Central Italian neumes
Two leaves from an Antiphonal, in Latin, manuscript on vellum [Italy, Tuscany, early 12th century]
Two fine leaves from a Tuscan Antiphonal.

c.368 x 240mm, 2 leaves, 7 lines written in brown ink in a small, regular Carolingian minuscule, 17 lines with staffless diastematic (heightened) Central Italian neumes, rubrics and initials in red (edges frayed, marginal staining, recovered from use as pastedowns and consequently versos of each leaf scrubbed, a few wormholes, second leaf repaired down the middle with silk). Bound in grey buckram at the Quaritch bindery.

Provenance:
(1) Robert Babcock, New Haven.

(2) Bernard Quaritch, acquired in 1993 by:

(3) Schøyen Collection, MS 1767.

Text:
The text of the first leaf opens the Feasts for the Dedication of a Church: 'Fundata est domus domini'; the second leaf contains the texts for the 2nd and 3rd Sundays after Easter, beginning: '[Et sustulit] me in spiritu in montem magnum et altum'.

Script and music:
The script is a small, legible and clear Carolingian minuscule. The 1993 Quaritch description compared it to manuscripts from Pistoia and Lucca. The neumes, which are here arranged with C-, F- and A-clefs, have previously been described as Beneventan. There is some academic disagreement on the matter, but whereas older scholarship tended to group together this type of notation, which was certainly more widely used than the script hand, as Beneventan, more accurate current scholarship distinguishes between notation appearing on manuscripts written in southern Italy in Beneventan script, and similar notation used elsewhere.

Christie's would like to thank Dr Giulio Minniti for bringing to our attention the latest scholarship on Beneventan notation.