Description
These six cuttings come from the important scientific encyclopedia the Livre des propriétés des choses, which was written at the beginning of the thirteenth century by the Englishman Barthomaeus Anglicus (c. 1203-1272), a Franciscan. The present copy is in the French translation of 1372 by Jean Corbichon, which was composed for King Charles V and exists in forty copies. They illustrate six of the nineteen books of the encyclopedia and, as such, are remnants of approximately one-third of the complete pictorial cycle.
Shown here are the following subjects (all are cut to their frames and mounted on card):
1. (F) Two sick people with bandages and crutches in front of a doctor with an ointment pot (from Book 5: On the Human Body, 70 x 69 mm.)
2. (A) A hunchbacked old man addressed to three younger people (from Book 6. About the ages of people, 84 x 90 mm.)
3. (D) A scholar points to a symbolic representation of a city (from Book 11: On the Element of Air, 69 x 92 mm.).
4. (C) Four birds (eagle, swan, crane, and rooster) in four compartments in a square frame (from Book 12: About the Birds, 78 x 91 mm.).
5. (E) Landscape with places, forest, and river (from Book 15: On the Regions of the Earth, c. 75 x 89 mm.).
6. (B) Monastic Seminary with Lecture Teacher and Listening Monks and Nuns (from Book 17: On Herbs and Medicinal Plants, c. 80 x 49 mm.).
The illumination is by the hand of Perrin (Pierre) Remiet, documented in Paris from 1386 to 1428, as identified by François Avril (“Trois manuscrits napolitains des collections de Charles V et du duc de Berry,” Bibliothèque de l’École des chartes, 127, 1969, pp.291-328). For a convincing refutation of Michael Camille’s identification of this hand with Jean de Nizières, named as illuminator in the Orleans Propriété des choses, see R. and M. Rouse, Manuscripts and their Makers, Commercial Book Production in Medieval Paris 1200-1500, 2000, I, pp.293-6, and II, pp.79 and 115. De Nizières was perhaps responsible for most of the miniatures in the Orleans volume, where only the frontispiece and the first miniature are by Remiet.
The presentation copy made for Charles V in 1372 is lost, and the present miniatures datable c.1400 are early in the manuscript tradition and relate to those manuscripts thought to reflect the lost original. Other early copies include Charles of Orleans’s copy (Bibl. Ste Geneviève, MS 1028), probably bought by his father, Louis of Orleans, in 1396. All the great bibliophiles of the French court wanted the book: Philip the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, paid for one in January 1402 (Brussels, Koninklijke Bibliotheek MS 9094); John Duke of Berry was given a copy for New Year 1404 (Chantilly, Musée Condé, MS 339) and purchased another in 1416 (Reims, Bibl. mun. MS 993); Charles VI’s son and heir, Louis Duke of Guyenne, seized Jean de Montaigu's copy in 1409 (London, British Library, Add. MS 11612. The Arcana copy (sale London, Christie’s, 7 July 2010, lot 31, 1,105,250 GBP, remains in private hands). Based on archaizing costumes in some of the miniatures, it is thought to be closest to the lost original of Charles V.
Describing the text, Christine de Pizan notes that it has nineteen divisions, and the extant copies follow this organization. The Arcana and other copies are illustrated with nineteen miniatures (plus a frontispiece) reflecting the nineteen subjects covered in the text. The present group of miniatures thus preserve one-third of the images from a full manuscript. They are remarkably similar in style and composition to those in the ex-Arcana manuscript, also attributed to Perrin Remiet. We have not located the other miniatures from the parent manuscript; however, isolated cuttings from another dismantled manuscript (one in more compromised condition) of the text have appeared on the market in recent years (London, Christie’s 8 December 2016, lot 20; The Ages of Man, purchased Les Enluminures, $9,500, now Private Collection; and lot 21,The Sun and the Moon Explained, Water Explained).
The Latin text has been edited and the vernacular tradition studied by B. van den Abeele and H. Meyer, eds., Bartholomaeus Anglicus, De proprietatibus rerum, Texte latin et réception vernaculaire - Lateinischer Text und volkssprachige Rezeption, Brepols, 2005