Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 638: Cutting from a Missal

purl.stanford.edu/rk497rj5204

Title:

Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 638: Cutting from a Missal

Language:

Latin

Extent:

f. 1

Dimensions:

228 Height (mm) and 152 Width (mm)

Approximate Date:

[ca. 1450 - 1475]

Provenance:

Germany, Von Magenbuch family, Swabia, fifteenth century; private collection in Austria; Sotheby's, London, 20 June 1995, lot 20; purchased by Quaritch, no 82 in their catalogue 1270 (2000), Dr Robert Lefever; presented by him to the College on 7 September 2007.

Table of contents:

Beginning of the Canon of the Mass

Description:

This cutting from a German Missal, CCCC MS 638, was given to Corpus Christi College by Dr Robert Lefever in 2007. It is the Te igitur initial, the opening of the Canon of the Mass, and comes from a Missal made in the third quarter of the fifteenth century, probably in Swabia. The iconography is of female personifications of Ecclesia and Synagoga, with the brazen serpent, a typological symbol of the Crucifixion, wound around the initial T. The pelican piercing her breast, another type of the Crucifixion and special emblem of Corpus Christi College, is in the upper decorative border. The arms on this page are of the von Magenbuch family, and other cuttings from the same Missal with the same arms are in collections in Philadelphia and Tokyo.