ALMAGEST MASTER
Single leaf from a Bible, with a historiated initial of the winged lion of Saint Mark, illuminated manuscript on parchment [France, Paris, c. 1220s]

An important leaf from an early Paris Bible illuminated by the Almagest Master, one of the first identifiable professional illuminators active in Paris during the formative decades of the thirteenth-century manuscript production.

c. 260 × 170 mm, single parchment leaf, lower outer corners paginated in pencil “550–551,” pricked in the inner margin, ruled in plummet, written below top line in two columns of 57 lines in a fine Gothic bookhand, chapter numbers and running titles in alternating red and blue, ONE HISTORIATED INITIAL with the winged lion of Saint Mark painted in blue and rose with white filigree ornament on a burnished gold ground, the initial extending into the margin with a blue foliate descender. Evidence of excision in the gutter margin from the removal of neighboring leaves, light staining extending through both columns of text, minor cockling and marginal discoloration, else in good condition.

The illumination of the parent manuscript belongs to the Parisian artist known as the Almagest Master, one of the earliest identifiable illuminators active in the professional book trade that developed around the University of Paris in the first decades of the thirteenth century. The artist was first defined by François Avril (1976), who named him the Master of the Sorbonne Ptolemy after his work in a manuscript of Ptolemy’s Almagest preserved in the library of the Sorbonne by the fourteenth century (now Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, MS lat. 16200). The manuscript’s colophon records that it was copied from the exemplar of Saint-Victor in Paris and completed in December 1213, providing an important chronological anchor for the artist’s career. Avril attributed several additional university manuscripts, Bibles, and glossed Bibles to the same hand, establishing the artist’s activity in Paris during the 1210s and 1220s. Independently, Robert Branner (1977) identified the Sorbonne manuscript as the artist’s defining achievement and introduced the name Almagest Master, the designation now most commonly used in Anglophone scholarship.

The present leaf belongs securely within this early phase of Parisian Bible illumination. A date before c. 1230 is supported by several archaic features, including prickings preserved in the inner margin, green edging around the illuminated initials, and the use of pre-modern chapter divisions, while a date after c. 1220 is suggested by the placement of the script below the top ruled line. The choice of an Evangelist symbol rather than a Tree of Jesse to introduce Matthew in a sister leaf further indicates a date before the standardization of Paris Bible iconography around the middle of the thirteenth century. The historiated initial on the present leaf introduces the prologue to the Gospel of Mark with a large initial ‘M’ containing the winged lion of Saint Mark, painted in blue and rose with delicate white ornament on a burnished gold ground.

The text is Matthew 26:70–end; prologue to Mark (“Marcus evangelista Dei et Petri in baptismate filius…”, Stegmüller no. 607); Mark 1:1–14, preserving the Passion, Resurrection, and Great Commission at the conclusion of Matthew and the opening of Mark’s Gospel with the preaching of John the Baptist, Baptism of Christ, and Temptation in the Wilderness.

Provenance
(1) The parent manuscript was already substantially imperfect and mutilated by the nineteenth century, when the remaining leaves were rebound. The volume was subsequently paginated, probably in the twentieth century, before further dispersal. A surviving carcass of 181 leaves, together with the nineteenth-century binding, appeared at Bloomsbury Auctions, London, 17 July 2014, lot 181.

(2) Perhaps owned in Germany, as the earliest currently known appearance of a leaf was in Heidelberg in the early 1980s.

(3) Bernard Quaritch Ltd, probably acquired in 1988 or shortly before. The remains of the volume seem to have been dispersed by Quaritch from the late 1980s onward.

(4) Robert McCarthy, London, MS BM 1039.

Sister leaves
Known sister leaves were reconstructed and published by Kidd (2021), including: General Prologue, with Saint Jerome writing (Bloomsbury Auctions, London, 17 July 2014, lot 181); Exodus, with Moses and the Israelites crossing the Red Sea (McCarthy Collection, BM 1136); Judges, with the Death of Joshua (McCarthy Collection, BM 2534); II Chronicles, with an Enthroned King (Arno Winterberg, Auktion 23, 15–16 October 1982, lot 1689); Ezra prologue, with decorated initial ‘U’ (not historiated), the initial to Ezra excised (Pirages, Catalogue 44, 1999, no. 564); Job, with Job on the Dungheap (Boulder, University of Colorado, MS 317); Prologue to Daniel, with decorated initial ‘D’ (not historiated) (Boulder, University of Colorado, MS 318); Prologue to the Minor Prophets, with decorated initial ‘N’ (not historiated), and Hosea, with Christ Appearing to Hosea (McCarthy Collection, BM 2533); Prologue to Zechariah, with decorated initial ‘A’ (not historiated) (McCarthy Collection, BM 1036); II Maccabees, with the Delivery of a Message (McCarthy Collection, BM 1900); Matthew, with the Evangelist Symbol of Saint Matthew (McCarthy Collection, BM 1044); John, with the Evangelist Symbol of Saint John; and a bifolium containing four historiated initials for II John with Figure with Scroll, III John with Figure with Scroll, Jude, with Figure with Scroll, and Revelation, with Angel and the Seven Churches (Bloomsbury Auctions, London, 8 July 2020, lot 116).

LITERATURE
Published: Peter Kidd, The McCarthy Collection, Vol. 3, French Miniatures, London, 2021, pp. 62–66, no. 16. Related literature: Harry Bober, The Mortimer Brandt Collection of Medieval Manuscript Illuminations, Memphis, 1966, no. 3; François Avril, “À quand remontent les premiers ateliers d’enlumineurs laïcs à Paris?,” Les Dossiers de l’Archéologie 16 (1976), pp. 36–44; Robert Branner, Manuscript Painting in Paris During the Reign of Saint Louis: A Study of Styles, Berkeley, 1977; Julia Boffey and A. S. G. Edwards, Medieval Manuscripts in the Norlin Library & the Department of Fine Arts at the University of Colorado at Boulder: A Summary Catalogue, Fairview (NC), 2002, pp. 26–27.

We are grateful to Peter Kidd for permission to quote from his catalogue for this entry, and we thank Senior Consultant Sandra Hindman and Peter Bovenmyer for their assistance in preparing this sale.

The Robert McCarthy Collection.

This lot is located in Chicago.

ALMAGEST MASTER Single leaf from a Bible, with a historiated initial of the winged lion of Saint Mark, illuminated manuscript on parchment [France, Paris, c. 1220s]

ALMAGEST MASTER
Single leaf from a Bible, with a historiated initial of the winged lion of Saint Mark, illuminated manuscript on parchment [France, Paris, c. 1220s]