Beschreibung:

VERY LARGE HISTORIATED INITIAL "S", on a leaf from an ILLUMINATED MANUSCRIPT CHOIR BOOK ON VELLUM [Perugia, first quarter of the 14th century] Leaf 580x400mm, initial 184x196mm, in pink and orange and gold on blue ground with scrolling white tracery, and pink, blue and gold leafy extensions, all enclosed by a gold surround. Infilled by lush coloured acanthus leaves and in the lower half, within two burnished gold roundels, figures of two bearded naked men crouching. The surrounding foliage contains a boy's face looking out between the leaves. Verso of a leaf, text in black ink in a very large gothic rotunda, rubrics in red, 4 lines of music in square notation on red 4-line staves. Recto with 4 lines of music. Folio numbered 69 in an 18th-century hand. The initial introduces the Response to Mass at Vespers on the third Sunday after Easter ' Si oblitus fuero tui ' This leaf is probably from a lost fifth volume of a 14-volume set of antiphonals, illuminated for the church of San Domenico in Perugia. The other 13 volumes still remain in the Biblioteca Comunale Augusta in Perugia. Four other leaves from this volume are now in the Fondazione Cini in Venice, cf. P.Toesca, Monumenta e studi per la storia della miniatura italiana: La collezione di Ulrico Hoepli nos 72-75. Another leaf was offered in a sale at Sotheby's 22 June 1993, lot 51. Probably by the same artist who illuminated a large antiphonary in 6 volumes for the church of S.Lorenzo in Perugia. Cf. A.Caleca, Miniature in Umbria I.La Biblioteca Capitolare di Perugia (1969) Ms 15, pp.91 and 177. Illustration 483 shows an "S" closely related to the present