Breviarium Romanum.
With corrections by Georgius de Spathariis.
Venice: Nicolaus Jenson, [before 6 May] 1478.
Fol. π6 a-c10 d-z8 ⁊8 ↄ8 ꝝ10 ā10 ƀ10 c[with macron]8 aa10 bb-oo8 pp10 A-B8 C6 D8. [404] leaves (π1 blank).
ISTC ib01112000; GW 5101; Goff B1112; BMC V 179 (IB. 19716); CIBN B-783; BSB-Ink B-889.
| GIP number: | B106 |
| Shelf-mark: | Sp Coll Hunterian Bf.1.18 (see main library entry for this item) |
| Note: | Printed on parchment. |
| Variant: | ⁊4r, col. 2, line 1: ‘... hic noƀ’ as BMC IB. 19716, 19717, not ‘... hic nobis’ as IB. 19718; ↄ4r, col. 1, line 1: ‘Qui einm non faſtidiunt ipi[‘p’ with macron] ...’ as BMC IB. 19716, 19717, not ‘Qui enim non fastidiunt ipsi ...’ as IB. 19718; hh1r, col. 1, line 1: ‘... debeam9 ... cupia||mus ...’ as BMC IB. 19716 not ‘... debeamus ... cu-||piamus ...’ as IB. 19718; D8r, col. 2: setting of text conforms to the main transcription in Pell. 2922, and not to the variant setting in Pell. 2922A; quire aa consists of the shorter setting of text as BMC IB. 19717, 19718 (i.e. without the new matter added in IB. 19716), but like IB. 19718 a copy of aa5 is inserted within sheet aa4. |
| Provenance: | Leonardo Botta, Milanese ambassador to Venice (1470-1480): Botta’s coat of arms on a1r and e1r overpainted by those of the Du Prat family (see below) but Botta’s identity is indicated by the abbreviations ‘LEO’ and ‘BO’ which appear respectively on the left and right of the Du Prat arms; the Botta provenance is further substantiated by the presence of the name ‘Leonardus’ written in a cursive script at the foot of leaves d4r, q2r (heavily cropped) and ii1r (slightly cropped). It is likely that this copy was a gift to Botta from Jenson, since Botta had earlier acted for Jenson in investigating a presumed embezzlement of the printer’s funds by a bookseller in Pavia. Du Prat family, Auvergne, France – probably owned by Antoine Du Prat (d. 1535), Chancellor of the Duchy of Milan in the second decade of the 16th century, later Bishop of Meaux, Archbishop of Sens, and in 1527 created a cardinal: painted coat of arms on a1r and e1r: d’or, à la fasce de sable, accompagnée de trois trèfles de sinople, 2 en chef, 1 en pointe. Martinus Spifamus/Martin Spifame (16th century), seigneur de Grand-Hôtel et d’Azy, poet: ‘Ex Libris Martinj Spifamj’ on π2r. F.C. de Soyssons (16th/17th century): ‘F.C. de Soyssons’ on D8r. Étienne Charles Loménie de Brienne (1727-1794), Cardinal: possible owner. According to Joseph Van Praet, Catalogue des livres imprimés sur vélin de la bibliothèque du Roi, 6 vols (Paris: 1822-8), I, no. 77.7, pp. 75-77, this Gaignat copy had been incomplete and was made-up using another copy on parchment of the Breviarium formerly owned by Cardinal Loménie de Brienne. However, it should be noted that Van Praet’s identification of the Gaignat copy with a copy offered for sale by Longman ‘De M. Longman (Suppl. à son Cat. 1817, no 9228; marqué 13 l. 13 sh.); exempl. orné de bordures et d’initiales, provenant de Gaignat (le Cat. tom. I, p. 51, no 174; vendu 280 liv. 19s); étant imparfait, il a été complété par celui du cardinal de Loménie ...’ must be in error. Louis-Jean Gaignat (1697-1768), Secretary to King Louis XV: sale (1769), lot 174. William Hunter (1718-1783), physician and anatomist: purchased at the Gaignat sale via Jean-Baptiste Dessain for 280 livres 19 sous; see Dessain-Hunter correspondence, f. 24r. University of Glasgow: Hunterian bequest, 1807; Hunterian Museum bookplate on front pastedown, with former shelfmark 'Ag.6.1'. |
| Binding: | France, 18th-century blue goatskin; covers decorated with a triple gold-fillet border, a small gold fleuron at each corner; gold-tooled spine; marbled endpapers; gilt-edged leaves; pink silk bookmark; front flyleaf has watermark “L BEAURE LIMOSIN”; rear flyleaf has watermark of a bunch of grapes and date “1742”. Size: 344 x 246 mm. |
| Leaf size: | 329 x 224 mm. |
| Annotations: | Running headings (e.g. “Feria Quinta || Ad Matutinas”) on a1v-d2r; occasional slight traces of early manuscript signatures (e.g. on i4r, q2r and gg2r). |
| Decoration: | In the margins of the Calendar (π6) are twelve pen drawings in violet ink of ‘all’antica’ heads in roundels, several of which reflect the Latin names of the months (e.g. a two-headed Janus for January and the god Mars for March); a thirteenth roundel on the first page of the Calendar (π1r) contains the bust of a man in contemporary costume, possibly a portrait of the recipient, Leonardo Botta. Within the text are nine full-page illuminations by an artist identified by Lilian Armstrong as ‘Petrus V...’, who was also responsible for the frontispiece in a copy of Jenson’s 1476 Pliny in the Elmer Belt Library, Los Angeles, and the frontispiece of a second copy of the Pliny now in the John Rylands Library, Manchester. The nine full-page illuminations are: (1) a1r: the Psalter frontispiece with King David depicted in the lower margin enthroned in a landscape and surrounded by a choir of angel musicians; (2) a8r: King David pointing to his eyes (‘Dominus illuminatio mea’); (3) b1r: King David seated with his harp; (4) b1v: King David pointing to his lips (‘Dixi custodiam vias meas, ut non delinquam in lingua mea’); (5) b4r: a bas-de-page scene of a Fool approaching a group of courtiers (‘Dixit insipiens in corde suo, non est deus’); (6) b6v: King David praying in the waters (‘Salvum me fac deus’); (7) b10r: a bas-de-page decoration of putti dancing and making music; (8) e1r: the Temporale frontispiece includes in the lower border S. Paul in a landscape confronting Elijah, with putti in the outer margin; (9) s5v: a trompe l’oeil architectural and landscape border with the Resurrection depicted on the lower border. Five-line historiated initial ‘P’ and nine-line historiated initial ‘B’ on a1r; two-line initials supplied throughout in gold, red or blue, sometimes embellished with red pen-work. For detailed descriptions of the decoration of this book, see Thorp, no. 101; Jonathan J.G. Alexander, The painted page: Italian Renaissance book illumination, 1450-1550 (London & New York: 1994), no. 87, pp. 178-9; Lilian Armstrong, ‘Nicolaus Jenson’s Breviarium romanum, Venice, 1478: decoration and distribution’, in Incunabula: studies in fifteenth-century printed books presented to Lotte Hellinga, ed. M. Davies (London: 1999), pp. 421-67. |
| Imperfections: | Wanting the blank leaf π1 and leaves f7 and t1. |
