Beschreibung:

Petrus Apollonius COLLATIUS. Epistolarum liber ad Pium secundum Pontificem Maximum de exhortatione in Turchos . Manuscrit en latin enluminé sur vélin, [Milan, vers 1460]. Ce manuscript est dédié au Pape Pio II (l'humaniste Aeneas Silvius Piccolomini) et comprend sept épîtres adréssées aux plus grands princes Chrétiens à l'assemblée de Mantoue, congrès organisé par le Pape afin de renforcer son action contre les Turcs. COLLATIUS, Petrus Apollonius. Epistolarum liber ad Pium secundum Pontificem Maximum de exhortatione in Turchos , in Latin distichs, ILLUMINATED MANUSCRIPT ON VELLUM [Milan, ca.1460] 220 x 155mm. 16 leaves: 1-3 6 (blanks 3/5-6 cancelled), COMPLETE, vertical catchwords in lower, inner ruled verticals, 14 lines written in brown-black ink in an upright humanistic bookhand between 2 pairs of vertical and 15 horizontal lines ruled in drypoint, justification: 110 x100mm, rubrics and marginal titles in red, SIX ILLUMINATED WHITE-VINE INITIALS two-lines high, LARGE ILLUMINATED WHITE-VINE INITIAL AND THREE-SIDED BORDER WITH THE ARMS OF PIUS II and the monogram of Christ (slight thumbing of first folio, light stain in the upper margin of most folios, silver of arms oxidised, added text erased from final verso). Modern vellum, modern black morocco box. PROVENANCE: 1. THE DEDICATION MANUSCRIPT to Pope Pius II, Aeneas Silvius Piccolomini; two marginal corrections 2. Thomas Ewart Marston, bookplate 3. Sotheby's 9 December 1974, lot 45 CONTENTS: This work, which is dedicated to Pius II, is made up of 7 epistles, 6 of them addressed to the major Christian princes who were either taking part or were represented at the Diet of Mantua: the Pope himself, the Emperor Frederick III (who in fact made excuses), Charles VII of France, the Dauphin Louis Ferdinand of Aragon King of Naples, Francesco Sforza Duke of Milan; the seventh is addressed to all Christians. The overriding theme is war against the Turks. When the humanist Aeneas Silvius Piccolomini became Pope in 1458 his cultural concerns flourished - particularly the project to transform his native village into a perfectly planned renaissance city named, after himself, Pienza; his contemporaries were more suprised that the other constant preoccupation of his pontificate became the launch of a crusade against the Turks. The text of the present manuscript was a response to the Diet of Mantua, a congress called by the recently elected Pope to strengthen the resolve of the princes of Europe in acting against the Turk. The fall of Constantinople in 1453 had increased the feeling of threat and insecurity felt by the rulers of the west, but Pius's hopes that this might cause them to forget their differences in the face of a greater evil were ill-founded; his proposals for raising troops and money met with general opposition. Collazio or Collatius (Collatinus) was a priest and poet, originally from Novara. These epistles were an early work and in them he asks to be excused their shortcomings on these grounds. He went on to write a poem on the destruction of Jerusalem under Vespasian, de Eversione urbis Jerusalem carmen heroicum (published Milan, 1481) [GW 7157] that was reprinted in the 16th century under the title Apollonius, de Excidio hierosolymitano (Paris, 1540 and Antwerp, 1586), and a series of odes or hymns on the principal feasts of the year, Fastorum majorum libellus (Milan, 1492) [GW 7158]. SCRIBE AND ILLUMINATION: We are grateful to Professor de la Mare for identifying the scribe of this presentation copy as Paganus Raudensis (or Pagano da Rho) who produced many manuscripts for the Sforzas of Milan between 1444-68. Pagano was closely associated with the humanist Francesco Filelfo, writing presentation copies of his works and adopting some of Filelfo's scribal mannerisms - including the papal-knot flourish at the top of capital F. The illumination is by Ambrogio da Marliano. His earliest works can be dated to shortly after the middle of the century, and by 1461 he wa