A lovely original leaf from a medieval manuscript pocket Bible, written in Paris c. 1240-50. In Latin gothic micro-minuscule script, ruled in red and written in brown ink in two columns of 44 lines on animal vellum. (150 x 100 mm - 6 x 4").
Rubricated chapter numbers, two multi-lined illuminated Lombard style initials &elegant marginalia red & blue. The gothic text is written in extremely tiny & very well formed letters, so small that there are twelve lines of text to the inch!
This leaf contains I Corinthians 14:27 - 16:24: ''Sive lingua…'' (If any speak with a tongue, let it be by two, or at the most by three, & in course, & let one interpret. But if there be no interpreter, let him hold his peace in the church, & speak to himself & to God...Christ died for our sins, according to the scriptures: And that he was buried, & that he rose again the third day...When this mortal hath put on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written: Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is thy victory? O death where is thy sting? Now the sting of death is sin: & the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who hath given us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ...).
The book from which this leaf came was a very high-quality production, scribed in the Johannes Grusch Workshop in Paris. The calligraphy is excellent, and the vellum is of the finest style, extremely thin and very white. Other leaves from this same book were exhibited in the Jeanne Blackburn Collection at the Cleveland Art Museum (pl. 7 & 8).
This leaf is from a ''portable'' Bible of the Crusades period & would have been used in abstract study of theology or preaching of the Gospel around medieval countryside.
Shipped in archival 14x11'' mat.
