Religious text, 14--?

Component identifier:

Item 106-107

Content Summary:

Origin: Italian

Content: Fragments from a dismembered volume of Psalms and Passion readings written out by the Neapolitan scribe Pietro Ursuleo of Capua and containing his signature.

Provenance: The parent manuscript was broken up in the early twentieth century, and was possibly from the library of John Boykett Jarman, sold in his Sotheby’s sale, 13 June 1864 (lot 161). References see Manion, Vines, de Hamel no. 89; and Reed Early Bibles no. 48.

Script: Italian Humanistic Book Script (?)

Colophon: Laus XPO (Christo) vivo iesu. (translation = Praise be to Christ the life of Jesus); Petrus Ursuleus scripsit (ie Petrus Ursuleus wrote this)

Extent: 2 leaves

Other details: Ursuleo’s hand confirmed by Dr Albinia de la Mare from the Bodleian Library. Ursuleo was a priest and Bishop of Satriano, near Naples, from 1474 to 1483. He was nominated on his deathbed to the archbishopric of San Severina, and was active as a scribe from at least 1448.

Immediate source of acquisition:

The documents in this collection were presented to the National Library of Australia by Sir Rex Nan Kivell in 1969. He referred to it as ‘The Nan Kivell Calligraphy Collection’. The documents were collected by him as specimens of early calligraphy and/or examples of early documentation. He acquired them over a number of years from varied sources which were not recorded. However, it seems likely that the group of legal documents in Series 1 relating to the Elliott family of Salisbury would have a single provenance. Nan Kivell had a country house in Devizes, Wiltshire, which is only a short distance from Salisbury.

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