Joseph with his Coat of Many Colours, and other initials on 4 leaves from a Lectionary in Latin [Austria (Salzburg), 12th century, second half]

Parchment, 4 partial leaves, c.330×220–240mm, apparently all from a single manuscript, blind-ruled for 27 lines (c.275×175mm), very finely written in a bold round Romanesque bookhand; very finely decorated with human, bird, and foliate designs, pen-drawn in brown ink, or in red against a background of green and blue; the margins and a minimal amount of text cropped; recovered from use in bindings thus with typical stains, creases, and wear. In a modern clamshell case lettered “From the Carl von Frey Collection”.

Provenance

All these fragments doubtless come from the Romanesque library of a church in Salzburg, broken-up and used as binders’ waste probably in the 16th century, and recovered in the 19th century probably after the secularisation of ecclesiastical properties. They were shown in 1893 to Willibald Hauthaler (1843–1922), medieval historian and, from 1901, Abbot of St Peter’s, Salzburg, who wrote the neat identifications in red ink at the lower edge of each leaf. They were sold at Christie’s, 23 November 2010, lot 2, where it is recorded that they were acquired in Salzburg by the businessman, art lover, and landscape painter Carl von Frey (1826–96).

Text and decoration

(i) Readings for the third Sunday in Lent, beginning with a very fine historiated initial ‘I’ in the form of a drawing of Joseph as a youth wearing nothing but a cloak (“Dominica III in XL. Ioseph cum sequentur in Genesi sidecem [sic] annorum pascebat gregem …”; Genesis 37:2–10); the text relates how, as a youth aged 17, his father gave him a ‘coat of many colours’; the recto blank except for cropped vestiges of a later 3-character shelfmark or number.

(ii) Readings for the 7th Sunday after Pentecost, beginning with a large fine initial A (“Dominica Septima. Adpropinquauerunt dies David …”, III Kings 2:1–17), preceded by III Kings 1:44–45

(iii) Readings for the 28th Sunday after Pentecost, beginning with a very fine large initial ‘F’ inhabited by a bird (“Omelia beati Iohannis episcopi de eadem lectione. Frequenter Iudei diversis …”; St John Chrysostom’s Homily LXXI on Matthew 22)

(iv) Readings for the feast of the Birth of Mary Magdalene (22 July), beginning with a large orange initial ‘A’ (“In nat. sanctę Marię Magdalenę. Ad Pharisei prandium dominus discumbebat …”; a homily of St Gregory (PL, LXXVI, 1243), preceded by the end of a homily of Bede.