Illuminated manuscript.- Leaf from Thomas Aquinas, Catena Aurea, a commentary on the Gospels, in Latin, decorated manuscript on vellum, single leaf, with double columns of 48 lines of Aquinas text in a small and angular gothic bookhand with noted lateral compression, these with the Biblical text set within their bodies in blocks of larger versions of same hand (in format of Glossed Bibles), capitals touched in red, red rubrics, red and blue running titles and versal initials, 2-line initials in red or blue with purple or red contrasting penwork, one large initial 'N' (opening "Nolite iudicare ut ...", Matthew 7:1) in blue, red and green with blank vellum sections left within its body to depict a crowned figure with a drollery tail and foliate ornament, the initial infilled with intersecting triangles of red or purple penwork, with four roundels enclosing drollery animals on red, blue and green grounds, the whole initial set within similar penwork and two similar roundels with another animal and a realistic flower-head, coloured foliate penwork extending throughout entire central gutter and bas-de-page with six similar roundels with animals or foliate sprays, probably recovered from reuse as an endleaf in a later book, and so some small spots and cockling, leaf once made wet in upper outer corner with stains and slight shrinking to borders there, overall fair condition, 358 x 244mm.
[Austria or Southern Germany], [14th century].

⁂ The entrancing penwork decoration here is of a type common to a large number of contemporary Germanic monastic manuscripts, with the closest parallels to those connected to the Austrian-German border (see for example, the leaf from an antiphoner sold by Bloomsbury Auctions, 2 July 2019, lot 57, and perhaps also the cutting with an initial offered in the same rooms, 3 December 2019, lot 38).