Add MS 69793

ST AUGUSTINE: De Consensu Evangelistarum, from north-east (?) Italy; late 14th cent. Latin. Unidentified coat of arms on f. 1: bendy of 6 argent and counter compony gules and or, within a bordure indented sable and or. Two decorated initials with foliate partial borders in gold and colours, with fleshy acanthus and gold discs (f. 1). There is a third on f. 103. Two-line pen-flourished initials appear throughout in gold and blue or blue and red. The manuscript was cast off as printer's copy by the Venetian printer Dionysius Bertochus de Bolonia for part of his edition of Augustine's Opuscula, completed in 1491 (British

Library press-mark IB.23589). Later [17th-cent?] notes on the first pastedown

and f. i are related to those found in Burney 32 which has an 18th-cent. Visconti provenance. Purchased by Countess Estelle Doheny (bookplate inside upper cover) from Maggs in 1945 (see S. De Ricci, Census Supplement (1962), p. 10, no. 12). Acquired by the exchange of a duplicate incunable following sale at Christie's, 2 Dec. 1987, lot 155.

Vellum (f. i paper); ff. i+110. Sec. fol.: 'quam filius'. 272 x 198mm. Regular gatherings of ten leaves. Catchwords. Later pencil quire numeration. Ruled (hard point) for two columns of thirty-three lines. Written space 175 x 120mm. Script and rubrication a littera rotunda italiana by one scribe. There are some early marginal corrections. The manuscript has been marked up by compositors, with marginal letters and numbers corresponding to the beginning of pages in the printed edition. Ink off-sets of printed pages also occur in the margins (e.g. f. 31). Such indications of use by a printer are rare. Early 18th-cent. binding of sprinkled calf, with gilt spine and painted mottled edges.