Ɵ Vast white vine initial in Latin, manuscript on parchment [Italy, 12th century]

Ɵ Vast white vine initial on a leaf from an Atlantic Bible, with 2 Samuel 1:1-12 and capitula, in Latin, manuscript on parchment[Italy (probably Tuscany), first half of the twelfth century] Single vast leaf, with a single initial 'F' (opening "Factum est autem ...", opening 2 Samuel) over half the page in height, formed of panels of interlacing geometic ropework and shapes in blank parchment and colours, each panel edged in yellow, terminals with interlace knotwork, one spray of acanthus leaves at foot, the body of the initial enclosing a spray of white vine foliage ending in wavy-edged trilobed leaves and flowerbuds on red, blue, burgundy and dark green grounds, tall and thin ornamental red capitals opening Biblical text, smaller version of same ending and opening major text breaks, red rubrics and capitula numbers, text in double columns of 50 lines of two sizes of a stately and measured Romanesque hand with numerous earlier letterforms evident in its capitals, somewhat darkened in places with a few scuffs and some sixteenth- or seventeenth-century scrawls in middle gutter between columns on front, stitch holes across middle, reverse scuffed and illegible with scrawls of numbers, short phrases and a drawing of a human head, overall fair and presentable condition, 460 by 320mm.; in cloth-covered card binding Provenance: 1. Phillips, 14 November 1991, lot 236, to Sam Fogg, London;2. Schøyen Collection, London and Oslo, their MS 1394, acquired from Fogg. Text and script:The Atlantic Bible was a crucial stage in the development of the medieval layout of the text. At the end of the eleventh century and the opening of the twelfth, ecclesiastical book producers sought to reshape the format of the Bible, emulating the grand size and regularity of the Carolingian Tours Bibles. The resulting vast codices were named Atlantic Bibles due to their size - after Atlas the titan. Their elegant script and glorious initials also took their inspiration from the models of Tours Bibles. That here, like other similar examples with fluttering leaves and flowerbuds from contemporary Pistoia (Rome, Bibl. Casanatense, cod. 721: K. Berg, Studies in Tuscan Twelfth Century Illumination, 1968, no. 136) and Siena (Siena, Bibl. Communale, cod. G.I.3, G.I.4 and F.I.9: ibid. nos. 168 and 162, and Montalcino, Museo Comunale: ibid. no. 110) takes its form and design components from initials such as those in the Second Bible of Charles the Bald (BnF., lat. 2: reproduced in W. Cahn, Romanesque Bible Illumination, 1982, fig. 34), and Tours Bibles such as that represented in the fragments now Vienna ÖNB., ser. Nov. 3641 and in the Stadsbibliothek of Trier (reproduced in F. Mutterich, 'Die touronische Bibel von St. Maximin in Trier', in Studies in Carolingian Manuscript Illumination, 2004, figs. 4 and 12).