RARUS'S GALLERY

Price Realized: $4 758 102

Иллюминированная и богато украшенная миниатюрами и буквицами рукопись на пергаменте. Северная Италия, около 1503 года. 40х27,5 см. 15 строк. Заглавный лист +176 листов с карандашной фолиацией. Марокеновый переплет начала XVII века в стиле la fanfare. Из коллекции семьи Ротшильдов.

Уход: £2,861,500. Аукцион Christie's THE COLLECTION OF BARONS NATHANIEL AND ALBERT VON ROTHSCHILD. 08 июля 1999 года. Лондон. Лот № 101.

1-177 including blank endleaf at beginning followed here: 12, 2-1110, 122, 13-1910, 202, vertical catchwords on final folios, apparently COMPLETE, 15 lines written in black ink in a round gothic bookhand between 2 verticals and 16 horizontals, Prefaces with fives lines of music of square notation on a four-line stave of red, rubrics in red with one-line calligraphic initials with lilac flourishing, other one-line calligraphic initials with red penwork flourishing, painted one-line initials and crosses against grounds of gold, 199 pages with two- or three-line illuminated initials with staves predominantly of blue and green foliate forms against gold grounds and with infills of red with flower-sprays of blue or yellow, or harpies, birds or masks, beside each illuminated initial an oval medallion of black with silver sprays, or birds, or grotesques and a text-height border made up of sprays of flowers with golden stems, an illuminated initial and panel border with historiated medallion and perching birds, TWENTY-FIVE HISTORIATED INITIALS IN COLOURS OR GRISAILLE WITH FULL-PAGE ALL'ANTICA BORDERS to introduce the introit for each Mass, FULL-PAGE MINIATURE OF THE NATIVITY (three very small pigment losses in the robe of the Virgin, small splash spots in upper left corner on f.4, slight cropping to border on f.27v, oxidisation of lions on coats of arms).

Переплет: fine early-17th-century Roman imitation of a French bookbinding la fanfare. Gold-tooled red morocco over thin beech boards, the covers richly decorated with fillets, gouges and borders formed of repetitions of small tools, the shaped compartments filled with leafy sprays, lions rampant, fleurons, roundels, dots and other small ornament, the central compartment left empty, flat spine similarly decorated (including a vase tool), double fillet along the board edges, elaborate silver clasps (marked FZ) and catches added later, leaf edges gilt (later paper tabs), early-19th-century French light-blue watered silk liners (short tear in foot of spine, corners slightly bumped, joints and other extremities rubbed).

Богатое происхождение:

1. Throughout the borders small text panels with the inscription IO.EPS.CAR. have been overpainted. It would appear that the decoration of the manuscript was undertaken for a Cardinal Bishop named Giovanni and that signs of his patronage were overpainted for a successor. Similarity with the pigments of the overpainting suggests that this took place when the Cornaro arms were supplied on folios 8 and 111. These are openings for the Feasts of John the Baptist and John the Evangelist but there is no sign of Cardinal Giovanni's arms having been completed and then either erased or overpainted, suggesting that at least the heraldic element of the illumination of the manuscript was incomplete when Cardinal Marco Cornaro acquired it. Cornaro's predecessor as Bishop of Verona was Cardinal Giovanni Michiel (1471-1503). Michiel was a 'clever, learned, good and devout man'. He he was also wealthy; it was in order to gain his material assets -- so it was rumoured -- that his poisoning was carried out at the command of the Borgia Pope, Alexander VI. Michiel lived long enough to make a testament in favour of the Cathedral of Verona: 'In morte quatuordecim aureoru[m] millia in aedificationem Cathedralis Ecclesiae Veronensis, et omnem fere preciosissiman supellectilem tum Patavinae, tum Veronensi Ecclesiis legavit': A. Ciaconi, Vitae, et res gestae pontificum romanorum et S.R.E. Cardinalum (Rome, 1677), vol.ii, cols 1113 & 1114.

2. Cardinal Marco Cornaro, Corner or Cornelia (1482-1524): coats of arms on folios 8 and 111 show Cornaro impaled by the Kingdom of Cyprus: per pale, dexter, quarterly, argent a cross potent quadrate between four plain crosslets, all or(Jerusalem); barry of eight argent and azure a lion rampant gules crowned or (Lusignan); or a lion rampant gules and on its shoulder a plain crosslet of the field (Armenia); argent a lion rampant gules (Cyprus); sinister, per pale or andazure (Cornaro). These were the arms of Caterina Cornaro who was adopted by the Venetian state on the negotiation of her marriage to James II King of Cyprus ('James the Bastard'). After his and their infant son's death Caterina ruled Cyprus as queen for 16 years until, with the assistance of her brother Giorgio, she was persuaded to relinquish her crown in favour of the Venetian republic. Once the Serenissima had acquired its toehold in the eastern Mediterranean Caterina was accorded honour, status and the fief of Asolo; her court there was immortalised by Bembo's Gli Asolani. She died in Venice in 1510. So prestigious was the connection that Caterina's coat of arms was adopted by members of her family and in this Missal they appear accompanied by a cardinal's hat. Two of her nephews became cardinals, Marco (1500) and Francesco (1527), and Ciaconi (op cit, vol.iii, col.200) shows Marco as having used this form of arms. The Missal made for Francesco when he was Bishop of Brescia, and illuminated by Jacopo di Antonio Giallo in 1538-9, is now in the Biblioteca Casanatense, Rome (Ms 458). Marco was confirmed as Bishop of Verona in 1503 and from 1505 undertook the restoration of the cathedral there, presumably benefitting from Cardinal Giovanni Michiel's bequest. It seems likely that the Missal was commissioned by one Cardinal Bishop -- Michiel -- and was completed for another -- Marco Cornaro -- for use in their cathedral. It may be that the truncated Roman theatre in the background of the Nativity is a reference to the surviving section of the Verona Arena.

3. J.J. de Bure l'ain, Parisian collector and dealer: his notes and inscription on verso of front flyleaf dated 21 November 1831

4. Baron Nathaniel von Rothschild (1836-1905): no 454, listed as in the Galerie of the palace at Theresianumgasse, in the February 1906 inventory of his possessions. Perhaps, as was apparently the case with the Rothschild Prayerbook, this manuscript had been owned by his father Anselm.

5. Baron Alphonse von Rothschild (1878-1942): he inherited Nathaniel's palace and, presumably, the manuscript along with it. It appeared in two subsequent inventories of the palace and these inventory numbers are recorded on a label at the upper corner of the lower cover (929) and in pencil (AR3392) on f.1. The manuscript remained in the palace until 1938 when it was appropriated by the Nazis.

6. Vienna, sterreichische Nationalbibliothek, Codex Vindobonensis Series Nova 2843 (restored to the Rothschild family in 1999).