e-codices Newsletter

Issue n^o 42 - 24 March 2020

In this issue:

1. Magnificent Illuminated Manuscripts from the Paul Petau Collection
2. Somme le roi by Laurent d’Orléans – Genève, Bibliothèque de Genève, Ms. fr. 163

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1. Magnificent Illuminated Manuscripts from the Paul Petau Collection

The manuscript collection of Paul Petau (1568-1614) and of his son Alexander (1610-1672) was one of the most valuable of their time. In 1650 it contained more than 1,800 manuscripts. Later in the same year Alexander sold nearly 1,500 manuscripts to Queen Christina of Sweden, and most of those today are kept in the Vatican Library. Some 70 years later, in 1720, Paul and Alexander's heirs sold off another part of the collection, and the Geneva theologian Ami Lullin purchased 84 manuscripts, which now are numbered among the most outstanding treasures of the Bibliothèque de Genève.

Three more illuminated manuscripts have been published online: the Somme le roi by Laurent d’Orléans with eight miniatures (Ms. fr. 163), the Livre de bonnes meurs by Jacques Legrand, which was illuminated by the Master of the Froissart of Philippe de Commynes (Ms. fr. 164) and the Epistre d’Hector au roy by Jean d’Auton, who organized in 1511 a competition for fictitious letters to King Louis XII (1462-1515) and probably took part himself with this letter (Ms. fr. 179).

2. Somme le roi by Laurent d’Orléans – Genève, Bibliothèque de Genève, Ms. fr. 163

At the behest of King Philip III the Bold (r. 1270-1285), the Dominican Laurent d’Orléans wrote the Somme le roi, a manual of religious instructions offering teaching on the Decalogue, the seven deadly sins and their remedies. This text survived in more than 80 copies. The originality of the illuminated tradition of this text lies in the instructions for the illuminator. Because of their presence, the iconographic program is repeated from one manuscript to the other, as shown by the 8 miniatures preserved in the copy of the Bibliothèque de Genève, dating back to the 3rd quarter of the 15th century.