Ɵ Lectionary leaf, in Latin, manuscript on parchment [probably Italy, tenth century]

Ɵ Lectionary leaf, with readings from Luke 10:17-24 and John 15:12-16, in Latin, decorated manuscript on parchment[probably Italy, tenth century] Single complete leaf, with double column of 20 lines in a late Carolingian minuscule including an et-ligature used sporadically integrally within words, a tongued 'e', and pronounced angular wedging to ends of ascenders, text opening with simple capitals, red rubric (mostly oxidised to silver), one large 8-line initial 'I' (opening "In illo tempore dixit Iehus discipulis suis...", introducing John 15:12) in red penwork (mostly oxidised) enclosing panels of simple ropework panels on striking black ink grounds, terminating in a scroll of acanthus leaf with red dots at head and a twist of foliage at foot, reused in a book binding in seventeenth century and with concomitant damage and scrawls in Italian of that date including the date "1660", darkened and stained on reverse (but legible), overall fair and presentable condition, 310 by 230mm.; in cloth-covered binding Provenance: 1. Bernard Rosenthal (1920-2017), of San Francisco, California, his I/188, probably acquired in 1965. 2. Quaritch cat. 1088, Bookhands of the Middle Ages III, 1988, no. 34.3. Schøyen Collection, London and Oslo, their MS 97, acquired from Quaritch in June 1988. Text and script:Both the large and rounded script here and the initial owe much to earlier Carolingian models. The initial in particular is a continuation of simple initials of the early Carolingian period which used black grounds for visually striking affect. Examples occurred throughout the Carolingian world, with comparisons to that here in a Tours Bible (now St. Gall, Stiftsbibl. MS 75: reproduced in W. Cahn, Romanesque Bible Illumination, 1982, p. 43, fig. 20), an Evangeliary-Homiliary made c. 800 in Murbach (Bayerishe Staatsbibl. Clm. 14379: Pracht auf Pergament, 2012, no. 7), and a Gospel Book made in the region of Paris in the first decades of the ninth century (BnF., latin 11959: Trésors carolingiens, 2007, no. 30). Cahn theorises that such initials at Tours were ultimately derived from Insular models, perhaps influenced by Alcuin's own manuscript library carried from York to Tours.