Antiques for Sale > Books, Manuscripts & Autographs

IM-1335: (580x410mm � 22 � x 15 ���) Original manuscript leaf from an important mid 15^th century Choirbook.  Four lines of music on a four-line stave, written in liturgical gothic script on animal parchment. Interlinear musical notation is in black on a red four-line stave. One 2.5� square illuminated initial �E� in a floral motif and in colors of red, pink, brushed gold, orange, and green with white tracery on a blue ground with white tracery � surrounded by a border of heavily burnished gold.

This beautiful four-line stave musical sheet is from a Gradual of the Benedictine Monastery of Santa Giustina of Padua, 1440-50.

This leaf was formerly in the collection of C.W. Dyson-Perrins (noted English collector of the late 19^th & early 20^th centuries).

A series of richly decorated choir books was made for S. Giustina in Padua in the early to mid 15^th century. There are now four in the Biblioteche Capitolare in Padua.

The large illuminated �E� begins Psalm 44 (King James 45): ��Eructiavit cor meum�� (My heart hath uttered a good word�).