Beschreibung:

Doctoral diploma issued by the University of Bologna, in Latin, illuminated manuscript on parchment [Italy (Bologna and probably Milan), dated 24 March 1461] Large single sheet document, with 24 long lines in a humanist hand (including 2 line subscription of notary at foot), capitals in split bar penwork with wheatstalks emerging and human faces picked out along their edges, one full length initial I (opening In Christi nomine …) in pink architectural columns encased within delicately painted red, green and blue acanthus leaves (these dotted in yellow paint along their veins), the whole column set on wide burnished gold grounds edged with bezants and coloured leaves, reverse with subscription in same humanist hand with large initial P enclosing a male and a female face, the gold flaked away in places and the paint also (the latter from originally having been painted over the surface of the gold), a few small holes and corners cut away (but without damage to text), folds, seal and seal tags wanting, overall good and legible condition, 390 by 592mm. This is an extremely early example of a Bolognese university diploma. The university in Bologna was founded in the eleventh century, and must have been granting such documents as lavish commemorations of their students achievements from the fifteenth century at least. However, those that survive are overwhelmingly of the sixteenth and seventeenth century and in book format in fine gilt bindings. Other examples in this early format can be found in the Archivio della Fabricceria di S. Petronio, Bologna (who held the records of the university; now 4 extant examples), Archivio di Stato, Bologna (2 examples) and were once in the Biblioteca comunale dellArchiginnasio (3 examples recorded of 1417, 1467 and 1472, these lost during the Second World War). Another, issued in 1472 for Kasper Back, praepositus at the Chapter of Spisz, was recently discovered in the Spisz chapter archive, and is now in the Slovakian State Archive in Levoči (S.A. Sroka, Dyplom doktorski Uniwersytetu Bolońskiego z 1472 r., Studia Źródłoznawcze, 50, 2012). Other small collections can be found for the universities of Padua, Perugia, Ferrara, Pavia and Siena. The present manuscript was issued for Grisantus Johannes de Ancinis for his studies in Canon Law, and notarised by Nicolaus quondam Tadei de Mamelinus. Grisantus was evidently a member of the influential Milanese Ancini family. The document is near-identical in hand, penwork decoration, name of notary and style of subscription on reverse to that now in the Slovakian State Archive, but the illuminated initial is not to be found on the latter, and was probably added in Milan on the students return to that city.