Chapelet de virginité

Accession number: 
MS B.1
Title: 
Chapelet de virginité
Created: 
Loire River Valley, France, ca. 1475.
Binding: 
19th-century purple morocco.
Credit: 
Bequest of Curt F. Bühler, 1985.
Description: 
39 leaves (1 column, 20 lines), bound : vellum, ill. ; 232 x 150 mm
Provenance: 
Unidentified earlier owner; his arms (gules, a lion passant guardant or, tongued and clawed argent) on fol. 39v; Joseph Barrios; Bertram, Fourth Earl of Ashburnham (ms. 288); his sale, London, Sotheby's June 10, 1901, lot 100; purchased by Curt F. Bühler in Feb. 1928 from Veuve Belin, Paris.
Notes: 

Ms. written and illuminated in the Loire River Valley, France, ca. 1475.
Decoration: 5 illuminated borders and initials depicting the flowers in the 'garland of virginity.'
This rare text is a variant of the Chapelet de Virginité attributed to Pèlerin de Vermandois (f. 1480) (also spelled as Vermendois), see (New York, Morgan Library, Gifts in Honor of the Fiftieth Anniversary, 1974, p. 15) and a variant text reference (Pèlerin de Vermandois, Le Chapelet de Virginité, 1862).
The Chapelet is discourse on the virtues of spiritual love which uses five flowers from the 'garland of virginity' (lily, viola, rose, marigold and lily-of-the-valley) to symbolize the five virtues of Virginity (Virginity, Humility, Charity/Love, Patience and Faith).

Script: 
bastarda.
Language: 
French
Century: 
Classification: