Antiphonal : in Latin, illuminated manuscript

The first of five antiphonals commissioned by the Benedictine monastery of San Sisto in Piacenza in the last quarter of the 15th century, this one in the year 1475. The others are: Berkeley, Bancroft Library of the University of California, UCB 059; La Spezia, Museo Civico Amedeo Lia, 586; Private collection; Private collection (sold Sotheby's London 1 December 1998, lot 99); and fragments of a fifth antiphonal in a private collection and New York, Morgan Library and Museum, M.184 (see Bollati, p. 96). The present antiphonal is described in the 16th-century San Sisto library inventory as "Antiphonarium notatum ab Adventus dominica prima usque ad dominicam Palmarum [numero] 1" (Bollati, pp. 41-43). Nine graduals were also commissioned by San Sisto in the latter quarter of the 15th century. The full set of 14 choirbooks remained in continuous use at the monastery for 300 years.
Courtesy of Boston Public Library