Sermones super Cantica canticorum: MS McClean 119

Titles

Sermones super Cantica canticorum

Maker(s)

Author: Bernard of Clairvaux

Entities

• Other

Categories

• Illuminated manuscript
• Manuscript

Description

PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: Parchment, iii modern parchment flyleaves + 185 fols. (foliated i-ii and 1-183, fols. i-ii and 181-182 added in the thirteenth century, fol. 183 originally a flyleaf, some contemporary repairs) + iii modern parchment flyleaves, 273 x 172-179 mm (201-215 x 124-134 mm), two columns, 30-34 lines, ruled in plummet, crayon and hard point, written above top line (apart from fols. 180-182), alphabetical quire marks, running headers, catchwords, modern repairs to fols. i–ii and 1–2.

BINDING: twentieth century, quarter bound red goat and parchment over wooden boards, by W.H. Smith (signed WHS inside lower cover).

CONTENTS:
fols. i recto – ii verso Capitula for Sermons 1-64 (thirteenth- or fourteenth-century addition)
fols. 1r–2r Ambrose, Explanatio psalmorum xii (excerpt, unfinished, fol. 1r–1v erased)
fols. 2r – 179v Bernard of Clairvaux, Sermones super Cantica canticorum (Sermons 1-64)
fols. 179v and 183r Theological tract, Dum caro menti (thireenth-century addition)
fols. 180r–182v Bernard of Clairvaux, Sermo 65 (thirteenth-century addition)

ORNAMENTATION: Two zoomorphic initials [4 ll.] in light brown ink and red for Sermons 5 and 14 (fols. 10v, 41v); red initials [2-9 ll.] with yellow wash, blank partitions, and penwork in red and brown ink (probably added later), occasionally with foliate and geometric motifs or bird-heads (fols. 7r, 37r), for most of Sermons 1-23; red, orange, yellow, blue, pink and green initials [2-17 ll.] with geometric and foliate motifs, some set on square grounds, occasionally with penwork in red and brown ink (probably added later), for most of Sermons 24-64; red initial [2 ll.] with pen flourishing (thirteenth-century addition) for Sermon 65 (fol. 180r); red penwork one-line initials for Capitula; display script in red or blue ink, occasionally highlighted in yellow and red, for text following some initials, and the closing formulas of Sermons; sketch of initial (fol. 65v).

Notes

History note: Made at the Cistercian monastery of Santa Maria di Chiaravalle della Colomba in the diocese of Piacenza (ex libris in a near contemporary hand on fol. 179v: Liber sancte marie de columba); Francesco Giovio (1796-1873); U. Hoepli, Milan, catalogue 83 (1883), no. 15; probably bought from him in Milan by Frank McClean (1837-1904); his bequest, 1904.