Beschreibung:

Missal or Lectionary, in Glagolitic, from a decorated manuscript on parchment [Croatia, fifteenth century] A bifolium, each leaf with double column, 30/31 lines in a tall and angular glagolitic bookhand, elaborate paragraph marks and rubrics in bright red, remains of 8 large initials in line-drawn ropework and acanthus leaf designs on iridescent red grounds, reused on a binding of a printed copy of Perfectissimus Calepinus Paruus, Venice, 1684, as a bifolium with its inner gutter running up the spine of the printed book and the boards preserving the whole of the text block of the manuscript page and some of lower margin, hence scuffed and with stains and small holes and splits, however the turned over edges on inside of boards indicate clean condition of leaf when used on binding, and presumably the innerside of these leaves if lifted from binding are in fine and presentable condition, board size: 245mm. by 165mm. Provenance: The parent codex was presumably carried in the fifteenth or sixteenth century from Croatia to Venice by traders or immigrants. Once there and out of the hands of readers who were familiar with its script, it appears to have been set aside, and by 1688 it was being reused as binding material: with ownership inscriptions dated 1688 and 1691 on title pages, the later naming a Professor Petrus Baculisti as its owner then; another undated but contemporary inscription of Andreas Batistinus upside-down in same place. Recently discovered by the present owner in the German trade. Text: This strange script is entirely a medieval creation. It was invented by SS. Cyril and Methodius, brothers from Thessaloniki, when they were sent to Great Moravia (modern Czech Republic and Slovakia) in 862 by the Byzantine Emperor who wanted to weaken the dependence of Moravia on East Frankish missionaries and priests. In 886, the East Frankish bishop of Nitra banned the script and jailed 200 of Methodius' followers (who later were sold into slavery). Refugees reached Bulgaria and were commissioned by Boris I to instruct his clergy there in Slavic language worship. From there these refugees spread to Croatia and established it as the heartland of the script. In 1248, Pope Innocent IV granted the Croats of southern Dalmatia the unique privilege of using a translation of the Roman Rite in their own script. Glagolitic is as rare a script on the market as Early Uncial (see lot 8 here), Visigothic and Luxeuil minuscule, with examples appearing only once a generation or so. To the best of our knowledge only three codices (all ex collection of Sir Thomas Phillipps) and two sets of fragments have been offered for sale in the last two hundred years (codices: Missal of c.1400-10, bought in the Guildford sale at Evans, 8 December 1830, lot 460, for the vast price of £168, and among his proudest possessions, exhibited at dinner parties among his 'desserts of manuscripts', sold Sotheby’s 29 November 1966, lot 162, and now Pierpont Morgan Library; a fifteenth-century priests manual, sold Sotheby’s, 28-29 June 1976, lot 4040; and a copy of patristic texts dated 1602, lot 1240 in same sale; fragments: two leaves from a fifteenth-century illuminated Missal, sold Sotheby’s, 16 December 1970, lot 5; two further leaves from a contemporary copy of the same text, sold in Hartung in 2012, and now in two private UK collections); and to these should be added the small fragments in the binding of a Glagolitic printed book offered by Christies later this month with the estimate £40,000-60,000. However, this has not dampened academic and collecting interest in the script, and in 2001 Trinity College Dublin held an exhibition dedicated to it.