16TH CENTURY STUNNING GIANT ITALIAN «ANTIPHONAL» ILLUMINATED AND MANUSCRIPT ON VELLUM

IN ITS ORIGINAL AND FASCINATING BINDING

ITALIAN ANTIPHONARY, MANUSCRIPT ON VELLUM. Antiphonal, according to the Roman rite. [incipit. Psalm 51: Asperges me Domino hysopo. Lavabis me, et super nivem dealbabor. Miserere mei, Deus, secundum magnam misericordiam tuam. [English translation from Latin: “Thou wilt sprinkle me, O Lord, with hyssop and I shall be cleansed. Thou wilt wash me, and I shall be washed whiter than snow. Pity me, O God, according to Thy great mercy.”]. [Italy, 16th century].

Elephant Folio (51x37 mm), contemporary full leather binding over original wood boards, blind tooled decorations to covers, with bronze bosses at the corners and on the short sides of both boards, five raised bands spine (repaired), ff. [1], 214 (numbered in red ink).
Text in Latin, Rotunda script. Rotunda is a specific medieval blackletter script: sometimes, it is not considered a blackletter script, but a script on its own. It was used mainly in Southern Europe.

Wonderful Italian Antiphonary with dozen of initials decorated in blue, and red, with a delicate pen-work in violet or sepia.

Asperges is a name given to the rite of sprinkling a congregation with holy water. The name comes from the first word in the 9th verse of Psalm 51 in the Latin translation, the Vulgate, which is sung during the Traditional form of the rite, except during Eastertide (Eastertide, or the Easter Season, Paschal Time or Paschal Tide is a festal season in the liturgical year of Christianity that begins on Easter Sunday). The 51st Psalm is also one of the antiphons that may be sung in the rite under the Mass of Paul VI.

The Antiphonary or Antiphonal is one of the most important liturgical books for the Catholic religion, It contains the antiphons to be recited or sung during the Mass, but also hymns, responsories, versicles, responses, psalms and prayers.

The plain-chant melodies of the Roman antiphonary and those contained in the graduals have received the general title of “Gregorian Chant” in honor of St. Gregory the Great (590-604), to whom a widespread, very ancient, and most trustworthy tradition ascribes the great work of revising and collecting into one uniform whole the various texts and chants of the liturgy. The ancient missal contained only those texts which were appointed for the celebrant, and did not include the texts which were to be chanted by the cantor and choir; and the Antiphonarium Missae supplied the omitted texts for the choir as well as the chants in which the texts were to be sung. St. Gregory’s work was a compilation of pre-existing material into a coherent and well-ordered whole; the immense importance of his antiphonary is found in the enduring stamp it impressed on the Roman liturgy.

GREGORIAN CHANT is the central tradition of Western plainchant, a form of monophonic liturgical music within Western Christianity that accompanied the celebration of Mass and other ritual services. It is named after Pope Gregory I, Bishop of Rome from 590 to 604, who is traditionally credited for having ordered the simplification and cataloging of music assigned to specific celebrations in the church calendar. The resulting body of music is the first to be notated in a system ancestral to modern musical notation. In general, the chants were learned by the viva voce method, that is, by following the given example orally, which took many years of experience in the Schola Cantorum. Gregorian chant originated in monastic life, in which celebrating the «Divine Office» eight times a day at the proper hours was upheld according to the Rule of Saint Benedict. Singing psalms made up a large part of the life in a monastic community, while a smaller group and soloists sang the chants. In its long history, Gregorian chant has been subjected to many gradual changes and some reforms.

Gregorian chant had a significant impact on the development of medieval and Renaissance music. Modern staff notation developed directly from Gregorian neumes. The square notation that had been devised for plainchant was borrowed and adapted for other kinds of music. Certain groupings of neumes were used to indicate repeating rhythms called rhythmic modes. Rounded noteheads increasingly replaced the older squares and lozenges in the 15th and 16th centuries, although chantbooks conservatively maintained the square notation. By the 16th century, the fifth line added to the musical staff had become standard. The bass clef and the flat, natural and sharp accidentals derived directly from Gregorian notation.

Gregorian melodies provided musical material and served as models for tropes and liturgical dramas. Vernacular hymns adapted original Gregorian melodies to translated texts. Secular tunes such as the popular Renaissance In nomine were based on Gregorian melodies. Beginning with the improvised harmonizations of Gregorian chant known as organum, Gregorian chants became a driving force in medieval and Renaissance polyphony. Often, a Gregorian chant (sometimes in modified form) would be used as a cantus firmus, so that the consecutive notes of the chant determined the harmonic progression. The Marian antiphons, especially Alma Redemptoris Mater, were frequently arranged by Renaissance composers. The use of chant as a cantus firmus was the predominant practice until the Baroque period, when the stronger harmonic progressions made possible by an independent bass line became standard.

The Catholic Church later allowed polyphonic arrangements to replace the Gregorian chant of the Ordinary of the Mass. This is why the Mass as a compositional form, as set by composers like Palestrina or Mozart, features a Kyrie but not an Introit. The Propers may also be replaced by choral settings on certain solemn occasions. Among the composers who most frequently wrote polyphonic settings of the Propers were William Byrd and Tomàs Luis de Victoria. These polyphonic arrangements usually incorporate elements of the original chant.

Minor traces due to the use, but fine.