Initials and Miniatures of the IXth, Xth, and XIth Centuries from the Mozarabic Manuscripts of Santo Domingo de Silos in the British Museum

Unpaginated (56 ff. + color frontis. + 46 color pl.), folio, half-title present. Recently rebound in attractive dark blue-green cloth over boards, short title in gilt on spine and upper cover, new endpapers, original flyleaves retained. Color plates printed by Edward Bierstadt. The initials and miniatures here are reproduced from tenth and eleventh-century Visigothic codices formerly held in the Benedictine monastery of Santo Domingo de Silos in Burgos, Castile-León, Spain. The British Museum acquired a group of these in 1878, and includes texts, psalms and hymns of the Mozarabic Liturgy, homilies, penitential canons, antiphonaries and breviaries. Archer M. Huntington (1870-1955), the son of railroad magnate Collis Huntington and cousin of the great bibliophile Henry E. Huntington, maintained a lifelong and passionate interest in Spain and Hispanic culture. It perhaps reached its zenith with his founding and organizing of the Hispanic Society of America (now the Hispanic Museum & Library) in New York. The original front flyleaf bears Huntington s autograph inscription to a "Dr. Deming," probably the notable Bronx physician William Champion Deming (1862-1954). The inscription closes with the notation "Pleasance," the name of the Huntingtons estate in the Baychester section of the eastern Bronx, on Long Island Sound, given to the couple by Archer s father in 1897. One of 350 copies. Occasional tiny spotting (more on original front flyleaf), a few faint marks, but pages generally clean, the colors bright; foredge of rear original flyleaf a bit chipped. Overall, a very good copy. …