Pontifical

Accession number: 
MS M.279
Title: 
Pontifical
Created: 
Ferrara, Italy, ca. 1485.
Binding: 
19th-century German dark blue morocco with T.O. Weigel's initials on upper cover; lettered on spine: Ordo Celebr. Missae.
Credit: 
Purchased by J. Pierpont Morgan (1837-1913) in 1907.
Description: 
40 leaves (1 column, 12 lines), bound : vellum, ill. ; 310 x 220 mm
Provenance: 
Executed, perhaps in Ferrara, for Cardinal Giovanni Giacopo Sclafenati (1450-1497; created cardinal in 1486); his partly erased arms on fol. 1 (per fesse argent a castle with two towers gules, and vert two bars argent, on a chief chapé chaussé azure an oak tree eradicated or, its brances interlaced in saltire); given in 1601 by Johann Martin Heister to the Gotthaus bei Stenfall; T.O. Weigel; his sale (Leipzig, July 12, 1898, no. 49, plate); purchased by J. Pierpont Morgan (1837-1913) from Olschki in 1907; J.P. Morgan (1867-1943).
Notes: 

Ms. pontifical for the use of Rome; written and illuminated in Ferrara, Italy, ca. 1485.
Abbreviated excerpts from parts II and III of the Roman pontifical.
Decoration: illuminated title page at fol. 1 with large historiated initial, border with playful putti, two standing angels holding cardinal's arms at bas-de-page, and large architectural niche with John the Baptist and the Archangel Michael; two other large and one small historiated initials; 7 marginal human figures accompanying decorated initials.

Script: 
Italian textura
Language: 
Latin
Century: 
Classification: