I.—A Picture-book of the life of St. Anthony the Abbot, executed for the monastery of Saint-Antoine de Viennois in 1426

Rose Graham

doi:10.1017/S0261340900005324

I.—A Picture-book of the life of St. Anthony the Abbot, executed for the monastery of Saint-Antoine de Viennois in 1426

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 19 July 2011

Rose Graham

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On 14th April 1426 a large manuscript illustrating the life and miracles of St. Anthony the Abbot in two hundred pictures was completed for the abbey of Saint-Antoine de Viennois in Dauphiné, the head house of the Order of Hospitallers of St. Anthony. The Order was suppressed in 1775, when it was absorbed into the Order of Knights Hospitallers of St. John of Jerusalem, and in 1781 this manuscript was sent to the head house in Malta; it is now in the public library at Valletta and was brought to light in 1907 by the present learned librarian Mr. Hannibal P. Scicluna. I owe my knowledge of the existence of this manuscript to Mr. S. C. Cockerell who saw it at Valletta for the first time in 1926, and it was on his initiative that it was sent to the British Museum on loan, with permission to exhibit it at a meeting of this Society. We are greatly indebted to Mr. Cockerell, Sir John Shuckburgh of the Colonial Office, to the Governor-General of Malta, the Minister of Public Instruction, and above all to Dr. Scicluna on whose recommendation the loan was made for study and photography. The whole manuscript will be reproduced for the Roxburghe Club, and the privilege of editing it has been given to me.

Type: Research Article
Information: Archaeologia , Volume 83 , 1933 , pp. 1 - 26

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0261340900005324 [Opens in a new window]
Copyright: Copyright © The Society of Antiquaries of London 1933

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References

^{page 1 note 1} Dijon, H., L'Église Abbatiale de Saint-Antoine en Dauphiné, p. 220 (1902)Google Scholar.

^{page 1 note 2} Cockerell, S. C., ‘Two pictorial lives of St. Anthony the Great,’ Burlington Magazine, February 1933, pp. 59–66Google Scholar, pls. I-IV.

^{page 1 note 3} Graham, R., ‘The Order of Saint-Antoine de Viennois and its English Commandery, St. Anthony's, Threadneedle Street’, Archaeological Journal, vol. lxxxiv, pp. 341–406 (1927)CrossRef Google Scholar. I have repeated several sentences by permission of the Editor.

^{page 2 note 1} Migne, Patrologia Latina, vol. lxxiii, pp. 125–70; Lausiac History of Palladius, ed. E. C. Butler, vol. i, p. xlviii, map of Monastic Egypt, circa 400 ; vol. ii, pp. 199–201 (Texts and Studies, ed. J. Armitage Robinson, 1898).

^{page 2 note 2} Migne, Patrologia Latina, vol. Ixxxviii, p. 961; cf. St. Athanasius, Select Works and Letters, ed. A. Robertson, p. 220, note 6a.

^{page 2 note 3} Analecta Bollandiana, II. 341–54, from a fifteenth-century manuscript at Namur.

^{page 2 note 4} L. Maillet-Guy, Les Origines de Saint-Antoine, pp. 16–18.

^{page 2 note 5} Ibid., pp. 28–34.

^{page 2 note 6} Graham, R., ‘The Order of Saint-Antoine de Viennois and its English Commandery, St. Anthony's, Threadneedle Street’, Archaeological Journal, vol. lxxxiv (1927), p. 343Google Scholar, note 2.

^{page 3 note 1} Ibid., p. 343.

^{page 4 note 1} Archaeological Journal, vol. lxxxiv, p. 398.

^{page 4 note 2} L. Maillet-Guy, Les Grands Prieurs de Saint-Antoine, p. 13.

^{page 4 note 3} E. Mâle, L'Art religieux du XII^e siecle en France, pp. 228–30; the book of St. Denis has been reproduced, Légende de Saint-Denis, ed. H. Martin (Société de l'Histoire de Paris et de l'lle de France, 1908).

^{page 4 note 4} Reproduced in full, ed. W. R. L. Lowe, E. F. Jacob, and M. R. James (1924).

^{page 4 note 5} St. Cuthbert: i, University College, Oxford; ii, British Museum MS. Add.39943; St. Edward the Confessor: Cambridge University Library, Roxburghe Club.

^{page 5 note 1} MS. Laur., Med. Pal., 143.

^{page 5 note 2} Maillet-Guy, L., ‘Jean de Montchenu’, Bulletin de la Société d'archéologie de la Drôme, 1905, pp. 185–90Google Scholar.

^{page 5 note 3} Ibid., p. 190; cf. L. Maillet-Guy, Saint-Antoine et Montmajour au Concile de Bâle, 1434–8, pp. 20, 21, note 2 (2).

^{page 5 note 4} Bulletin de la Société d'archéologie de la Drôme, 1905, p. 190.

^{page 5 note 5} Touring Club Italiano, Piemonte, vol. i, pp. 122–5, and plate. I am indebted to Miss E. M. Jamison for this reference.

^{page 5 note 6} L. Maillet-Guy, Saint-Antoine et Montmajour, p. 21, note 2 (2).

^{page 6 note 1} L. Maillet-Guy, Saint-Antoine et Montmajour, pp. 13–19.

^{page 6 note 2} Ibid., pp. 22, 23.

^{page 6 note 3} M. Creighton, A History of the Papacy from the Great Schism to the Sack of Rome, vol. ii, pp. 167, 233, 234, 328 (ed. 1897).

^{page 6 note 4} Printed at Deventer, Holland, by Jacobus de Breda (1491 ?); U. Chevalier, Biobibliographie, p. 4637.

^{page 7 note 1} I am indebted to the Abbé Luc Maillet-Guy, formerly sub-librarian of the Académie de Lyon, for this information from the archives of Saint-Antoine, now at Lyons.

^{page 7 note 2} ‘Vita beati Antonii abbatis auctore sancto Athanasio, episcopo Alexandrino interprete Evagrio presbytero Antiocheno’, Migne, Patrologia Latina, vol. lxxiii, pp. 126–70. I have made use of the excellent translation and notes in St. Athanasius, Select Works and Letters, ed. A. Robertson (Library of Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, second series, vol. iv, pp. 188–221.

^{page 7 note 3} ‘S. Eusebii Hieronymi Vita S. Pauli primi Eremitae, Migne, Patrologia Latina, vol. xxiii, pp. 18–27; Lausiac History of Palladius, ed. E. C. Butler, vol. i, pp. 231, 232; P. Monceau, Saint Jérome, pp. 185–97 (1932). I have made use of the translation in St. Jerome, Letters and Select Works, ed. W. H. Fremantle (Library of Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, second series, vol. vi, pp. 299–303).

^{page 7 note 4} Migne, Patrologia Latina, vol. lxxiii.

^{page 8 note 1} Poncelet, A., Catalogus Codicum Hagiographicorum Latinorum Bibl. Vaticanae, p. 34 (1910)Google Scholar.

^{page 8 note 2} Codex 3898 ff. 5I-7^v, cf. A. Poncelet, Catalogus Codicum Hagiographicorum Latinorum Bibliothecarum Romanorum praeterquam Vaticanum, p. 267 (1909).

^{page 8 note 3} Vatican MS. Latin 1189, ff. 33–8. I am indebted to Monsignor Mercati for permission to have, a photostat reproduction.

^{page 8 note 4} Guigue, M. C., La Légende du Grand Saint Antoine translatée de latin en françois par Frère Pierre de Lanoy Prescheur (1889)Google Scholar.

^{page 8 note 5} I am indebted to Miss M. Scherer of the Metropolitan Museum for this information ; cf. M. J. Friedlander, Die altnederländische Malerei, vol. ii, pi. ciii.

^{page 8 note 6} Antonianae historiae compendium, pars prima, cap. ix, fol. vi, a rare book. The preface is missing from the copy sent to Malta from Saint-Antoine in 1781. I am indebted to Monsieur Cl. Roux for a photostat of this page from a copy in the Library at Lyons.

^{page 9 note 1} E. A. Wallis Budge, The Paradise of the Fathers, vol. i, p. 4.

^{page 9 note 2} E. Male, L'Art religieux de la fin du Moyen Âge, p. 491.

^{page 9 note 3} MS. Add. 30972, ff. 65–78.

^{page 9 note 4} For a description early in the thirteenth century, cf. Churches and Monasteries of Egypt attributed to Abû Sâliḥ, the Armenian, edited and translated by B. T. A. Evetts, &c, 10 a. 54 f. (Anecdota Oxoniensia, Semitic Series, vol. vii).

^{page 9 note 5} B. Altaner, Die Dominikaner Missionen des 13 Jahrhunderts, pp. 72–89, 91–4 (Breslauer Studien zur historischen Theologie, ed. J. Wittig and F. X. Seppelt, vol. iii). I am indebted to Dr. A. G. Little for this reference.

^{page 9 note 6} J. Quetif et J. Echard, Scriptores Ordinis Predicatorum, vol. i, p. 676 (ed. 1719–21).

^{page 9 note 7} M. Creighton, History of the Papacy, vol. i, p. 147.

^{page 10 note 1} I traced this unique copy with the help of the Paris publisher, Monsieur Henri Laurens; the title occurred in the short bibliography in Saint Antoine by the late Claude Champion in the series L'Art et les Saints. When Monsieur Baudrier completed the Bibliographie Lyonnaise of the sixteenth century in 1921, he noted that no copy of the book was known, vol. xii, p. 154. I am indebted to Monsieur Batiffol, Librarian of the Bibliotheque de l'Arsenal, for permission to have a complete photostat reproduction of the book.

^{page 10 note 2} L. H. Labande, Les Primitifs Français, pp. 82, 83, 1932.

^{page 10 note 3} Bulletin d'histoire ecclésiastique … de Valence, vol. xiv, p. 198 (1894)Google Scholar, from the original in the archives of the évéché of Grenoble, transcribed by Monsignor Bellet. The name is there spelt Robin Favier. The document was reprinted in 1896 in Réunion des Sociétés des Beaux Arts des departements, pp. 96–103, by Monsieur Joseph Roman who noted that the original could not be found in the archives of the évéché Some years later these archives were transferred to the Archives Departementales, but the missing original has not been recovered. I am much indebted to Monsieur A. Letonellier, the keeper of the Archives Départementales at Grenoble, for this information, and for the searches he has made for the document.

^{page 11 note 1} e.g. H. Dijon, L'Église abbatiale de Saint-Antoine, pp. 294–303.

^{page 11 note 2} Burlington Magazine, February 1933, p. 65.

^{page 11 note 3} Ibid., p. 65.

^{page 12 note 1} J. W. Clark, The Care of Books, pp. 304–8.

^{page 12 note 2} St. Jerome, Letters and Select Works, ed. W. H. Fremantle, op. cit., pp. 11, 12, 299.

^{page 13 note 1} St. John Hope, W. H., ‘On some remarkable ecclesiastical figures in the Cathedral Church of Wells’, Archaeologia, vol. liv, pp. 81–6Google Scholar; D. Rock, The Church of our Fathers, ed. G. W. Hart and W. H. Frere, vol. ii, pp. 43–5. John Colet is depicted in an almuce with fur tails in MS. 1509, Dd. 7. 3. Cambridge University Library, cf. Medieval England, ed. H. W. C. Davis, p. 244, fig. 285.

^{page 14 note 1} G. Clinch, English Costume, pp. 222, 223; D. Rock, The Church of our Fathers, ed. G. W. Hart and W. H. Frere, vol. i, pp. 342, 343.

^{page 15 note 1} Liber v libellus x. Migne, Patrologia Latina, vol. lxxiii, col. 912; The Golden Legend, vol. ii, p. 227 (Dent, 1900).

^{page 15 note 2} J. Strutt, Sports and Pastimes of the People of England, ed. J. C. Cox, p. 216, pi. xxx.

^{page 17 note 1} I am indebted to Professor G. Callender, F.S.A., for this description and that on p. 20.

^{page 17 note 2} Ante, p. 2, note 1.

^{page 18 note 1} Antonianae historiae compendium, pars prima, cap. xviii, fol. xii.

^{page 18 note 2} I am indebted to Mr. J. G. Mann, F.S.A., for this reference.

^{page 18 note 3} F. W. Galpin, Old English Instruments of Music, pp. 134–44, pi. xxix.

^{page 19 note 1} I am indebted to Mr. J. G. Mann, F.S.A., for this and all other descriptions of armour.

^{page 21 note 1} July 25–8, Writings of Athanasius, ed. A. Robertson, p. 214, note 19 A.

^{page 22 note 1} Clark, E. C., ‘English Academical Costume (Medieval)’, Archaeological Journal, vol. 1, pp. 184, 185, 207 (1893)Google Scholar; Kirby, T. F., ‘On some fifteenth-century Drawings of … New College, Oxford’, Archaeologia, vol. liii, pis. xv and xviGoogle Scholar.

^{page 23 note 1} Circa 345. This is the version given by St. Athanasius in his Historia Arianorum; in his life of St. Anthony, Balacius is bitten by the horse ridden by Nestorius, cf. Writings of Athanasius, ed. A. Robertson, pp. 218, 274.

^{page 23 note 2} Lausiac History of Palladius, ed. E. C. Butler, vol. ii, p. 199.

^{page 24 note 1} D. Rock, The Church of our Fathers, ed. G. W. Hart and W. H. Frere, p. 43, fig. 1.

^{page 24 note 2} E. G. Millar, English Illuminated Manuscripts of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, frontispiece, and p. 33, MS. Harl. 7026 f. 4^V.

^{page 25 note 1} H. Dijon, Le Bourg et l'Abbaye de Saint-Antoine pendant les guerres de Religion et de la Ligue 1362–97, pp. 24–6, 38.

^{page 25 note 2} Ibid., p. 43; Memoires du notaire Eustache Piémont 1572–1608, p. 577 (Société d'Archéologie de la Drôme).

^{page 25 note 3} Archaeological Journal, vol. lxxxiv, pp. 393, 394, pi. ix.

^{page 25 note 4} Vita S. Antonii Abbatis, six plates are missing from the British Museum copy; cf. A. Tempesta, ed. Aspland, A., pp. 19–21 (Holbein Society, 1873)Google Scholar.

^{page 25 note 5} Masimbert, A., ‘La Bibliothèque de l'Abbaye de Saint-Antoine’, Petite Revue des Bibliophiles Dauphinois, 2^é serie, numero 5, 1924Google Scholar.

^{page 25 note 6} H. Dijon, L'Église abbatiale de Saint-Antoine, figs. 72–7.

^{page 26 note 1} Ante, p. 2.

^{page 26 note 2} Sanpere y Miquel, Los Cuatrocentistas Catalanes, vol. ii, pls. pp. 153, 155, 157.

^{page 26 note 3} In the Alte Pinakothek, Munich.

^{page 26 note 4} In private possession in England.

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I.—A Picture-book of the life of St. Anthony the Abbot, executed for the monastery of Saint-Antoine de Viennois in 1426

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