Psalter

BOOK DESCRIPTION: refined devotional Psalter preserving a complete series of psalms in a fifteenth-century blind-stamped leather binding. Dimensions 201 x 143 mm. In Latin, illuminated manuscript on parchment, Italy (Padua), c. 1390-1410, ii + 96 folios on parchment, written in an Italian gothic bookhand in black ink, psalms numbered in an early hand, contemporary marginal additions, two- to three-lines initials in red or blue with red flourishes for each psalm, SIX ILLUMINATED INITIALS four- to five-lines in green or purple on blue grounds with white penwork, ONE ILLUMINATED INITIAL, twelve-lines, in purple, red, and green on gold and blue grounds. BINDING: (truncated) Fifteenth-century binding of leather over wooden boards, tooled in blind with Italian knot tools. TEXT: This complete Psalter gathers the one hundred and fifty psalms to be recited each week during the Divine Office in a fifteenth-century blind-stamped leather binding, adorned with knot tools typical of Italian bookbinding. The refined illuminated initials reflect developments of Paduan illumination at the beginning of the fifteenth century, displaying characteristic features, such as the soft undulation of the foliate extensions in light pink, green, and red, the gold bezants with sharp endings, and the delicate, swift decoration of the blue ground with white penwork. PROVENANCE: Based on stylistic evidence, the present manuscript was written and illuminated in Padua near the beginning of the fifteenth century; Marginal addition in a sixteenth- or seventeenth-century hand; Unidentified label, written "N.1286 / da.tax," in a nineteenth-century hand; Dawson's Bookshop, Los Angeles; sold to Marvin Colker in 1944; Marvin L. Colker (1927-2020), Professor of Classics at the University of Virginia and renowned paleographer, who catalogued the manuscripts at Trinity College Library, Dublin. His ex libris, "Sum ex libris Marci Leonardi, 19X44," is written on f. 1, while his shelfmark "MLC 4" appears in the lower inner corner of ff. 1 and 3 (see Faye and Bond, 1962, no. 4). CONDITION: occasional marginal damp staining, otherwise in very good condition. [TM 1290] (Inventory #: TM 1290)