Leaf from a Romanesque Bible, with large initial, in Latin, manuscript on parchment [southern France or northern Spain, second half of twelfth century (probably last decades)]

Leaf from a Romanesque Bible, with large initial, in Latin, manuscript on parchment [southern France or northern Spain, second half of twelfth century (probably last decades)]

Single leaf, with double column of 48 lines of a small and angular early gothic bookhand (written space: 203 by 125mm.), some biting curves and written above topline, small amount of marginalia, red rubric, one small blue initial formed of split bars within red penwork picking out acanthus leaves, one large initial A (opening Adam set enos caynan …, the opening of I Chronicles) in large split pale blue bars, edged with and containing red acanthus leaves, foliate extension in border filling over half the page in height, line-pricking just visible in lower part of outer border, one large stain at head of second column (but text legible), modern pencil folio no. 118 in upper outer corner, else good condition, 264 by 182mm.; in Otto Eges card mount with his printed description taped to front and his pencil notes

Otto Ege owned the present manuscript before 1939, and it was no. 59 on his Handlist. The leaves are extremely rare in Eges sets, and S. Gwara records none in any known collection but draws his information from the photographs in the 1952 Microfilm Memorial Archive, Berks County Historical Society, Reading, PA. (Otto Eges Manuscripts, 2013, p. 139 and p. 6, n. 14). The emergence of this leaf with its strange initial opens the possibility that the parent manuscript was from northern Spain, rather than France.

Condition Report: Leaf from a Romanesque Bible, with large initial, in Latin, manuscript on parchment [southern France or northern Spain, second half of twelfth century (probably last decades)]

Single leaf, with double column of 48 lines of a small and angular early gothic bookhand (written space: 203 by 125mm.), some biting curves and written above topline, small amount of marginalia, red rubric, one small blue initial formed of split bars within red penwork picking out acanthus leaves, one large initial ‘A’ (opening “Adam set enos caynan …”, the opening of I Chronicles) in large split pale blue bars, edged with and containing red acanthus leaves, foliate extension in border filling over half the page in height, line-pricking just visible in lower part of outer border, one large stain at head of second column (but text legible), modern pencil folio no. ‘118’ in upper outer corner, else good condition, 264 by 182mm.; in Otto Ege’s card mount with his printed description taped to front and his pencil notes
Otto Ege owned the present manuscript before 1939, and it was no. 59 on his Handlist. The leaves are extremely rare in Ege’s sets, and S. Gwara records none in any known collection but draws his information from the photographs in the 1952 Microfilm Memorial Archive, Berks County Historical Society, Reading, PA. (Otto Ege’s Manuscripts, 2013, p. 139 and p. 6, n. 14). The emergence of this leaf with its strange initial opens the possibility that the parent manuscript was from northern Spain, rather than France.