Beschreibung:

Bifolium from Vincent of Beauvais, Speculum historiale, in Latin, decorated manuscript on parchment [France (Paris), c. 1400] Two conjoined leaves, with double column of 46 lines in a fine late gothic bookhand influenced by lettre bâtarde (written space: 250 by 155mm.; here with book 29: 40-42 and 52-55), capitals touched in yellow, one-line initials in red or blue with contrasting penwork, each major text break with red rubric and a 2-line initial as before, running titles and book numbers in red and blue at head of page (here: L. XXIX and Flores Sancti Bernardi), small natural flaws in parchment, tiny spots and stains, once folded horizontally across the middle, overall excellent condition with wide and clean margins, each leaf 366 by 264mm. A previously unrecorded missing bifolium from an opulently illuminated copy of the Speculum historiale, probably made for a member of the French royal family. Other parts of the parent codex are decorated with distinctive gold and blue half-fleur-de-lys devices in their borders (here hinted at by the split fleur-de-lys in red and blue used as a line-filler) identifying them as part of a small group of books most probably produced for Charles V, the Duc de Berry, other members of the French royal family and their immediate followers (see F. Avril in Bibliothèque de lÉcole des Chartes, 125, 1967, pp. 433-37, and the Sermons manuscript sold in our rooms, 8 July 2015, lot 88; another emerging since then, the Hours of François de Blondel de Joigny, which has been acquired by an American institution). The distinctive decoration in known in the French royal inventories as enluminé tout au long des colombes de fleur de lis dor et dassur (Delisle, Cabinet des Manuscrits, III, p. 139). Later the codex was owned by the polymath, book dealer and notorious manuscript thief, Guglielmo Libri (his sale, Sothebys, 1 June 1864, lot 71), thence to Sir Thomas Phillipps collection (his MS. 24654; offered for sale in same rooms, 6 June 1899, lot 367, and then again 24 June 1935, lot 74), and to H. R. Creswick, Bodleys Librarian and the librarian of Cambridge University Library (the substantial remnant of 176 leaves sold in same rooms, 20 June 1995, lot 87, to L. Schoenberg, his LJS 16, now in University of Pennsylvania [see Transformation of Knowledge, Early Manuscripts from the Collection of Laurence J. Schoenberg, 2006, pp. 137-8], with loose leaves at the end of that volume given away by Creswick to his friends, such as that to Sir Irvine Masson, sale in same rooms, 16 December 1957, part of lot 32, reappearing in same rooms, 17 June 1997, lot 1, to L. Schoenberg, his LJS 124, and now in University of Pennsylvania; A.N.L. Munby, same rooms, 5 April 1976, lot 658; and Professor A.Y. Campbell, now Liverpool University Library, MS. F.4.14). This leaf doubtless also gifted by him to an unknown associate. The text was conceived by the celebrated Dominican scholar, Vincent of Beauvais (d. 1264) as a vast text of thirty books, together encompassing a chronological history from the fall of man to the year 1244, and enclosing within its body excerpts from numerous classical and medieval authors. It was finished in an early form by 1245, but the author continued to revise it until 1253.