Original manuscript leaf from an important mid 15th century Choirbook. Four lines of music, on animal parchment, written in liturgical gothic script. Interlinear musical notation is in black on a red four-line stave.(580 x 410mm – 22 1/2 x 15 3/4'')
One 2.5'' square illuminated initial ''T'' in a floral motif and in colors of red, pink, brushed gold, orange, and green with white tracery and burnished gold - on a blue ground with white tracery.
This beautiful four-line stave musical sheet is from a Gradual of the Benedictine Monastery of Santa Giustina of Padua, 1440-50.
This leaf was formerly in the collection of C.W. Dyson-Perrins (noted English collector of the late 19th & early 20th centuries).
A series of richly decorated choir books was made for S. Giustina in Padua in the early to mid 15th century. There are now four in the Biblioteche Capitolare in Padua.
The large illuminated ''T'' begins Luke 1:76: ''Tu puer propheta…'' (Thou, child, shalt be called the prophet of the Highest: for thou shalt go before the face of the Lord to prepare his ways).
As is usual with Medieval and Renaissance parchment, the hair side of the leaf is darker than the flesh side, but may take ink somewhat better. The differences in tone caused scribes to arrange their quires so that the hair side of one sheet faced the hair side of the next, and the flesh side faced the flesh side.
Shipped unmatted
