TWO LEAVES FROM A BIBLE, in Latin, manuscript on vellum [France, second half 9th century]

TWO LEAVES FROM A BIBLE, in Latin, manuscript on vellum [France, second half 9th century]

Two splendid leaves from what would once have been a deluxe Carolingian Bible.

2 leaves, 270 x 220mm. The text, consecutive, from Numbers 13.31, ‘[possi]deamus terram q[uonia]m poterimus optinere [sic] eam’ to Numbers 16.24, ‘Precipe universo p[o]p[u]lo ut separetur a tabernaculis […]’. Blind-ruled for 35-6 lines (of originally 39) in two columns, initials touched in yellow wash, one initial in red (minor discolouration, lower margin trimmed, some residue attached to upper corner of one of the leaves, else in pristine condition). Provenance: Bloomsbury, 9 December 2015, lot 12, catalogued there incorrectly as 12th century.

The script is an exceptional example of Caroline minuscule at the height of its clarity and aesthetic impact. It is written with clear spacing and few abbreviations, the ascenders slightly clubbed, broadened or sometimes even wedged. A close – though not exact – parallel can be drawn with a splendid Psalter produced in the second half of the 9th century, possibly in northern France, and now St. Gallen, Stiftsbibliothek, Cod. Sang. 15. An earlier manuscript – a set of biblical commentaries of Hrabanus Maurus on the Books of Judith and Esther and the Book of Maccabees, dating from c.830 and written in the Abbey of Murbach (Geneva, Bibliothèque de Genève, Ms. lat. 22) – shows similar idiosyncrasies in the script, but the writing is smaller and more compressed.