MARCHESINUS DE REGIO LEPIDI, MAMMOTRECTUS (abbreviated); illuminated manuscript on parchment, in Latin. by MARCHESINUS DE REGIO LEPIDI, MAMMOTRECTUS (abbreviated)

VERY EARLY MANUSCRIPT, SIGNED BY THE SCRIBE, OF AN IMPORTANT FRANCISCAN TEXT, POSSIBLY MADE DURING THE AUTHOR'S LIFETIME. Illuminated manuscript on parchment, in Latin, Northern or Central Italy, c. 1300-1330. Dimensions 124 x 96 mm. 188 folios, written in an early cursive Gothic bookhand in thirty-three to forty long lines, thirteen-line HISTORIATED INITIAL depicting the author in a Franciscan habit and holding a book. BINDING: Bound in limp vellum wrappers made from a fragment of a fourteenth-century Italian canon law manuscript, sewn on two bands, attached to the wrapper at the head and tail bands, upper cover slightly torn along the top edge, spine slightly split, housed in a modern box. TEXT: This is a very early copy, possibly made during the author's lifetime (and one of the few early manuscripts with an attribution to the author) of the Mammotrectus, an important Franciscan educational text. The present exemplar is an abbreviated version, copied in a very portable format by Franciscus of Appignano, a scribe whose work is known in two other manuscripts. Although this text survives in numerous manuscripts, this is one of only three copies sold in the last one hundred years (each listed in multiple sales in the Schoenberg Database). PROVENANCE: The script and the style of the decoration suggest that this was copied in Northern Italy c. 1300-1330. It was later in the Martin Schøyen Collection of Oslo and London (MS 117, bookplate, inside back cover); it was subsequently sold at Sotheby's, June 21, 1988, lot 74. CONDITION: Margins trimmed close with text occasionally cropped, very small hole (ink-burn?) with small loss on f. 4, and a few other small holes cut into the parchment including ff. 19 and 22v, original holes, once with sewn repairs on ff. 31v, 52, stain in gutter on ff. 30-32, parchment is crinkled (presumably from damp), but overall in good condition.Full description and images available. (TM 678)