Original leaf from a medieval manuscript Breviary. Red-ruled for 28 lines of Latin text, written in double columns with dark brown and red ink in fine rounded Gothic book-hand on animal vellum. (175 x 125mm – 6 ¾ x 4 ½’’)
Northern France (Paris), c. 1480
Twenty-eight one-line illuminated initials in gold on red or blue ground with delicate gold penwork.
The first illuminated “D” begins Deuteronomy 32: 4-21: “Deus fidelis…” (The works of God are perfect, and all his ways are judgments: God is faithful and without any iniquity, he is just and right….When the Most High divided the nations: when he separated the sons of Adam, he appointed the bounds of people according to the number of the children of Israel. But the Lord’s portion is his people: Jacob the lot of his inheritance. He found him in a desert land, in a place of horror, and of vast wilderness: he led him about, and taught him: and he kept him as the apple of his eye. As the eagle enticing her young to fly, and hovering over them, he spread his wings, and hath taken him and carried him on his shoulders. The Lord alone was his leader: and there was no strange god with him…).
This is a very attractive example of calligraphers craft, with fine precise script on a very clean and fresh vellum leaf.
Presented in an archival 14 x 11'' mat
