Illuminated miniature manuscript on vellum

[Arma Christi]. Exhortatio S. Augustini Psal. 36. Conc. 2. post init. Ad Patientia[m] Exemplo Passionis Christi.

€ 18,000.00

Finely illuminated Baroque manuscript: an excellent example of Counter-Reformatory piety and the persistence of the symbols of Christ’s passion in Catholic private devotion.

Includes 26 brightly coloured full-page miniatures of the instruments and scenes of the Passion, all but three on versos with the relevant text of St Augustine's sermons on facing rectos. Only five of the 26 images show human figures: the Crucifixion (appearing first), Judas’s Kiss, Pontius Pilate, the Centurion and the Workman, and the two thieves on Golgotha. Each of the remaining images (the Arma Christi, the bloodied hands and heart of Christ, the dice, the ladder, and other emblems of the Passion) floats alone on a stark white background, emphasizing the potent symbolism of its materiality. Many of these objects are attached by long ribbons that appear to hold the objects aloft, further underlining the incarnation of divine power. The manuscript further comprises the Seven Penitential Psalms, followed by the Act of Contrition and other prayers, along with other excerpts from St Augustine.

Although the work is not dated and lacks identifying marks, the style of the illumination, the colouring, and the binding suggest that it was produced in Central Europe, presumably Austria or Bohemia, during the second half of the 17th or early 18th century. The small size of this luxuriously produced devotional manuscript implies that it was intended to be carried on one’s person. Worship of the instruments of Christ’s Passion held an important place in medieval popular religion and enjoyed a renaissance in Reformation Europe. "It is precisely in the arma's capacity to move between settings and adapt to different media (manuscript, print, and inscription) [...] that we can understand the persistent vitality of the instruments of the Passion in post-medieval pieties" (Gayk 274f.).