Original leaf from a French manuscript pocket Bible. Written in Latin gothic script, in brown ink on animal vellum. (220 x 143mm – 8 5/8 x 5 5/8’’)
Rubricated chapter numbers, initials & marginalia in red & blue. 55 lines of text in double columns (10 lines per inch!). In order not to waste precious vellum, the scribe carefully wrote around an original hole in the vellum – (For sister leaf see Cleveland Museum – Blackburn Collection – pl. I).
France: Paris, c. 1220 A.D.
From the Vienna Moralized Bible Workshop: “Only a handful of the manuscript workshops in Paris during the first half of the 13th century have been identified…the demand for books was principally for Bibles, particularly following the introduction of the vulgate in its one-volume Paris revision…This leaf is from such a one-volume Bible” (Blackburn).
This leaf contains text from Psalm 87 (King James 88) 10 – 93 (KJ 94) 17: “Clamavi…” All the day I cried to thee, O Lord…The mercies of the Lord I will sing forever…Lord, thou hast been our refuge from generation to generation…He that dwelleth in the aid of the most High…It is good to give praise to the Lord…The Lord hath reigned, he is clothed with beauty…The Lord is the God to whom revenge belongeth…).
Distinguished Provenance : Alfred Henry Huth; C. H. St. John Hornby; Sir Sydney Cockerell (one of the giants of both 20th century fine binding & 20th century book conservation); Arthur Haddaway.
Presented in an archival 14 x 11'' mat
