New Testament: MS McClean 24

Titles

New Testament

Maker(s)

Scribe: Arnoldinus

Entities

• Other

Categories

• Illuminated manuscript
• Manuscript

Description

PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: Parchment, i modern parchment flyleaf + 308 fols., 153 x 88 mm (fols. 1r-294v 114 x 55 mm, fols. 294v-303r 115 x 70 mm), one column (except fol. 66r-66v, two columns), 33 lines, written above top line, ruled in plummet, catchwords, running headers

BINDING: twentieth century, dark brown leather over wooden boards.

CONTENTS:
fols. 1r-294v New Testament
fol. 294v Colophon and list of historical events related to the area around Lodi dating 1111-1200
fols. 295r-302v Epistles and Gospels for the year
fols. 302v-303r Paschal tables, Easter memorial verse and colophon with 1204 as the date of completion
fols. 303v-306r Calendar
fols. 306v-308r Rubricated list of passages to be used to counter Leonist heretics
fol. 308v Hymn to the Blessed Virgin, O regina gloriosa

DECORATION: Historiated initial on gold ground: fol. 208r Rom, [P, 24 ll.] Bust of St Paul blessing.

Three marginal drawings in red penwork: fol. 143 dog; fol. 167v beast; fol. 170v man's head.

ORNAMENTATION: Twenty-seven ornamental initials [9 - 31 ll.] in green, blue, orange, red, pink, beige and turquoise with white, set on gold grounds and surrounded by gold frames, often hollow-shafted with interlaced bands, stylised foliage and abstract designs, many inhabited by hybrids and beasts, incorporating grotesques, monsters and human heads, for books; the first words of each book in blue display capital letters [2 – 8 ll.] with red flourishing; alternate red and blue initials [2 – 3 ll.], and occasionally silver ones (e.g. fols. 134v, 136v), with stylised foliate extensions for chapters; header initials in calendar in green and blue; alternate red and blue one-line penwork initials in margins for historical events (fol. 294v); penwork vertical line with restrained foliate and geometric decoration in lower margin at start and end of books, rubricated running headers (fols. 1r – 294v); rubricated incipits, explicits and first scribal inscription (fol. 294v), second scribal inscription in red, blue and black ink (fol. 303r); historical events in red and brown ink.Testament. The scribe Arnoldinus recorded the completion of the manuscript in the colophon on fol. 294v, and it may have been him who also recorded the date of completion in 1204 on fol. 303r.

Notes

History note: Completed in Lodi in 1204, as revealed by the two colophons, the first one giving the name of the scribe Arnoldinus: Finito libro arnoldinus pede saltat in uno. Benedicamus domino deo gratias. Ad honorem dei et beatissime ecclesie Iohannes serrabula fecit curiose Istud opus fieri late studiose (fol. 294v), and followed by a list of events related to Lodi and dating between 1111 and 1200 written by the original scribe (fol. 294v), the second providing the date of completion in 1204: Anno domini cc millesimo ducenteximo quarto idus apriles incepit fieri hic liber et quarto anno trasiacto Iohannos positus fuit huic facto (fol. 303r); cutting from a nineteenth-century bookseller's catalogue with no. 96 and price £75 pasted inside upper cover; London, Sotheby's, 20-21 June 1860, lot 246; Bertram Fourth Earl of Ashburnham (1797-1878), his collection, Appendix no. VIII, (his bookplate inside upper cover); London, Sotheby's May 1899, lot 5; Frank McClean (1837-1904); his bequest, 1904.