Beinecke MS 55                                                  Yugoslavia, s. XV-XVI
Documents (Sebenico)

          Documents and accounts (ca. 1400-1530) pertaining to the church of
     St. Gregory in Sebenico (Dalmatia). Folios 63v-64r contain a copy of a
     will, in Latin, of Gregory of Sebenico. Other items, including an
     inventory of the church of St. Gregory (dated 8 Sept. 1403) are in
     Italian.

          Paper (sturdy; watermarks: unidentified mountain) ff. 139, 410 x
     155 mm. Arranged in a tabular format and written in many different
     cursive hands. Some entries have been crossed out.
          Too fragile to be collated. Numerous folios are stained and partly
     illegible; final leaves mutilated; loss of text throughout.
          Binding: Date? Sewn with coarse thread on seven double, wound
     thongs. Tacketed to a brown goatskin wrapper with seven sets of four
     tawed, pinkish-brown thongs, wound around each other on the outside of
     the spine. Sewing holes about 10 mm. apart outline the edges of the
     spine, sides, fore-edge and envelope flaps. Mold has eaten into cover
     and book, and the wrapper has shrunk so that it is now much smaller
     than the bookblock. Home-made notarial binding? Covers are lined with
     fragments of a noted antiphonal (s. XII); part of one sheet containing
     responds and antiphons for Epiphany and its octave is legible. Ca. 17
     lines of text. Diastematic notation on a dry point staff with one red
     line. C and f are used as clefs, but from the condition of the sheet it
     is not possible to tell which clef should be associated with the red
     line. The neume style (of French aspect) is similar th that in Rome.
     Bibliotheca Apostolica Vaticana, MS Urbin. lat. 393, of unknown
     provenance, which H. M. Bannister groups with North and Central Italian
     manuscripts (Monumenti Vaticani di paleografia musicale latina
     [Leipzig, 1913] I, no. 477; II, pl. 92a). We thank K. D. Hartzell for
     his assistance with these fragments.

          Written in Yugoslavia during the 15th and 16th centuries
     presumably at the Church of Saint Gregory in Sebenico. Given to Yale in
     1935 by Gustave R. Sattig.

     Bibliography: De Ricci, v. 2, p. 2252, no. 55.

     Barbara A. Shailor