheby's, 23 June 1998, lot 46. It appears to have originally belonged to Giacomo Bianconi of Bevagna (1220-1301), founder and first prior of the Dominican convent at Bevagna in the diocese of Spoleto

Manuscripts