Two bifolia from Speculum Historiale (Flores Helinandi) in Latin, decorated manuscript on vellum [France, late 14th or early 15th century].

Vincent of Beauvais (d.1264)
Two bifolia from Speculum Historiale (Flores Helinandi) in Latin, decorated manuscript on vellum [France, late 14th or early 15th century].
Fine bifolia from the most popular medieval encyclopaedia, with a distinguished provenance.

Each leaf c. 370 × 260mm. The two central bifolia of a gathering, 2 columns of 46 lines in bâtarde script, the text comprising part of Book 30, chapters 134–144 (‘mei fratris interitum […] accepi quod difficile invenitur’), decorated with two-line initials alternately red with blue flourishing, or vice versa, with running headings ‘Flores Helinandi’ and ‘L(iber) XXX’ (minor cockling and dirt to the extremities, but generally fine, with clean wide margins).

Provenance:
(1) The parent volume was probably the third of three volumes; the repeated half fleurs-de-lys in blue and gold for borders is typical of (but not exclusive to) manuscripts made for Charles V, the Duc de Berry, and other members of the French royal family.
(2) Guillaume Libri (1803–1869), French ‘scientist, patriot, scholar, journalist and thief’; his sale at Sotheby’s, 1 June 1864, lot 71; bought by Boone for £12 10s.
(3) Sir Thomas Phillipps (1792–1872): his MS 24654; some chapter numbers added in pencil in the margins are apparently in his hand; Phillipps sale Sotheby’s, 6 June 1899, lot 367, apparently unsold; re-offered in the Phillipps sale at Sotheby’s, 24 June 1935, lot 74; bought by:
(4) H.R. Creswick (1902–1988), Bodley’s Librarian and Librarian of Cambridge University Library, who extracted a number of leaves.
(5) Maggs Bros., with their acquisition note dated August 1970.
(6) Colker MS 169; acquired in 1970 from Maggs.

The Speculum historiale (Mirror of History), is a history of the world to the 1240s, forming the third part of Vincent’s Speculum maius (Great Mirror), a vast encyclopedia that attempted to encompass all forms of knowledge: the first two parts concern scientific knowledge, in the Speculum naturale (Mirror of Nature), and human affairs, in the Speculum doctrinale (Mirror of Doctrine).

A substantial portion of 176 leaves from the same manuscript leaves is now University of Pennsylvania, LJS 16; other leaves are LJS 124, and Liverpool University Library, MS. F.4.14.

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