Roland of Lisbon, Reductorium physiognomie

Title

Roland of Lisbon, Reductorium physiognomie

Shelfmark

St John's College MS 18

Place of origin

English

Date

s. xv 2/4

Language

Latin

Contents

Form

codex

Support

Vellum (FSOS/FHHF)

Physical extent

i + 255

Hands

Written in anglicana formata with secretary a (and occasionally a pronounced secretary duct). Punctuation by medial point and punctus elevatus.

Decoration

Chapter headings in red.

At the head of the final five tractatus (of six), floral champes in blue, violet, green, and orange on gold leaf with full page marginal sprays with leaves and flowers; chapters introduced by gold leaf champes on blue and violet grounds with green and gold sprays.

Running titles in text ink prefaced by alternate blue paraph on red or red paraph on blue, chapters divided by similar alternate paraphs.

In the contents table, blue, violet, and gold-leaf champes at heads of tracts and alternate red on blue and blue on red paraphs for chapters.

On fol. 1, a full floral and leaf vinet, within it a gold bar with orange, blue, and violet leafy ribbon, above the text becoming simply a gold ellipsoid outline. The text prefaced with a painted frontispiece on four levels: the signs of the zodiac, twelve men exhibiting the influence of these constellations, the stars (or planets generally), and seven men with rays shining on them exhibiting the appropriate influence.

Jonathan Alexander assigned the work to the London illuminator William Abell in ‘William Abel “lymnour” and 15th Century English Illumination’, in Artur Rosenauer and Gerold Weber (eds.), Kunsthistorische Forschungen: Otto Pächt zu seinem 70. Geburtstag ([Salzburg]: Rezidenz Verlag, [1972]), 166–72 at 167 (no. 15 in his list of twenty-one Abell MSS). For the most contemporary survey of Abell’s work, with a reference to our MS, see Scott 2:264–5. Following Stratford (348 n. 68), Scott argues (1:68 n. 4) that the frontispiece was copied directly from Bedford’s presentation copy, now Lisbon, Biblioteca d’Ajuda MS 52,XII,18. See AT no. 495 (49), dating c.1440–65, and plate xxx (fol. 1).

Binding

A modern replacement. Sewn on six thongs. A vellum front flyleaf.

Acquisition

‘Liber Collegij Diui Joannis Baptistae Oxon’ ex dono Domini Gulielmi PaddeiMilitis et ejusdem Collegii olim Convictoris 1634’ (fol. 2). Watson, Savile, 12 notes Paddy’s acquisition of several Savile MSS; also from this source are our MSS 46 (no. 1 [17]), 51 (no. 9 [18]), and 65 (no. 23 [22]).

Provenance

‘Hnry Savil’ in shorthand (fol. 1), the early seventeenth-century collector Henry Savile of Banke (West Yorkshire). See Watson, Savile, no. 3 (17).