Auckland / Tāmaki Makaurau, University of Auckland, Waipapa Taumata Rau, Special Collections Glass Case Rack 888.8 GvYa, Spine cover. The Image shows the lower board of a late-sixteenth-century binding, in dark red calf. It may have been chained, as there is a tear in the middle outside of the binding, revealing a leaf from an incunable. Closer inspection shows that it is f. i8 from the Venice 1489 printing of Justinian's Novellae. The attention is drawn immediately, however, to the top half of the photograph, which shows the lower part of an entire bifolium wrapping around the spine. Tehre are two columns to a leaf and the bottom of the recto side has a green initial H with red pen-flourishes. The associated rubrics just above the initial are: I(n) I(=primo) N(octurn)o A(ntiphon) (and then in black: Beatus vir etcetera). Introducing the initial H is the rubric S' beati fulgentii episcopi. The script is Protogothic, and the absence of crossed Tyronian ets point to an earlier script, or more southern France, while the lack of an e-caudata (for example, in the Que on the second-to-last line of the verso, second column) point to later in the twelfth century. Hence why I'm thinking Central France, possibly some place like Chartres or Orléans.
#FragmentOfTheDay: Welcome to the University of Auckland / Waipapa Taumata Rau with this lovely liturgical fragment draped around Petrarch's spine, with a Bonus Novellae incunable. Breviary or Office Lectionary? Pair with a Ventoux or a Sancerre? fragmentarium.ms/overview/F-l...
