MS. Canon. Liturg. 370

Summary Catalogue no.: 19454

Secular Choir Psalter with Antiphons; Italy, Padua (?), 1266, with additions

Fols. i–iv are paper fly-leaves, blank apart from modern notes, and a modern paper bifolium with notes on the manuscript in an 18th-century Italian hand (see ‘Provenance’).

[item 1 occupies quire I]

1. (fols. 1r–5v)

Calendar, laid out one month per page, written in red and black, approximately half full, not graded. Leaf with September–October is missing. Includes consecration of the Cathedral-Basilica of Santa Maria of Padua in red (‘Consecratio sancte Marie maioris ecclesie M. c . lxxx’, 24 April) and ‘M . c. lxxiiii Ciuitas pad’ combusta est’ (4 March) in red, in the original hand, referring to the fire of Padua in 1174. ‘Resurrectio domini’ is on 27 March. Contains many original and added obits of persons in Padua, including bishops, priests and deacons of Padua, obits of women (e.g. ‘domina antonia magistri mucii uxor’ and ‘domina maria uxor domini profiliaxii’, both in the original hand, 9 and 10 January), obits of lay people indicating their occupation (e.g. ‘dominus Gerardus de vital’ doctor legum’, added, 6 May), and obits indicating where the people were from (e.g. ‘dominus iacobus de brenta canonicus diaconus’, in the original hand, 13 March; ‘Magister Bartholomeus de Mantua’, added, 15 June). Obits added in the second half of the 14th century and early in the 15th century are probably in the hand which added notes on fol. 131v (Presbyter Johannes of St Peter’s, Carniola (?); see ‘Provenance’). These include the obit of Nicholas of Luxemburg, patriarch of Aquileia, dated 1358 (fol. 4r). The months are headed by verses on the ‘Egyptian’ days, which correspond to those published by Hennig (1955) as follows: January (set I), February (set III), March–April (set VI), May–December (set III). The months are also preceded by notes on the number of hours in days and nights, and on the length of the solar and lunar month.

[items 2–6 occupy quires II–XVIII]

2. (fols. 6r–89v)

Psalms in the biblical order, preceded by a rubric ‘Incipit psalterium dauid’, written with each verse beginning on a new line, with titles ‘psalmus dauid’ and numbers in Roman numerals in the original hand. Punctuated throughout with punctus elevatus used to mark metrum, punctus or punctus elevatus used to mark minor pauses, and punctus used to mark the ends of verses. Punctus flexus is also occasionally used at the ends of verses (e.g. fols. 32r, 59v). Psalms are accompanied by antiphons with short rubrics and music (square notation on staves of four lines; yellow top line, followed by black, red and black). The rubrics refer to the secular use. Further antiphons, versicles, responses, opening lines of chapters, hymns, etc. are added in the margins in an Italian hand of the second half of the 14th century, probably the hand which added notes on fol. 131v, writing in a formal script (see ‘Provenance’).

There are surviving textual divisions at psalms 38, 52, 68, 80. Subdivisions in psalms 9, 17, 67, 88 (‘Et ego’, verse 28), 103 (‘Saturabuntur’, verse 16) and 104 are marked with added (?) red crosses in the margins. Psalm 118, imperfect at the beginning, is subdivided into 8-verse units. The following text is missing owing to the loss of leaves:

– two eight-leaf quires missing after fol. 21 (missing text 21: 20–37);
– one eight-leaf quire missing after fol. 53 (missing text 73: 14–79: 12);
– one eight-leaf quire missing after fol. 61 (missing text 88: 38–99: 3);
– one eight-leaf quire missing after fol. 69 (missing text 105: 16–118: 87);
– one leaf missing after fol. 77 (missing text 128: 7–131: 2);
– two leaves missing after fol. 80 (missing text 135: 24–138: 12).

3. (fols. 89v–97v)

Weekly canticles, with titles, followed by antiphons with music:

(1) Confitebor tibi domine (Isaiah 12) (‘Canticum ysaie prophete’);
(2) Ego dixi (Isaiah 38: 10–21) (‘Canticum Ezechie regis’);
(3) Exultauit cor meum (1 Samuel 2: 1–11) (‘Canticum Anne prophetisse’);
(4) Cantemus domino (Exodus 15: 1–20) (‘Canticum moysi serui domini’);
(5) Domine audiui (Habakkuk 3) (‘Canticum abacuc prophete’);
(6) Audite celi (Deuteronomy 32: 1–44) (‘Canticum moysi’), with subdivision marked with a red cross in the margin at verse 22, ‘Ignis succensus ...’.

Latin names of the days of the weeks (‘Die lune’, ‘Die martis’, etc.) are added in a 14th-century hand in the margins at the beginning of each canticle.

4. (fols. 98r–101r)

Daily canticles with titles:

(1) Benedicite omnia opera (‘hymnus trium puerorum’) (fol. 98r); another rubric added in the margin in a 14th-century hand: ‘Canticum trium puerorum Die dominico’;
(2) Benedictus dominus deus (‘Canticum zacharie prophete’) (fol. 98v); ‘cottidie’ added in the margin in a 14th-century hand;
(3) Magnificat (‘Canticum beate Marie virginis’) (fol. 99r);
(4) Nunc dimittis (‘Canticum Symeonis prophete’) (fol. 99v);
(5) Te deum laudamus (‘hymnus quem sanctus Augustinus . et sanctus Ambrosius . condiderunt’) (fol. 100r);
(6) [Pater noster], missing because of the loss of two leaves after fol. 100; rubric ‘Oratio dominica’ at the end of fol. 100v;
(7) Athanasian Creed (Quicumque uult ... ) (fol. 101r), imperfect at the beginning, starting at ‘... in carnem sed assumptione’.

5. (fols. 101v–129v)

Hymnal with rubrics and music (square notation on staves of four red, yellow and black lines), comprising hymns for the year from Advent to Pentecost, followed by hymns for saints’ days and feasts, including John the Baptist, Peter and Paul, Mary Magdalene, Michael Archangel and the Holy Cross. The hymns of the Virgin’s Purification are in the temporale; the hymn for the consecration of a church is in the temporale, between Easter and Ascension (fol. 115r). Conditor alme (Chevalier, no. 3733), Uerbum supernum prodiens a patre (Chevalier, no. 29391), Uox clara ecce intonat (Chevalier, no. 22199), Ueni redemptor gentium (Chevalier, no. 21243), A solis ortus cardine (Chevalier, no. 26), Hostis herodes impie (Chevalier, no. 8073), Nuntium uobis fero de supernis (Chevalier, no. 12625), Quem terra pontus ethera (Chevalier, no. 16347), O gloriosa domina excelsa (Chevalier, no. 13042), Quuod chorus uatum (Chevalier, no. 16881), Aue maris stella (Chevalier, no. 1889), Ex more docti mistico (Chevalier, no. 5610), Clarum decus ieiunii (Chevalier, no. 3362), Audi benigne conditor (Chevalier, no. 1449), Te lucis ante terminum (Chevalier, no. 20138), Christe qui lux es et dies (Chevalier, no. 2934), Aures ad nostras deitatis (Chevalier, no. 2934), Iesu quadragenarie dicator (Chevalier, no. 9607), Pange lingua gloriosi prelium (Chevalier, no. 14481), Rex christe factor omnium (Chevalier, no. 17408), Lustris sex qui iam peractis (Chevalier, no. 10765), Uexilla regis (Chevalier, no. 21481), Ad cenam agni prouidi (Chevalier, no. 110), Uita sanctorum decus angelorum (Chevalier, no. 21977), Chorus noue hierusalem (Chevalier, no. 2824), Iesu nostra redemptio (Chevalier, no. 9582), Urbs beata hierusalem dicta pacis (Chevalier, no. 20918), Angularis fundamentum (Chevalier, no. 1082), Festum nunc celebre (Chevalier, no. 6264), Ueni creator spiritus (Chevalier, no. 21204), Ut queant laxis resonare (Chevalier, no. 21039), Felix per omnes festum (Chevalier, no. 6060), Aurea luce et decore (Chevalier, no. 1596), Maria mater domini maria soror (Chevalier, no. 11110), Peccatrix quedam femina (Chevalier, no. 1596), Gaude uisceribus mater (Chevalier, no. 7042), Salue crux sancta (Chevalier, no. 17875), Christe sanctorum decus (Chevalier, no. 3000), Christe redemptor omnium conserua tuos famulos (Chevalier, no. 2959), Ihesu saluator seculi redemptis (Chevalier, no. 9677), Exultet celum laudibus (Chevalier, no. 5832), Rex gloriose martyrum (Chevalier, no. 17453), Sanctorum meritis inclita gaudia (Chevalier, no. 18607), Deus tuorum militum (Chevalier, no. 4533), Iste confessor domini sacratus (Chevalier, no. 9136), Iesu corona uirginum (Chevalier, no. 9507), O lux beata trinitas (Chevalier, no. 13150), Lucis creator optime (Chevalier, no. 1068), Iam lucis orto sydere (Chevalier, no. 9272), Nunc sancte nobis spiritus (Chevalier, no. 12586), Rector potens uerax deus (Chevalier, no. 17061), Rerum deus tenax uigor (Chevalier, no. 17328).

Followed by a colophon (see ‘Provenance’).

Items 6–9 are contemporary or slightly later additions.

6. (fols. 130r–131v)

Hymns to Sts Catherine, Agatha and Corpus Christi, with music for the first strophe of each hymn, in two different hands: Katherine collaudemus uirtutum insignia (Chevalier, no. 2693), Martyris ecce dies agathe (Chevalier, no. 2693), Pange lingua gloriosi corporis (Chevalier, no. 14467).

[item 7 occupies quire XIX]

7. (fols. 132r–133v)

Hymns to Sts Justina and Prosdocimus and Corpus Christi, with music for the first strophe of each hymn, in two different hands: Phebus astris cum omnibus (Chevalier, no. 14899), Lux et decus ecclessie (Chevalier, no. 10821), Sacris solemniis (Chevalier, no. 17713).

[items 8–9 occupy quire XX]

8. (fols. 134r–141r)

Office of the Virgin (‘officium sancte marie’) with rubrics.

9. (fols. 141r–v)

Hymn to Corpus Christi, Uerbum supernum prodiens nec patris (Chevalier, no. 21398), with music for the opening lines (square notation on staves of four red lines).

Fols. 142–143 are blank paper fly-leaves.

Language(s): Latin

Physical Description

Secundo Folio: tatem tuam et possessionem tuam (psalter, fol. 7r)

Form: codex

Support: parchment; paper fly-leaves

Extent: 147 leaves

Dimensions (leaf): c. 325 × 226 mm.

Leaves were trimmed in rebinding, occasionally causing the loss of text and decoration.

Foliation: modern, in pencil; i–iv + 1–143; early modern in brown ink, faded, but often visible in the top right corners of pages, entered before the manuscript was mutilated.

Collation

(fols. i–iv) fols. i and iv are paper fly-leaves; fols. ii–iii are a paper bifolium pasted to fol. iv | (fols. 1–5) I (6−1) missing 5 | (fols. 6–21) II–III (8) two quires missing after fol. 21 | (fols. 22–53) IV–VII (8) one quire missing after fol. 53 | (fols. 54–61) VIII (8) one quire missing after fol. 61 | (fols. 62–69) IX (8) one quire missing after fol. 69 | (fols. 70–77) X (8) | (fols. 78–82) XI (8−3) missing 1, 5 and 6 | (fols. 83–98) XII–XIII (8) | (fols. 99–104) XIV (8−2) missing 3 and 4 | (fols. 105–128) XV–XVII (8) | (fol. 129–131) XVIII (4−1) 4 cancelled, no loss of text | (fols. 132–133) XIX (2) | (fols. 134–141) XX (8). Catchwords, partially cropped off, survive

Layout

Ruled in plummet with double vertical bounding lines extending the full height of page; 22 lines per page; written below the top line; written space: c. 235 × 140 mm.

Hand(s)

Formal Gothic book hand; black ink; antiphons, etc. are in a smaller script. Written by Giovanni da Gaibana in 1266.

Musical Notation:

Square notation on staves of four red lines.

Decoration

Illuminated in the workshop that produced the Padua, Biblioteca capitolare MS. Epistolarium a. 1259 (Epistolary of Giovanni da Gaibana); cf. the psalter, Cambridge, Fitzwilliam Museum MS. 36-1950 (Hänsel-Hacker, 1954; Pächt and Alexander, 1966–73).

Red and blue KL monograms, decorated with blue and red penwork, in the calendar. Monograms are not filled in on the first leaf (January–February).

Half-page Beatus-initial, decorated with coiled tendrils and foliage, on brown background in a blue frame, on fol. 6r. The opening words of the psalm are written in red and blue capitals, decorated with contrasting blue and red penwork.

9-line initial D, decorated with coiled tendrils and foliage, on blue background in red frame, at the beginning of psalm 38 (fol. 22r).

7-line initial S, formed by the body of a grotesque, decorated with foliage, on brown background in a blue frame, at the beginning of psalm 68 (fol. 46v).

6- to 7-line initials, decorated with foliage, on blue or brown background, in contrasting brown or blue frames, at the beginnings of psalms 52 (fol. 34r), 80 (fol. 54v) and the hymnal (fol. 101v).

2- to 3-line alternating red and blue initials, decorated with contrasting blue or red penwork, at the beginnings of psalms, canticles and hymns. Some initials are decorated with animal figures (fols. 14r, 106r), bird (fol. 51v) and human faces and figures (fols. 26r, 50v, 87r).

1-line alternating red and blue initials, decorated with contrasting blue or red penwork, at the beginnings of verses and periods.

4-line initial in a different style, on blue background, infilled with the Virgin and Child, at the beginning of the Office of the Virgin (fol. 134r).

Rubrics in red ink.

Binding

Light brown leather over pasteboard, Italian, 18th century. Border made of two rows of blind roll floral decoration, framed by double blind fillet lines, round the outer edge of both covers. Four raised bands on spine framed by gilt fillet lines. Brown leather label with a gilt arabesque border on spine, with gilt lettering: ‘PSALT. || ET HIMN. || AD USUM || ECCL. PATAV || COD. MEMB’. Pastedowns made of marbled paper; fly-leaves of 18th-century laid paper with a watermark ‘A Z’. ‘370’ written in black ink on the edge of the textblock.

History

Origin: 1266, with additions ; Italian, Padua (?)

Provenance and Acquisition

Written in 1266 in Padua (?) by Johannes de Gaibana: ‘Hec de gaibana cui uox est grata Johannes || Presbiter hec scripsit. Christi currentibus annis || Mille ducentenis. decies sex bis tribus adde’ (fol. 129v). Made for use in the Cathedral-Basilica of Santa Maria of Padua: evidence of the calendar.

At the church of St Peter, Carnia, in the 14th and early 15th centuries, according to two notes, dated 1357 and 1403, on fol. 131v. The first note says that Presbyter Johannes began to serve in the church in 1357, when Nicholas of Luxemburg (d. 1358) was patriarch of Aquileia and Gratianus, canon of Aquileia, praepositus. The second note says that Presbyter Johannes began to serve in the church in 1403, when Antonio Panciera (1350–1431) was patriarch of Aquileia, and Michaele Strasoldo, canon of Aquileia, praepositus. ‘Millesimo ccco lviio Indicione decima die prima Octumbris incepi ego presbiter Iohannes officiare ecclesiam sancti petri pro mansionaria Regnante patriarcha nostro dignissimo domino Nicolao . et praeposito nostro domino graciano canonico aquileg’ et vicario in temporalibus in Aquileg’’ ‘Anno domini Millesimo cccco iii in festo sancti georii [sic] incepi ego presbiter Johanes Plebanus in sauris officiare ecclesiam sancti petri pro mansionario Regnante patriarcha nostro dignissimo domino Anthonio de Partogralario et praeposito nostro Michahele de Strasold canonico aquileg’’ The hand which added the notes is probably responsible for many obits added to the calendar, and for antiphons and other additions to the psalter.

‘Johannes Puschnagel de dolces’ (?) or ‘doelch’ (?), 15th century (?), fol. 132r.

‘Fuit reverendissimi capituli Sancti Patri in Montibus Carneae in antiqua tabula qua erat prius colligatum’ in an 18th-century hand on fol. 141v.

A note in an Italian 18th-century hand (probably not by Canonici) about the manuscript on fol. iii.

Matteo Luigi Canonici of Venice (1727–c. 1806), but not from the libraries of Soranzo or Trevisan (Mitchell, 1969).

Bodleian Library: bought in 1817 from Canonici’s nephew Giovanni Perissinotti. Earlier shelfmark: ‘Miscell. Liturg. 370’ (fol. i recto).

Record Sources

Elizabeth Solopova, Latin Liturgical Psalters in the Bodleian Library: A Select Catalogue (Oxford, 2013), pp. 455–61. Previously described in the Summary Catalogue.

Summary Catalogue, vol. 4, p. 393

Digital Images

Digital Bodleian (6 images from 35mm slides)

Bibliography

Select bibliography to 2004:

Frere, no. 149.

Foligno, C., ‘Di alcuni codici liturgici di provenienza friulana’, Memorie storiche forogiuliesi 9 (1913), pp. 294–5.

Toesca, P., Storia dell’arte italiana 1, Il medioevo, 2 vols. (Torino: UTET, 1927), vol. 2, p. 1134 n. 14.

Hänsel-Hacker, I., ‘Die Miniaturmalerei einer paduaner Schule im Ducento’, Jahrbuch der Österreichischen Byzantinischen Gesellschaft 3 (1954), pp. 3–46, at p. 10 and passim.

S. J. P. van Dijk, Latin Liturgical Manuscripts in the Bodleian Library, Oxford, vol. 2: Office Books (typescript, 1957), p. 120

Pallucchini, R., La pittura veneziana del Trecento (Venice: Istituto per la collaborazione culturale, 1964), pp. 10–11.

Bellinati, C. and Bettini, S., L’epistolario miniato di Giovanni da Gaibana (Venice: N. Pozzi, 1968), passim.

Pächt and Alexander (1966–73), vol. 2, no. 79, pl. VII.

Ker (1969–2002), vol. 2, p. 591.

Garrison, E., Early Italian painting: selected studies, 2 vols. (London: Pindar Press, 1984), vol. 2, p. 347.

A. Watson, Catalogue of Dated and Datable Manuscripts in Oxford Libraries (1984), no. 280

Flotzinger, R., Choralhandschriften österreichischer Provenienz in der Bodleian Library, Oxford (Wien: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1991), pp. 72–3.

Valagussa, G., ‘Alcune novità per il miniatore di Giovanni da Gaibana’, Paragone (Arte) Anno 42, NS 29 (499) (1991), pp. 3–22, at pp. 14 n. 1, 20 n. 37.

Palmer, N. F., ‘Der Codex Sangallensis 857: zu den Fragen des Buchschmucks und der Datierung’ in J. Heinzle, L. P. Johnson and G. Vollmann-Profe (eds.), Probleme der Parzival- Philologie: Marburger Kolloquium 1990 (Berlin: E. Schmidt, 1992), pp. 15–31, at p. 31.

Martini, P. S., ‘Orientanmenti per la datazione e la localizzazione delle cosiddette Litterae textuales italiane ed iberiche nei secoli XII–XIV’, Scriptorium 54 (2000), pp. 20–34, at p. 30 n. 24.

Augustyn, W., ‘Zur Illustration von Psalterien und Psalmenkommentaren in Italien vom frühen 11. bis zum ausgehenden 13. Jahrhundert’ in Büttner (2004), pp. 165–80, at p. 172 n. 49.

Bollati (2004), p. 772.

Abbreviations

View list of abbreviations and editorial conventions.

Last Substantive Revision

2024-06: Encode full description from Solopova catalogue.

A catalogue of Western manuscripts at the Bodleian Libraries and selected Oxford colleges