Leaf from Lauda (song) book, from Italy. , Early fifteenth-century.

Description: Written on paper with no obvious water mark in Italian ottava rima. A single complete paper leaf, single columns written in a Textualis Formata script, in brown ink, ruled in plummet for 26 lines, 2-line initial in red at the beginning of each stanza; slightly faded and soiled, a few marginal losses (not affecting text), b ut entirely legible. A fragment of an unidentified Passion lauda comprising six stanzas in ottava rima. The lauda describes St. Peter’s denial, the trial of Christ before Caiaphas, the crowd’s verdict, the flagellation and the humiliation. The text, based on Matthew’s Gospel account, is presented as Christ’s own prophecy, narrated in the first person and in the future tense. The lauda is written in a literary vernacular which relies on a genre-specific, rather than a place-specific, vocabulary, but a few textual elements point to a mid-Italian origin (broadly Umbria, the March, or perhaps southern Tuscany); see ‘co[n]de[m]pnare’ (verso, line 2) and ‘collor’ (verso, line 8). Red capitals at the beginning of each stanza. Small, faint face illustration on first letter on final line on verso. Provenance: From the Rosenthal collection. Formerly 001.