Beschreibung:

GENEALOGICAL AND CHRONICLE ROLL, in French, ILLUMINATED MANUSCRIPT ON VELLUM
GENEALOGICAL AND CHRONICLE ROLL, in French, ILLUMINATED MANUSCRIPT ON VELLUM [northern France, ca.1460s] 55.5 x 1915cm (63'10" x 1'10") approximately. 29 membranes, from one to five columns of text written in a bâtarde hand on a red ruling of two columns subdivided as required, lines of descent and name roundels in red, paragraph marks of blue with red penwork, two - and three-line initials alternately of blue or burnished gold with flourishing of red or black respectively, large opening initial of gold with monochrome decoration against a blue ground and with a pink infill and with a right-angle border made up of sprays of gold trefoils on hairline stems, acanthus and fruit and flowers, final section with a large blue initial on a red monochrome-patterned ground, SIXTY-SIX ROUNDELS WITH MINIATURES, these roundels mostly 75mm in diameter with a cusped outline in black (some creasing to first membrane, occasional small pigment losses and small marginal tears, repair to upper right corner). CONTENT: The roll opens 'Sy sensuit la genealogie de la bible qui monstre et dit combien chascun aage a dure de puis le commencement du monde jusques a l'advenement ihesus...,' but this is by no means the entire scope of the history that unfurls. As well as encompassing man's history from the Creation according to Old Testament sources, once Gideon has been reached, the history of Troy and its descendants is included alongside: as the sons of Noah dispersed after the flood to inhabit different lands and found different races, so the Trojans fled from their burning city to people and name different lands -- 'Cest a dire peuplerent romme, lombardie, france et angleterre'. At its most expansive the roll has five lines of descent side by side, tracing the history and descent of the Popes, the Holy Roman Emperors, the Kings of England, of France and of the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem. Other versions survive, showing that it was a composition that was repeatedly updated to provide a pedigree for the current King of France. For example the introduction to the manuscript in Paris (Bib. Nat. MS fr.61) that ends with Charles VII (d.1461) declares the scope of the work to continue until 1375 and Charles V. The copyist obviously overlooked this anachronism. There is a similar scribal oversight in the present manuscript showing that this too was an updated copy of an earlier text. Four other Chronicle rolls closely related to the present manuscript and apparently copies of the same version are in the New York Public Library, MS 124 (New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Secular Spirit: Life and Art at the end of the Middle Ages , 1975, p.166), Cambridge, Mass., Houghton Library, bMS Typ 41 (Roger Wieck, Late Medieval and Renaissance Illuminated Manuscripts 1350-1525 in the Houghton Library , Cambridge, Mass. 1983, pp.22-23), a roll in the London Borough of Croydon Archive and a roll formerly the property of the Earl of Derby (sold Christie's, London, 26 November 1997 lot 5). All four of them, like the present roll, continue to include Louis XI as the final monarch. Although in this case it appears that the roll was made in the lifetime of Charles VII and ended with his portrait roundel and the names of his children, following the account of the life of his father Charles VI. The final text, the year by year chronicle of Charles VII's reign and the portrait of Louis XI are the work of a different scribe and illuminator. The Houghton Library and Croydon copies have miniatures on only the first membrane; it has been suggested that the more fully illuminated version in New York was made for Louis XI himself. It seems likely that the present manuscript too was completed either by Louis or someone closely associated with him. As none of Louis XI's children are named it is probable that it was completed early in his reign. Genealogical rolls such as this were physical demonstrations of the right to rule and emphasized the authority of the monarch; their