Portable Ferial Psalter with Antiphons, Augustinian Use; Italy, Venice, 15th century, third quarter

Title

Portable Ferial Psalter with Antiphons, Augustinian Use; Italy, Venice, 15th century, third quarter

Shelfmark

MS. Canon. Liturg. 155

Place of origin

Italian, Venice

Date

15th century, third quarter

Language

Latin

Contents

Form

codex

Support

parchment; paper fly-leaves

Physical extent

113 leaves

Hands

Formal Gothic book hand, black ink

Decoration

Red and blue penwork KL monograms in the calendar.

6-line Beatus-initial (fol. 7v), decorated with foliage, on gold background, infilled with profile bust of King David, looking up at rays of light, and border (upper, left and lower margins) decorated with filigree scrolls, flowers, foliage and gold discs.

5-line initial at the beginning of hymns (fol. 7r), decorated with foliage, on gold background, and border (upper, left and lower margins) made of gold and blue bars, decorated with filigree scrolls, flowers, foliage and gold discs.

Borders: see above.

5-line plain red or blue initials at liturgical divisions: psalms 26 (fol. 29r), 38 (fol. 38r), 52 (fol. 45v), 68 (fol. 53v), 80 (fol. 65r), 97 (fol. 75r).

5-line blue initial with red penwork at the beginning of the hymnal (fol. 87r).

2-line plain, alternating red and blue initials at the beginnings of psalms, canticles and hymns in the psalter.

2-line alternating red and blue initials, with contrasting penwork, at the beginnings of hymns in the hymnal, litany and collects.

1-line plain, alternating red and blue initials at the beginnings of verses and periods.

Guide-letters are often visible.

Rubrics in red ink.

Binding

Soranzo’s binding: parchment over pasteboard; small stiff flaps on the fore-edges of the covers. ‘155’ written in black ink on spine. Brown leather label on spine, framed by a gilt border, with gilt lettering ‘PSALT. || ET || HYMN. || COD . M.’. Sewn on four cords. Pastedowns and fly-leaves of paper with burgundy, purple and yellow floral designs (carta bassanese); further fly-leaves of 18th-century laid paper (no watermarks).

Acquisition

Bodleian Library: bought in 1817 from Canonici’s nephew Giovanni Perissinotti. Former shelfmark: ‘E codd. Bodl. Miscell. Liturg 155’ (fol. v verso).

Provenance

Made for Sancta Maria della Carità, Venice, monastery of the Lateran Canons : evidence of the calendar.

Jacopo Soranzo (1686–1761): binding. After Soranzo’s death by about 1780 at Cá Cornèr at San Maurizio, Venice (Mitchell, 1969).

Matteo Luigi Canonici of Venice (1727–c. 1806) : bought soon after 1780.

A description of the manuscript on fols. ii–iii (a strip of paper attached with an 18th-century wafer seal) in an Italian, 18th-century (?) hand, but not the hand of Canonici or any of the earlier owners and librarians whose handwriting is illustrated in Mitchell (1969). Similar descriptions in the same hand are also found in MS. Canon. Bibl. Lat. 42, MS. Canon. Bibl. Lat. 85, MS. Canon. Pat. Lat. 88, MS. Add. D. 47, MS. Canon. Liturg. 105, MS. Canon. Liturg. 377 and MS. Canon. Liturg. 393: ‘Officium Feriale eccles. memb. in 8. saec. circ. xiv. cum Calend. integro, Hymnario pro Tempore, et orationes diversae, ac Litanae SS’.

Title

A Psalter, with Canticles

Shelfmark

MS. Canon. Liturg. 155

Summary

A Psalter, with Canticles, etc., perhaps Franciscan, written in Italy: preceded by a Calendar (fol. 1), and followed by:

'Hymnarium per anni totius circulum' (fol. 87)

'Letanie' (fol. 102)

In the Calendar on Apr. 4 is 'Indulgentia ecclesie sancte Marie Caritatis' as a festum duplex majus, which points to the monastery of that name at Venice. The Calendar may be called Augustinian, but the Hymnal is Franciscan.

Date

Written in the 15th century in Italy

Language

Latin

Physical facet

On parchment, in double columns

Physical extent

108 Leaves