Exempla, in Latin, illuminated manuscript on vellum [Italy, 14th century].

A Franciscan compendium
Exempla, in Latin, illuminated manuscript on vellum [Italy, 14th century].
An engaging pocket-sized compilation of homiletical legends, anecdotes, maxims, hymns and fables, likely for the use of a Franciscan.

c.135 x 102mm. i+ 80+ i leaves: largely in gatherings of 8 but misbound, modern foliation in pencil, 22 lines of text, written space: 83 x 63mm, illuminated initials and paraphs in burnished gold with red or blue penwork extensions throughout, rubrics in red, four full-page 19th?-century miniatures (misbound, e.g. the opening of f.9 is found on f.24v; the text ending on f.10v continues on f.18; the hymn on f.59v continues on f.62; the miniatures perhaps 19th century but painted on original leaves on ff.13, 27, 42, 69, some marginal staining and cockling). 19th-century red velvet (a little worn).

Provenance:
(1) Giov. Batta: 18th?-century inscription on f.49v.
(2) Colker MS 6; acquired from Hoepli in 1947; Faye & Bond, Supplement to de Ricci’s Census (New York, 1962, p. 516).

Content:
Exempla, opening with Part III, ch.1 of Bonaventure, Stimulus divini amoris: ‘Si ad co[n]te[m]plat[i]o[n]is q[ui]ete[m] volue[r]is p[er]venire te i[n] tri[bus] studeas’ and including Guillaume Perault?: ‘De murmure claustralium’ (f.4); Odo of Cheriton?, ‘De stulticia ho[m]i[n]is’ (following the Aesopian fable De Philomela et Sagittario), opening ‘Quida[m] Sagittari[us] auic[u]lam p[ar]ua[m]’ (f.11); two texts on chastity, the second drawing on Pseudo-Johannes Gobius, Scala celi, opening ‘Romanor[um] testimo[n]io didicim[us] et i[n] co[m]m[en]tariis pontificalib[us] scriptu[m] inve[n]im[us]’ (f.12); ‘De religiosis’ (f.19); Pseudo-Hugh of St Victor, verses on the Life of Christ, (Migne, PL 149, 591-602), opening ‘Desere ia[m] a[n]i[m]a lectulu[m] (f.24v, misbound, with the text continuing on ff.9-9v and then ff.73-73v); ‘De occiositate’ (f.35v); ‘De avaritia’ (f.37v); ‘De falsitate demonis’ (f.39); ‘De fide Christi’ (f.39v); ‘De murmure’, the opening following Guillaume Perault, De vitiis, IX.II.2, ‘Est a[ute]m murm[ur] oblocut[i]o i[n]debito m[odo] f[a]c[t]a [...]’ (f.44v); ‘De vicio superbie’ (f.50); ‘De accidia claustralium’ (f.58); ‘Dulcis Iesu memoria’, a hymn to the memory of Jesus (Migne, Patrologia Latina, 184), opening ‘Dulcis J[esu] memo[r]ia da[n]s v[er]a co[r]dis gau[di]a’ (ff.59-59v and ending on ff.62-62v); ‘De inobediencia eorum qui solemnitates non observant’ (f.65); ‘De stigmatibus beati Francisci’ (f.71); ‘De beato Francisco’, opening ‘Fuit vir q[uon]dam nob[i]lis’ (f.79v).

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