Penn in Hand: Selected Manuscripts

Catholic Church.

[Liturgical miscellany] [manuscript].

[Italy, between 1450 and 1499]

123 leaves : parchment ; 82 x 60 (chant 68 x 42, text 55 x 40) mm. bound to 88 x 70 mm.

Miniature manuscript of music and prayers from a monastic context. The manuscript has a pedagogical slant, beginning with the seven tones and some of the ordinary chants (Kyrie, Gloria, Ite missa est) written out repeatedly in different tones. It ends with a diagram of a Guidonian hand, a tool attributed to the 11th-century musical theorist Guido d'Arezzo and used in the 12th through 16th centuries for teaching sight-singing, and a ladder diagram of the gamut. Most of the content of the manuscript consists of brief chants for the liturgical cycle, with more extensive chants for Holy Week, including part of the Lamentations of Jeremiah (f. 54v-58r), and for the Office of and Mass for the Dead (Officium defunctorum, Missa pro defunctoris). The only antiphons indicated from the sanctoral cycle are for the Finding of the Holy Cross (May 3, f. 30r) and the Apparition of Saint Michael (May 8, f. 30v). Beginning of musical notation (primus tonus, secundus tonus) now lacking, perhaps 1-2 leaves; a catchword on the last leaf of musical notation suggests that at least one more gathering is missing between the last two. The musical notation is followed by prayers to Saint Michael, Saint Helena, and Saint Katherine of Alexandria, and a number of prayers for the death and burial of different categories of people, including priests, parents, and members of the order, with brief rubrics.

Ms. codex.

Title supplied by cataloger.

Collation: Parchment, 123; 1⁶ 2-14⁸ 15¹³ (+1); leaves 2-7 of the last gathering signed a2-a7; catchwords on last verso of gatherings 2-14, lower center; modern foliation in pencil, lower right recto.

Layout: Musical notation written on four 4-line staves in red ink with accompanying text; text (f. 111r-121v) written in 18 long lines; text ruled in drypoint with vertical bounding lines in faint ink or lead.

Script: Written in the Italian bookhand of Frater Johannes de plebe (f. 121v).

Decoration: Illustration in brown ink with details in red and blue ink of Guidonian hand with filigree cuff (f. 122r); ladder diagram of the gamut on a red 12-line staff and John 1.1-12 written in red ink and surrounded by a round penwork frame in blue ink (f. 122v); rubrics in red, initial letters touched in yellow with simple penwork tracery, 1- or 2-line initials alternating in red and blue throughout.

Binding: Early binding of brown leather over thin wooden boards, tooled with floral panels, leaves and symbols surrounding a Madonna and Child above a winged face, more easily seen on lower cover; remnants of a clasp; head and tail of spine now exposed (Sotheby's).

Origin: Written in Italy in the second half of the 15th century (Sotheby's).

UPenn Ms. Codex 1248

Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts University of Pennsylvania Ms. Codex 1248