Homilies, in Latin, manuscript on parchment [northern Italy (perhaps the Veneto), c. 1200]

Leaf from a collection of Homilies on St. Peter and the Ascension by SS. Augustine and Jerome, in Latin, leaf from a monumentally large lectern manuscript on parchment[northern Italy (perhaps the Veneto), c. 1200] Single leaf, with single column of 49 lines in a notably rounded and squat gothic bookhand which appears Italian on first inspection, capitals touched with red penstrokes, red rubrics, initials in split red bars or with geometric designs left within their bodies in blank parchment with foliate penwork additions in dark green, small marginalia underlined in looping red penwork, later medieval folio no. "xliii" in upper outer corner, reused on a binding and with folds, small scuffs and one large circular stain from an overflowing container of some dark liquid being placed on the centre of the leaf, overall fair and presentable condition, a few modern pencil notes (some in French), 530 by 330mm.; in cloth-covered card binding Provenance: 1. Kraus list 189 (1958), no. 211.2. Sotheby's 21 June 1994, lot 4 (part).3. Schøyen Collection, London and Oslo, their MS 1854, acquired at Sotheby's. Text and script:The script and decoration here present a number of puzzling questions on first inspection. The initials, with their cascading bunches of penwork surround, find close parallels in examples from the Low Countries and adjacent northern France, while the script has strong influences from rounded and squat Italian hands, while remaining distinct from them. Thus, in 1994 it was catalogued as Italian, with the tentative suggestion that instead it might be from neighbouring southern France or northern Spain instead.In fact, such features are found in Gothic manuscripts from Venice and the Veneto (cf. the Statuti e leggi di venezia, of c. 1250, sold in Semenzato, 25 April 2003, lot 28, and a Romance collection including the Chanson de Roland of late thirteenth-century Venetian origin, now in the Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana, fr. V.7), perhaps locating this leaf to that region. Manuscript leaves from the Veneto of this great age are extremely rare to the market.