Beschreibung:

FESTAL ANTIPHONAL, for the use of St. Germain-des-Près, Paris, in Latin, ILLUMINATED MANUSCRIPT ON VELLUM with printed OFFICE OF ST. BENEDICT on paper. Paris, 1729 552 x 365mm. 2 paper + i + 89 leaves, paginated after the title-page + iii + i + 14 paper, COMPLETE, 17 lines of text or seven four-line staves ruled in red with music of a square notation or varying combinations of text and music, written in black ink in a rounded formal hand between lines ruled in grey, outer ruling in red, justification: 439 x 365mm, rubrics in red, headings in red, blue and burnished gold, the name of 'Jesus' in burnished gold, initials in burnished gold or red, ONE HUNDRED AND SIXTY-THREE LARGE BURNISHED GOLD INITIALS: 30 on painted grounds with frames of burnished gold, 25 against sprays of naturalistic flowers, fruit or plants, five against sprays of flowers within frames of burnished gold, 12 against landscapes, 91 against landscapes in frames of burnished gold; four large and five very large initials with painted staves on grounds of patterned burnished gold, FIVE LARGE HISTORIATED INITIALS AND TWELVE VERY LARGE HISTORIATED INITIALS, all with staves of burnished gold within frames of burnished gold, THIRTY-THREE MINIATURES as head- and tail-pieces, ILLUMINATED ARCHITECTURAL TITLE-PAGE in burnished and liquid gold, entwined with wreaths of delicately painted flowers (some small pigment losses, some leaves slightly marked, miniature p.137 cropped at top). Printed Office of St. Benedict of 11 leaves, 460 x 282mm, printed pagination pp.1-21, the page after p.19 unnumbered, pasted to paper mounts 552 x 365mm, with woodcut headpiece and decorated opening initial, rubrics and initials in red, preceded by a miniature on parchment with title in display script incorporating flowers, bound sideways. Contemporary French red morocco gilt-tooled in the style of Padeloup with patterns of leaves and flowers, basket and shell motifs among the corner ornaments, spine with bouquets of flowers in compartments, green silk endleaves (slight scuffing to extremities); red cloth box with leather lettering-piece. A SUMPTUOUS ROCOCO ANTIPHONAL ILLUMINATED BY JEAN PIERRE ROUSSELET FOR THE ROYAL ABBEY OF ST. GERMAIN-DES-PRèS PROVENANCE: 1. The Royal Benedictine Abbey of St. Germain-des-Près in Paris: written by Dom Charles Mercier monk and priest of St. Germain in 1729 for the use of the Abbey, as stated on the title page, which bears the Abbey's arms; very specific commemorations of the founder and principal benefactor of the Abbey are included. St. Germain-des-Près, the centre of the reformed Benedictine Congregation of St. Maur, fostered outstanding scholarship and intellectual activity supported by a famed library which became a national repository for manuscripts. The antiquarian interests which might have encouraged the making of this great antiphonal are exemplified by Dom Bernard de Montfaucon and his Les Monuments de la monarchie française which began to appear in that same year, 1729. A later hand has recorded on an added paper leaf that the library was destroyed by fire in 1794 but that disaster befell the printed books only; most of the manuscripts eventually passed to what is now the Bibliothèque nationale de France. A significant number had been stolen in or before 1791, most being bought by the Russian collector, Dubrowsky, and so passing to St. Petersburg; the Antiphonal could well have attracted the thieves, who concentrated on the most splendid volumes. Alternatively, as a choirbook, it may have been kept separately from the library and so somehow preserved from the turmoil of the Revolution. 2. Purchased Dawson's Bookshop, Los Angeles, 1 November, 1943 -- donated to SMS 20 June 1946. CONTENT: Antiphonal for the use of St. Germain-des-Près for the highest ranking feasts, title-page and pp.1-175, including: St. Maur, patron of the reformed Benedictines pp.61-73, St. Vincent, to whom the Abbey had been originally dedicated pp.74-85, St. Benedict