AA. VV. - Illuminated Manuscript on Parchment - 1640

Enormous choral manuscript, front and back, with gold initials on parchment.
A large parchment leaf, originating from a liturgical choral manuscript on parchment, written on both sides and adorned with a refined decorative apparatus. The leaf features eight initials decorated in gold leaf and color, some enriched with gold leaf dotting, harmoniously integrated into the monumental script intended for collective reading. Taken together, they offer a mature example of northern Italian liturgical production in the early seventeenth century, at a moment when the manuscript tradition continued to coexist with the culture of print, preserving the symbolic and ritual value of the ornamentation.
Market value
Large-format single choral sheets, with gilded initials and polychrome decoration, dating to the seventeenth century and of Italian origin, are steadily sought after by the antique market and collectors. Their value is supported by the presence of gold leaf, the legibility of the text, the monumental format, and the quality of the ornamental apparatus.

Physical description and condition
A sheet on parchment, written on both sides, measuring about 72.3 × 48.7 cm. Liturgical text in Latin in a large Gothic script, with the tetragrams in red, inside a yellow border outlined in red. There are 8 initials decorated in gold leaf and color. Some abrasions, waviness, stains and thinning of the parchment. In ancient manuscripts, with a centuries-long history, there may be some imperfections not always noted in the description. Pp. 1.

Full title and author
Leaf from a liturgical choral manuscript containing psalm texts.
Northern Italy, ca. 1640.
Dear all

Context and Significance
It contains verses of the Psalms in the Vulgate version. The large-format writing, the musical notation on red tetragrams, and the apparatus of initials in gold and colors indicate a choral destination, for reading and collective singing (monastic or capitular domain). The sheet bears witness to the persistence of the liturgical manuscript as an object that is both functional and representative in seventeenth-century Italy: the visual magnificence, rendered by gold leaf and color, remains an integral part of the devotional experience and the baroque theatricality of the rite, even in the height of print culture.

Printing history and circulation
Manuscript on parchment, Northern Italy, ca. 1640. Handmade production intended for a large-format antiphonary or gradual; the sheet is most likely the product of the dismemberment of a choral liturgical codex.

BIBLIOGRAPHY AND REFERENCES
Vulgate, Psalms (in particular the Psalms used in the liturgy of praise). Comparisons with antiphoners and gradual manuscripts from northern Italy of the seventeenth century preserved in ecclesiastical and capitular libraries.