Decoration:Major initials in alternating red and blue with pen infilling and flourishing. Large initials alternating in red and blue and pen-flourished, occasionally with faces (ff. 114v, 124, 125v). Mid-sized initials in black on green, occasionally with pen faces colored tan (ff. 119r-v, 124v, 125, unnumbered fragment verso). An erroneous large red initial A[lorificamus] on f. 187 has a discreet contemporary mauve G with harping inserted beside it.
Written by Alberico Spinola, a Camaldolese monk and a citizen of Genoa, in 1443, and illuminated by Hugo of Alexandria, noted in the Dictionnaire des Colophons (from the Quaritch catalog cited below). On f. 1 in ink: “Ex libris Dominici Merli Civis Lucensis 1787.” Listed in Bernard Quaritch, A Catalogue of Illuminated and other Manuscripts (London 1931) no. 74; at that time the manuscript was lacking only 2 leaves (first leaf of q. 3 and of q. 16) and contained: “f. 1, Calendar; f. 21, Officium B.M.V. (lacking 1st leaf); f. 141b, Missa B.V.M.; f. 147, Septum Psalmi Penitentiales cum Litania; f. 181, Officium Mortuorum; f. 257, Officium S. Crucis; f. 267, Officium S. Spiritus; f. 290, Memoriae Sanctorum”; at that time it was decorated with 14 illuminated and 3 historiated initials, and with three-quarter borders of “floreated scrolls.” Acquired, still whole except for the two missing leaves, by Nicolas Pavlov, Dobbs Ferry, NY, from Reiss & Auvermann at Glashuetten im Taunus, West Germany (Catalog, lot #15, with plates) in October 1988. Dismembered by Pavlov and portions sold to other dealers. A part, probably the Office of the Dead, was sold to the bookdealer Bruce Guenter of South Egermont, MA. Rouse MS 40 was acquired in its present state from Pavlov in March 1990 by Richard and Mary Rouse. Given to UCLA in 2005.
