Diurnal, Use of Rome (girdle book) — 14th century (after 1327); Italy, Venice, Santa Maria delle Vergini, Venice

Title

Diurnal, Use of Rome (girdle book) — 14th century (after 1327); Italy, Venice, Santa Maria delle Vergini, Venice

Shelfmark

MS. Canon. Liturg. 237

Associated place

Italian

Place of origin

Italy, Venice, Santa Maria delle Vergini, Venice

Date

14th century (after 1327)

Language

Latin

Contents

Form

codex

Support

parchment

Binding

14th century ?, Italian (as MS.): a worked brass frame, fitting the shaped parchment leaves which were written to be read with the frame held upside down; with a movable metal loop to fit on a girdle. The covers, of limp red leather with parchment lining, are later replacements, added probably at different times: neither is original, since they hide but do not share severe wear to the textblock at both ends. Height from top of metal fitting (discounting the loop) c. 139 mm.; width of MS. 59–62 mm. (28 mm. at top); thickness at fore-edge c. 70–71 mm. Cf. MS. Canon. Liturg. 8 (also from Le Vergini).

Provenance

The manuscript’s calendar (fol. 2v) includes Consecratio ecclesie nostre ix l’ in red at 20 June. An identical rubric occurs in another very similar girdle book at Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, MS lat. 10479, likely from the same community. Whilst formerly attributed to Verona by Leroquais, Les bréviaires, iii, 1934, 192–5, the Paris manuscript is now ascribed to the important Augustinian nunnery of Santa Maria delle Vergini, Venice, where the church was dedicated on 20 June 1327 (K. J. P. Lowe, Nuns’ Chronicles and Convent Culture in Renaissance and Counter-Reformation Italy, Cambridge, 2003, pp. 267–8). It seems likely that both these girdle-books were made and used there in the 14th century, probably quite soon after 1327. The former dating of the Paris manuscript still earlier, in the 13th century, derived from its inclusion of an Easter table which seems to start from 1284, though damaged.

Title

A Roman Diurnal

Shelfmark

MS. Canon. Liturg. 237

Summary

A Roman Diurnal, containing:

A Calendar (fol. 1, wanting Jan.-Feb.)

Proprium de Tempore, pars hiemalis (fol. 6)

Proprium Sanctorum, pars hiemalis (fol. 145)

Hours of the Virgin, in outline (fol. 198)

Proprium de Tempore, pars aestivalis (fol. 213)

Proprium Sanctorum, pars aestivalis (fol. 305)

Commune Sanctorum (fol. 439)

Some leaves appear to be wanting, as after fols. 144, 197, 212, 304. Each verso is written from bottom to top, and each leaf is bound by the top, not side, and bevelled at the corners: the metal frame of the back of the binding (which is old) having a loop, so that the volume could be hung from the wearer's girdle.

Date

Written in the 15th century in Italy

Language

Latin

Physical facet

On parchment, binding in parts rubbed and mutilated

Physical extent

461 Leaves

Custodial history

In the calendar on June 20 is 'Consecratio ecclesiae nostre.'.