Hugo de Prato Florio, Sermons; Italian (Parma), 1439

Title

Hugo de Prato Florio, Sermons; Italian (Parma), 1439

Shelfmark

MS. Lat. th. e. 50

Place of origin

Italian, Parma

Date

1439

Language

Latin

Italian

Ancient Greek (to 1453)

Contents

Form

codex

Support

parchment (with inserted paper bifolium, fol. 226–7)

Physical extent

i + 258 leaves (fols.i, 257–8 are later paper flyleaves). Edges cropped

Hands

Early humanistic hand, rather heavily abbreviated

Decoration

Fol.1, first sermon, 12-line historiated initial showing a Dominican (Hugo ?) seated at a desk, writing in an open book (see B.L.R. cit., plate ). The initial is in pink and orange-red, highlighted in white, on a gold ground, and extends into the borders with tails of gothic acanthus in orange-red, pink, green and blue, surrounded by gold rayed discs.

There is an illuminated initial for every sermon or separate item in the text, including the poem on fol.228. Fol.191 (sermon 53 for Good Friday), 9-line initial in pink highlighted in white on a square gold ground, decorated with tendrils of foliage in red, green, pink and blue, and accompanied by a short marginal spray of flowers and leaves in the same colours (on blue stalks), ending in gold rayed discs. Lesser initials are usually 4- or 5-line, but 6-line on fols. 170 (Palm Sunday), 176 (Feria secunda), 206 and 211 (sermons for Easter Day) and on fol. 229; alternately gold or silver on square grounds of pink, red and blue (letters P and Q sometimes extending beyond the square, with acanthus tails: fols.105, 116, 124v, 140v), decorated with contrasting sprays of foliage mainly in pink and green, highlighted in white, accompanied in the border by gold rayed discs, usually three in a vertical row. The initials to the index are similar, but 3-line only, and with no foliage decoration.

Border decoration (see above)

Binding

Late 18th-cent. Italian binding in pasteboard and half leather, the boards covered in light brown paper decorated with a feathery pattern in darker brown.

Provenance

Written by Johannes Bellus of Ferrara at Parma in 1439 for fra Vangelista of Vicenza, prior of the Dominicans at Parma (fol. 228r-v)

‘Istud quadragesimale Hugonis de Prato est mei fratris Bartholomei de Pizegottis de Padua ordinis predicatorum quem emi a fratre Ewangelista de Vincentia eiusdem ordinis pro sex ducatis aureis et hoc fuit Veneciis MCCCCXLIIIIo et hoc manu propria scripsi’ (fol.220, partly erased)

‘Ego frater Bartholomeus monia prestavi super hunc librum fratri Bartholomeo de Pic e gotis [rest of line completely erased] imo ver fratri Iaconia(?) p[rest of line completely erased] ottobris et hoc propria manu scripsi’ (fol.220v, mostly erased)

‘Ego frater Christoforus de Luino emi istum librum a fratre Philipo de Mediolano pro sex ducatis quem deputo conventui Cumano quia inde habui predictos denarios’ (fol.220v)

Giovio library, Como (?)

Christie's 17 Nov. 1976, lot 376

Maggs, Catalogue 990 (Ancient, Medieval, and Modern, No. 18), Jan. 1979, item 173 and pl. II. Purchased.