IM-1465: Original manuscript leaf from an important mid-15th century Choir Book on animal vellum. Four lines of music, written in liturgical gothic script with interlinear musical notation in black on a red four-line stave. The flamboyant illuminated initial “M” is in pink, blue, green & gold with white & gold tracery within a border of burnished gold & infill of blue, pink, red, green & burnished gold. The elaborate panel border contains a floral motif in colors of red, pink, orange, blue, green, brushed gold & burnished gold. 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 19th & early 20th centuries). A series of richly decorated choirbooks was made for S. Giustina in Padua in the early to mid 15th century. There are now four in the Biblioteche Capitolare in Padua.
The highly elaborate illuminated “M” begins Psalm 33 (King James 34):20: “Multe…” (Many are the afflictions of the just; but out of them all will the Lord deliver them…). |