Search Results: Titles starting with C from Littera Scripta

Medieval calendar pages look rather complicated to the modern eye.
Typically they are laid our in four columns. In the far right appear the special feasts for each day of the month. These are mostly commemorations of the day the saints were martyred. Other feasts commemorate important events in the lives of Christ and the Virgin. Ordinary feast days are written in black and special feast days are written in red, (hence, the term "red-letter day," meaning a major event). It is common for calendars in French Books of Hours to be written in the vernacular, as occurs here.
This is a "Double-Graded" calendar, a calendar that distinguishes important feasts in red from ordinary feasts in black. (See further notes below.)
Recto: A two-line 'KL' for Kalends in raised & burnished gold on red and blue grounds with white-lead penwork infill and two one-line initials of identical treatment. Red letter days include feasts for the Apostles Philip and Jacob, the Holy Cross & John.
Verso: As Recto, with two further… Read More

"And so was I established in Sion, and in the holy city likewise I rested…"
Verso: 12 lines of text in Latin written on vellum in brown ink in a lettre bâtarde script. Ruled in purple, rubrics in red. One two-line illuminated initial 'E' in blue & white on a ground of red outlined in black and finished with gold penwork.
Recto: As Verso, text only.
Source: France.
Date: c.1490
Content: The text is from the Hours of the Virgin I, Matins. The initial 'E' begins the Second Lesson:
Et sic in Sion firmata sum, et in civitate sanctificata similiter requievi, et in Jerusalem potestas mea.
(And so was I established in Sion, and in the holy city likewise I rested, and my power was in Jerusalem.)
Condition: The leaf is in excellent condition, with clear text on clean vellum. The illuminated initial is in fine condition. It is unconditionally guaranteed genuine.
Notes: Books of Hours were prayer books designed for the laity who wished to emulate the cycle of daily devotions followed by the clergy but… Read More