YALE UNIVERSITY BEINECKE RARE BOOK AND
MANUSCRIPT LIBRARY GENERAL COLLECTION OF RARE BOOKS AND
MANUSCRIPTS MEDIEVAL AND RENAISSANCE MANUSCRIPTS
Beinecke MS 1166
France, 1461.
Jacobus, Mediolanensis, active 13th century, L'aiguillon d'amour divine.
Stimulus amoris. French
In Middle French.
201 l. : parchment ; 190 x 135 mm.
This material is open for research.
Manuscript, on parchment, in a single hand, of this French translation by Simon de
Courcy, chaplain of Marie, Duchess of Bourbon, of the popular devotional treatise
Stimulus Amoris.
Formerly owned by nuns of the Hôtel-Dieu in Rheims; Ambroise Firmin-Didot; Librairie
Paul Jammes. Ex libris Arthur and Charlotte Vershbow. Purchased from Richard A. Linenthal
(Christie's New York sale, 2013 April 9-10, lot 1) on the Edwin J. Beinecke Book Fund,
2013.
Layout: single columns of 22 lines.
Script: gothic bastarda.
Decoration: rubricated. Five half-page miniatures and one arch-topped miniature,
accompanied by full-page borders. The subjects of the miniatures are as follows: f.3
A lady kneeling before St. Jerome, seated, with the lion at his feet. f.10 The same
lady presented to the Annunciate Virgin by the Archangel Gabriel, whose scroll greeting
the Virgin curls up behind the lady's head as if she too uttered the words. f.19
Coronation of the Virgin with hovering angels on either side with scrolls oriented
for them to read 'Hec est regina virginum' and 'Ave maris stella'. f.30v Christ standing
in a lush landscape teaching the kneeling apostles and disciples the Lord's Prayer,
the words on his scroll coming from Matthew 6:9. f.48 The lady, with her patron St.
Jerome, kneeling and offering her soul, in the form of a naked child, up to God above,
illustrating the opening words of Psalm 24 (Vulgate) on her scroll; to the right a
young man kneeling with his patron saint, a deacon martyr, and the second verse of
the psalm continuing on his scroll. f.101 Crucifixion flanked by the lady with the
Virgin and the young man with St. John the Evangelist.
Binding: contemporary blind-stamped brown leather; central panel with lozenges with
fleur-de-lys bordered by tooled swans and winged fruit. Two later metal pins and leather
straps.
Jacobus Mediolanensis, L'aiguillon d'amour divine. General Collection, Beinecke Rare
Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University.
Subjects:
Jacobus, Mediolanensis, active 13th century.
Illumination of books and manuscripts, Medieval.
Manuscripts, Medieval -- Connecticut -- New Haven.
Devotional literature -- Early works to 1800.
Manuscripts, Medieval -- France -- 15th century.
Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts in Beinecke Library.