|
|
|
|
|
|
Detailed record for Additional 60630, ff. 8, 33-38
|
|
|
|
| Title |
Cuttings from Missals of Pope Leo X |
| Origin |
Italy, Central (Florence or Rome) |
| Date |
c. 1513 - c. 1521 |
| Language |
Latin |
| Artists |
Attavante (Castelfiorentino, 1452-1520/1525). |
| Decoration |
7 historiated and floral borders in colours and gold, of medallions with Peter and two prophets bearing scrolls (f. 8), the Medici devices of Leo X: a diamond ring with three feathers and motto 'Semper' (ff. 8, 34, 37) and a yoke with a scroll inscribed 'Suave' (ff. 8, 37, 38), initials 'L.X.P.M.' (ff. 33, 34, 36), winged putti (ff. 8, 33-38) and a zoomorphic head (f. 36). |
| Dimensions in mm |
Various (see individual descriptions) |
| Official foliation |
Parchment cuttings, foliated as '8, '33'-'38'. |
| Form |
Mounted parchment cuttings, kept in a box with other cuttings. |
| Binding |
N/A |
| Provenance |
Leo X (de' Medici) (r. 1513-21), Italian pope and patron: his devices and mottoes; excised from one of three Missals (A.I.2-4) described in a 1714 inventory of the Sistine Sacristy (Rome, Archivio di Stato, Camerale I, Vol. 1560, fasc. 24, ff. 265-302, transcribed in Emilia Anna Talamo, Codices Cantorum: Miniature e Disegni nei Codici della Capella Sistina (Florence: Officine del Novecento, 1998), pp. 216-22 (pp. 216-17)).
Probably Luigi Celotti (b. 1759, d. 1843), Italian dealer: though not identifiable in his sales, 26 May 1825 and 3 May 1826.
William Young Ottley (b. 1771, d. 1836), writer on art and collector: his sale, 11 May 1838; f. 8 was part of lots 209 (f. 8) and 203 (ff. 33-38) purchased by Sotheby for £1 9s and £1, respectively.
Samuel Sotheby (b. 1771, d. 1842), London auctioneer and book collector: he purchased lots 125, 136, 190, 199, 203, 205-209, 245, and 247 at the Ottley sale, and later sold some of their cuttings to Leopold de Rothschild.
Leopold de Rothschild (b. 1845, d. 1917), banker, thoroughbred race horse breeder, and a member of the prominent Rothschild banking family of England: his bookplate in album (Add. 60630, Old Covers), which originally contained cuttings and was kept at Ascott, near Wing, Buckinghamshire; inscribed 'L. H. II', 'Jacobean' room, and 'landing' case.
Purchased as 'The Ascott Album' by the British Library from the Rothschild family on 26 March 1979. |
| Notes |
Italian cuttings.
The present cuttings are boxed with Add. 60630, ff. 1-7, 9- 32, and 39-42. To see these cuttings in the Manuscripts Reading Room order Add. 60630. To see the Ascott Album which originally contained all the cuttings order Add. 60630, Old Covers. Other cuttings from the same Missals of Leo X include Add. 21412, ff. 20-44; Cambridge, University Library, Ms Add. 4165 (15); Geneva, Bibliothèque de Genève, Comites Latentes, MS. 109; London, Sotheby's, 15 June 1959, lot 120, 21 June 1988, lots 36-37, 21 and 22 June 1993, lots 46 and 47, and 2 December 1997, lot 82; New York, Private Collection, formerly Metropolitan Museum of Art, Robert Lehman Collection (see Pia Palladino, Treasures of a Lost Art: Italian Manuscript Painting of the Middle Ages and Renaissance (New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2003), no. 84); and Paris, Musée Marmottan, Wildenstein Collection, no. 8 (see Amédée Boinet, La Collection de Miniatures de M. Edouard Kann (Paris: Les Beaux-Arts, 1926), no. 40 and Académie des Beaux-Arts, La Collection Wildenstein (Paris: Musée Marmottan, 1980), no. 8). London, Victoria and Albert Museum, E.4588-1910 is a nineteenth-century copy inspired by the Geneva and New York cuttings (see Palladino, p. 168). |
| Select bibliography |
'Recent Acquisitions. Department of Manuscripts', British Library Journal, 7 (1981), p. 190.
Catalogue of Additions to the Manuscripts 1976-1980 (London: British Library, 1995), pp. 164-65.
Sandra Hindman and others, Manuscript Illumination in the Modern Age: Recovery and Reconstruction (Evanston, IL: Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art, Northwestern University, c2001), pp. 82 and 91 [exhibition catalogue].
Cambridge Illuminations: Ten Centuries of Book Production in the Medieval West, ed. by Paul Binski and Stella Panayotova (London: Harvey Miller, 2005), p. 158.
Christopher de Hamel, The Rothschilds and their Collection of Illuminated Manuscripts (London: British Library, 2005), pp. 13-14.
Anne-Marie Eze, Abbé Luigi Celotti (1759-1843): Connoisseur, Dealer, and Collector of Illuminated Miniatures (unpublished doctoral thesis, London: Courtauld Institute of Art, University of London, 2010). |
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
f. 8
Peter |
f. 33
Border |
f. 34
Border |
| |
f. 35
Border |
f. 36
Border |
f. 37
Medici devices |
| |
f. 38
Border |
|
|
|
|
