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Detailed record for Additional 39636, ff. 10, 13, 28, 29
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| Title |
Cuttings from a Gradual |
| Origin |
Italy, N. (Lombardy) |
| Date |
3rd quarter of the 15th century |
| Language |
Latin |
| Script |
Gothic |
| Decoration |
1 miniature in colours and gold, of Benedictine monks chanting at a lectern with one and a half four-line red staves, musical notation and partial text 'Kyrie / leison' on its reverse (f. 10). 2 historiated initials in colours and gold, of Benedict (f. 13) and Pentecost (f. 28) with two four-line red staves, musical notation and text on their versos. 1 historiated initial 'S' in colours and gold, of the Apostles praying with one four-line red stave, musical notation and text 'eus alle' on its reverse (f. 29). 1 small initial 'K' in gold (f. 10). 1 filigree initial 'K' in colours (f. 10v). |
| Dimensions in mm |
140 x 170 (f. 10); 190 x 180 (f. 13); 210 x 180 (f. 28); 75 x 80 (f. 29) |
| Official foliation |
Bound in a volume of ff. 61. Mounted parchment cuttings, foliated as ‘10’, ‘13’, ‘28’ and '29'. |
| Form |
Parchment cuttings mounted in double-sided paper leaves bound in an album. |
| Binding |
Post-1600. Green velvet with crimson silk fly-leaves and gilt edges. |
| Provenance |
?A Benedictine monastery: Benedict (f. 13), monks of his Order (f. 10) and Miracles of Benedict in an initial 'D' in the Nella Longari Collection, Milan, which was probably cut from the same choir book as the present cuttings (see Filippo Todini and Milvia Bollati, Una Collezione di Miniature Italiane dal Duecento al Cinquecento (Milan: Studio Nella Longari, 1993), cat. no. XIII).
Add. 39636, f. 28 and an initial 'E' of Paul formerly in the Holford Collection (see Notes below) were excised from the same temporal volume of the Gradual; Add. 39636, f. 13 and the Longari initial were cut from a Sanctorale; and Add. 39636, f. 10 from the Ordinary of Mass. Add. 39636, f. 29 was possibly excised from an Antiphonary.
Luigi Celotti (b. 1759, d. 1843), Italian art dealer: his sale, 26 May 1825, lot 1 (f. 29 was the fourth undescribed part); purchased for £1 5s by Core, according to an annotated copy of the sale catalogue (Christie's Archives, cat. no. 29, 1825).
Robert Curzon (b. 1810, d. 1873), 14th baron Zouche of Harringworth, traveller and collector of manuscripts: see Add. 64098, f. 62, his annotated copy of Robert Curzon, Catalogue of Materials for Writing, Early Writings on Tablets and Stones, Rolled and other Manuscripts and Oriental Manuscript Books, in the library of the Honourable Robert Curzon, at Parham in the county of Sussex (London: William Nicol, 1849).
Darea Curzon (b. 1860, d. 1917), 16th baroness Zouche: bequeathed by her to the British Museum in 1917. |
| Notes |
Italian cuttings.
The present cuttings are bound in an album with other cuttings as Add. 39636, ff. 10, 13 and 28. To see these cuttings in the Manuscripts Reading Room order Add. 39636.
An initial 'E' of Paul, introducing the Gradual to the Mass for the feast of Saints John and Paul Martyrs (26 June) ‘Ecce quam bonum et quam iucundum habitare fratres in unum’, formerly in the collection of Robert Stayner Holford (b. 1808, d. 1892), art and plant collector, was probably cut from the same Gradual as the present cuttings (see The Holford Collection Dorchester House, with 120 Illustrations from the Twelfth to the End of the Nineteenth Century, ed. by Robert Henry Benson, 2 vols (Oxford: University Press; London: H. Milford, 1927), I, no. 17, fig. 15).
Musical notation. |
| Select bibliography |
Catalogue of Additions to the Manuscripts in the British Museum in the Years 1916-1920 (London: Trustees of the British Museum, 1933), pp. 107-10.
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). |
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f. 10
Benedictine monks chanting |
f. 13
Benedict |
f. 28
Pentecost |
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f. 29
Apostles praying |
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