SOLILOQUIA, IN ITALIAN TRANSLATION, DECORATED MANUSCRIPT ON VELLUM ITALY (PERHAPS TUSCANY), 15TH CENTURY.

Soliloquia, in Italian translation, traditionally ascribed to St. Augustine but perhaps instead by Fra Agostino da Scarperia, decorated manuscript on vellum Italy (perhaps Tuscany), fifteenth century.

198 by 140mm., 61 leaves (plus an original endleaf at front and back, these recovered from another manuscript scrubbed clean of script; pastedowns from same), complete for this text, collation: i-v10, vi11 (last leaf a singleton to complete text), written in single column of 19 lines of a good semi-humanist hand, capitals touched in yellow, bright red rubrics, simple red or blue initials, one large variegated blue initial opening the text enclosed in red penwork,
line-prickings at outer vertical edges of leaves showing volume untrimmed, half-page of text at end once opening with a rubric (this now thoroughly erased, and this perhaps opening a second and now lost text), stains to edges and slight cockling throughout, overall good condition; bound in nineteenth-century blue marbled paper over pasteboards with leather spine (gilt-tooled with “Soliloqui di S. Agostino Volgariz / M.S membran.”), scuffs and tears
in places.

Provenance:
1. Marcantonio Borghese (1814-86), Prince of Sulmona and Rossano, and perhaps in his family’s library for some generations before his ownership (with some part of the library going back to that of Pope Paul V [formerly Camillo Borghese]): with his armorial bookplate on front pastedown with inscription “Ex libris M.A. Principis Burghesi”. His ancestral library was sold by V. Menozzi in Rome in two auctions in 1892 and 1893 (see Bibliotheca burghesiana. Catalogue de la Bibliotheque de S. E. Don Paolo Borghese, prince de Sulmona, Rome, 1892-1893, where the present volume is vol. I, lot 4561).
2. From the collection of Adolf Lagerfelt (1897-1967), vice-consul to the Middle East; from his library at Säbylund, no. ‘441’.

Text:
Augustine did indeed compose a text named the Soliloquies, in the form of an inner dialogue revealing his state of mind between his conversion and baptism. However, by the later centuries of the Middle Ages that work had almost been forgotten, and various replacements were composed to fill the gap it left. These were translated three times into Italian in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries from different Latin versions, with the present text the most popular tradition. It was certainly composed in an Augustinian milieu, and has been ascribed
to Fra Agostino da Scarperia (c. 1320-end of fourteenth century), a hermit friar and one of the first theologians of the University of Florence, where it seems to have enjoyed popularity in that city and its vicinity. It survives in over 50 manuscripts, and was published in 1480, with a handful of further printings before 1500.
The text here opens with a prologue (beginning “Ynpercio che frarutti e devoti ...”, fol. 1r) and a chapter list (fol. 1v), before the main text (beginning “Damiti a cognoscere signore che mi ..., fol. 2v). It ends on fol. 61v: “Questa e la porta di Dio e solo giusti entrono per essa.”
Our thanks to Dr. Timothy Bolton for assistance in cataloguing this item.

See text.