Beschreibung:

CATHERINE D'AMBOISE (1481-1550), La complainte de la dame pasmée contre fortune , in French, ILLUMINATED MANUSCRIPT ON VELLUM
CATHERINE D'AMBOISE (1481-1550), La complainte de la dame pasmée contre fortune , in French, ILLUMINATED MANUSCRIPT ON VELLUM [?Bourges, c.1530]216 x 152 mm. ii paper + 24 + ii paper leaves: 1 7(of 8, ?i cancelled blank, possibly pastedown), 2 8, 3 4, 4 2(of 4, iii and iv cancelled), 5 3(of 2 + iii, former pastedown), apparently COMPLETE, written in brown ink in a gothic bookhand in 22 lines between two verticals and 23 horizontals ruled in pink, justification: 150 x 97 mm, rubrics in red, EIGHT LARGE INITIALS in blue and red with acanthus infills on grounds of liquid gold, EIGHT LARGE MINIATURES IN RECTANGULAR FRAMES OF LIQUID GOLD, the first in a classical architectural frame (slight rubbing to miniatures on ff.1 and 14; slight staining to miniature f.19v and facing text page). Late 18th-century calf gilt (two corners and spine restored at head and foot). PROVENANCE:: 1. Catherine d'Amboise (1481-1550): her arms (paley of 6 or and gules) impaled by those of her second husband, Philibert de Beaujeu, seigneur de Lignières (or, a lion rampant sable armed and langued gules with a label of three points gules) appear on the architectural frame of f.1 and identifying Catherine within the miniature on f.6. The couple married in 1501 and Philibert died in 1541; the following year Catherine married Louis de Clèves, comte d'Auxerre. Although it is is possible that the arms signal Catherine's authorship rather than ownership, the work achieved such restricted circulation that this and the other surviving copy with her arms, Paris, BnF, Société des assureurs français, ms 79-7, were almost certainly commissioned by her and at least one owned by her. The only other copy known (Paris, BnF, ms nouv. acq. fr. 19738) is a later manuscript with an abbreviated text lacking some personal references to Catherine and her family. 2. A 19th-century note in French on the second paper leaf misidentifying the arms as those of Catherine's sister, Marie, who died in 1519. 3. John Ruskin (1819-1900): his Brantwood book label inside the upper cover; described as 'untraced' by James S. Dearden, 'John Ruskin, the collector, with a catalogue of the illuminated and other manuscripts formerly in his collection', The Library , 5th series 21 (1966), pp.124-54, no 69. Famed for his championing of earlier Gothic illumination, Ruskin was a frequent purchaser of manuscripts for himself and for the education of artists and potential patrons. The present volume may have appealed as an example of 16th-century script and illumination; his interest in female education may have drawn him to the work of a learned lady, whose woes (had he read the text) might have echoed some of his own spiritual turmoils. Ruskin moved to Brantwood in 1872; the library passed with the rest of his estate to Arthur Severne; Sotheby's, 24 August, 1930, lot 14, when bought by Maggs; Sam Fogg, Illuminated Manuscripts, Catalogue 20 , 1999, no 33. CONTENT: Catherine d'Amboise, La complainte de la dame pasemée contre Fortune , in eight chapters, ff.1-23v. Catherine d'Amboise was one of the select group of aristocratic, and even royal, French female authors, who have attracted considerable attention in recent years. Catherine herself was the subject of a thesis by Ariane Bergeron-Foote, Les oeuvres en prose de Catherine d'Amboise, dame de Lignières (1481-1550) , Thèse soutenue a l'Ecole des chartes, Paris, 2002; the edition of La complainte established there has yet to be published. La complainte is the second, and more accomplished, of Catherine's two prose works. The first, Le livre des prudens et imprudens , composed in 1509, drew moral conclusions from the deserved fates of the prudent and imprudent drawn from Adam and Eve to more recent history. In La complainte , the accent is autobiographical not biographical, since the Lady is Catherine herself, who laments the fortune that has deprived her of her parents, her first husband and her only child, her uncle Georges, the Cardinal d'Amboise