[Medieval manuscript leaves]

[Medieval manuscript leaves]

Title assigned by cataloger.

Parchment; f. 1; 9 lines of text and music; the text written in a formal gothic book hand in a space delineated with dry point (?) ruling at the top and at the bottom of the height of the minims; the music in square notation on 4-line red staves, with a custos at the end of each set of staves. On the verso, a historiated gray initial on a blue ground of the height of 2 lines of text with their staves of music, depicting Mary wrapped in her blue cloak, lying as if dead on her bed, with the apostles surrounding her, while in a cloudburst at the top of the initial, Christ, holding Mary as a small child, looks down upon her in her bed. On this verso, a color and gold bar, with gold balls, runs the length of the text; at the top it breaks in half and swirls off in both directions; at the height of the initial, it includes a grotesque with helmet, sword and shield; below the initial, it includes a grotesque with a human head on a bird?s body; in the lower margin, it includes a grotesque whose human upper part turns backward with ax overhead ready to fight his body?s tail which terminates in a dog?s head. A small squarish piece of parchment is now cut away, at what would have been the lowermost bit of decoration, with what were gold balls at its terminating points (the gold now completely worn away). Other decorated initials, the height of one line of text and ca. 3 lines of musical staves, in either red with blue penwork flourishing, or in blue with red flourishing; smaller initials in 1-line height following the same patterns of colors. In red: the rubrics and the superscript folio numbers for the parts of the mass cited (with red roman numerals from 205 through 231). Foliated in red roman numerals in the center upper margin of the verso: clxxxiiii (= 184); adjacent to his original folio number is a modern number in pencil, ?198.?

Written in France during the 15th century; the use of the word ?officium? to designate the introit suggests that the book from which this leaf was taken had been copied for a church of Carthusian, Dominican or Carmelite rite. Belonged to Louis Charles Elson (1848-1920) who was a professor of music theory and history at the New England Conservatory of Music from age 34 onwards; he had begun studying music with his mother, then went on to study in Leipzig; he composed songs, operetta and works for the piano, but mainly he studied and wrote on the history of music; he published in a number of Boston newspapers, and was the editor-in-chief of Modern Music and Musicians (1912; 20 vols.) and of the University Musical Encyclopedia (1912-14; 10 vols.), among the ca. 50 items that he published over the course of his life. The collection of medieval fragments of music that had belonged to Louis Charles Elson was acquired in 1924 by the Grosvenor Library in Buffalo NY; this library, together with the Erie County Library and the Buffalo Public Library merged in 1953 to form today?s Buffalo and Erie County Public Library. This leaf was n. 9 in the Elson collection. Present call number: RBR PRINT 235. Two leaves from the BECPL (one, a leaf taken from the psalter belonging to the Buffalo Public Library in 1936; and the second, the present leaf from a gradual from the Grosvenor Library MS 9, now RBR PRINT 235) were lent to Colgate University for an exhibition planned and run by Prof. Judith Oliver; the leaves were returned to the BECPL on 5 June 1987.

Both leaves in black ink with illuminated capitals ; 1st leaf is a page with musical notation and lyrics ; 2nd leaf is apparently from a breviary. Both leaves were part of an exhibition at the Picker Art Gallery, Colgate University, Hamilton, New York, in 1987.

Gradual with chants from the end of the feast of St. Lawrence (10 August), the rubrics for the feast of St. Hippolytus and companions (13 August), and the vigil and then the beginning of the feast of the Assumption of the Virgin (14 and then 15 August).

References: De Ricci. Census, p. 1210, no. 9

[14th to 15th century]

2024-06-18

Louis C. Elson Collection. no. 9

[publisher not identified]

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Text

image/jpg

2 leaves ; 46 x 31 cm (1st) and 14 x 9 cm (2nd)

Parchment

RBR Print 235

[France]