BEDFORDSHIRE – ARLESEY.

Charter of William Hoye of Arlesey (‘Auricheseya’) granting to Robert of Wewenshal for seventy shillings...

Bedfordshire, 1st half of 13th century.

Witnessed by Roger Burnard, William Rixpaud, Roger his brother, Richard the clerk, Robert Rixpaud, Henry son of Odo, Walter son of William, Ivo of Stodfaud, Geoffrey his son, Simon of Estwich, Andrew of Qurisco, William son of Gerard, Roger son of Walter son of William Hay, and many others. Various place-names...

£1400

[BOOK OF HOURS.]

Parts of the Hours of the Cross, Litanies, and Office of the Dead.

Northern France (?Loire Valley), late fifteenth century.

Four leaves from a small and elegant Book of Hours, with attractive initials and borders and with spaces left blank for small miniatures.

£1250

[CHOIRBOOK.]

Large historiated initial ‘I’.

Italy (Umbria), c. 1300.

A very elegant initial in a style characteristic of Umbrian illumination of the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries. It can be compared to the oeuvres of the First Master of the Gubbio Choir Books and the Master of the Deruta-Salerno Missals, the latter named after two Missals made for the...

£4500

[GRADUAL.]

Vast historiated initial ‘A’ cut from a Gradual.

Italy (Umbria), end of thirteenth century.

A spectacular initial on the scale of a small panel painting. The verso includes the text ‘[neque] irrideant me inimici mei […] [un]iversi qui te expectant’ and the versicle ‘Vias tuas domine de[monstras]’, indicating that the initial would have introduced the introit ‘Ad te levavi animam...

£20000

ITALY – PIEVE DI SAN MINIATO DI RUBBIANA.

Petition to Pope Clement VII, in Latin, on paper, 30 lines in a small Italian notarial...

The petition explains that the parish of San Miniato in the Valle Rubbiana, in the diocese of Fiesole and in the lay patronage of the Buondelmonti family of Florence, is vacant following the death of the organist Mariotto di Michele Giovanni. The patrons, or the majority of them, or their duly appointed...

£250

LANDSBERG, Johannes Justus.

Iohannis Iusti Lanspergii Bavari Carthusiani omnium epistolarum ac evangeliorum dominicalium totius...

Cologne, Melchior von Neuss, 1548.

Later edition (first 1539) of paraphrases, exegeses, and sermons by the Carthusian ascetic and mystic Johannes Landsberg (c. 1490–1539).

£950

MASTER B.F.

Three very large historiated initials cut from a set of choirbooks.

Italy (Lodi), early sixteenth century.

Three extremely fine initials by the enigmatic artist known as Master B.F., one of the most inventive and accomplished illuminators of the Italian High Renaissance. They come almost certainly from a magnificent set of about twenty choirbooks belonging to the Olivetan monastery of Santi Angelo e Niccolò...

£150000

[MASTER OF THE GENEVA BOCCACCIO.]

St Bartholomew in India, miniature cut from a copy of Vincent of Beauvais, Speculum historiale.

[France (Loire Valley, Nantes or Angers), fifteenth century (c. 1460s).]

An iconographically intriguing miniature by one of the greatest painters in the circle of Jean Fouquet, from a deluxe copy of Vincent of Beauvais’s Speculum historiale almost certainly commissioned by King René of Anjou.

£12500

PASSI, Carlo.

La selva di varia istoria … la quale avanti andava attorno stampata sotto nome finto di Annotationi dell’Infortunio,...

Venice, Altobello Salicato, 1572.

An unsophisticated copy of Passi and Ruscelli’s elaborations and explanations of Paolo Giovio’s history of his own time, bound in contemporary limp vellum reusing manuscript waste.

£500

SPENCER, Eleanor P. 

The Sobieski Hours: A Manuscript in the Royal Library at Windsor Castle. 

London, [Rampant Lion Press for] Academic Press, 1977. 

Limited edition, dedicated and presented to the Roxburghe Club by Robin Mackworth-Young, a member’s copy presented to Adrian McLaughlin. 

£475

[SPINELLI.]

Illuminated arms of the Spinelli family of Florence.

Italy (Florence), c. 1460s.

Florentine border decoration of very high quality from what must have been a luxurious manuscript produced for a member of the wealthy Spinelli family. Sadly there is no indication of the contents of the parent manuscript, nor have we been able to identify a likely candidate, but ruling just visible...

£2750

VALERIUS FLACCUS, Gaius; Giovanni Battista PIO, editor.

Argonautica. Joan. Baptistae Pii carmen ex quarto Argonauticon...

Lyon, Sébastien Gryphe, 1548.

A pocket-sized edition of several poetic works on the tale of Jason and the Argonauts, in a contemporary vellum binding reusing fragments from a thirteenth-century medical manuscript.

£475

WORMALD, Francis; Jonathan ALEXANDER, editor.

An Early Breton Gospel Book: A ninth-century Manuscript from the Collection of H.L....

Cambridge, ‘Printed [at the University Press] for presentation to the Members of the Roxburghe Club’, 1977.

First edition, dedicated and presented to the Roxburghe Club by Philip Bradfer-Lawrence, a member’s copy presented to Adrian McLaughlin.

£175