DPL Reed MMF43

Gospel Lectionary, Latin. Northeast Italy, fifteenth century

Single leaf. 325 by 233mm. Double column, 25 lines, ruled in leadpoint, written space 212 by 145mm; gothic hand.

Text: Readings for Mass on the Saturday of Passion Week and Palm Sunday.
Decoration: Small red initial and large divided red and blue initial with elaborate penwork extension up and down the space between the columns; rubrics in red; capitals touched in red.
Provenance: From a missal preceded by an Epistle lectionary and followed by a gospel lectionary. The Reed lead was folio 323 of the Gospel lectionary. The parent manuscript was owned by Andrew Cavalini, whose inscription dated 23 June 1528 on the calendar recorded that the manuscript was in his possession when he fled to Monterosa after the plague devastated his abbey of La Madonna di Colombini. The manuscript entered into the collection of the banker Baron Horace de Landau (1824–1903) and the passed to his great-nephew Horace Finaly (d. 1945). It was sold privately by Finaly in Italy, then at Sotheby’s on 14 December 1977, lot 69. The manuscript was re-sold by Sotheby’s on 19 June 1979, lot 49, to Duschnes, who subsequently broke it up. Purchased from Maggs Bulletin 11 (November 1982), no. 72.
References: Manion, Vines, de Hamel no. 105; Reed Early Bibles no. 55.
Shelfmark: RMM Fragment 43.

Description reproduced from Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts in New Zealand Collections (London, 1989) by permission of the authors (Christopher de Hamel, Margaret Manion, and the family of Vera F. Vines).