Földvári Books

Cosimo de' Medici’s Funerary Liturgy

[Medici, Cosimo de’]

De officio sepulturae. [Oratione celebrata in Florentia per la morte de Cosimo de Medici nel tempo della sepultura.]

Italy: 15th century (2nd half). Manuscript on parchment of Latin liturgical text and music, with decorated initials. Altering number of lines, and size of letters. Initials in alternating red and blue, two with contrasting pen-flourished decoration, and fifteen puzzle initials. Music on four-line red staves. Bound into 18th century decorated paper, with a handwritten vignette on front cover “De officio sepulture (-Pergamena)”. Letterpressed note on the final leaf “Oratione celebrata in Florentia per la morte di Cosimo de Medici nel tempo della sepultura”. Ca. 130 × 175 mm, 27 leaves on parchment, with no catchwords or leaf signatures. Italian Gothic bookhand in brown ink. Few contemporary marginal notes. Wear to front cover. First and last leaves with small holes, parchment discolored, letters somewhat faint. Overall in very good condition.

Alleged funerary liturgy of Cosimo de' Medici, the ‘Father of the Country’.

Fifteenth-century manuscript, a description of the funerary liturgy, with antiphons (among others Hodie beata virgo Maria), texts of prayers, psalms and the direction of the ceremony. With a three-lines of old letterpressed addition, in gothic type on the last page, claiming that this oration was delivered for Cosimo de' Medici’s funeral in Florence.

Cosimo de' Medici was the founder of the Italian banking family and political dynasty that ruled over Florence through the greater part of the 15th century and remained the city's leading family for the next three centuries. Cosimo was born in 1389, inherited his wealth and expertise in banking from his father, and from this base, he acquired political power in Florence. He used his fortune to sponsor culture and arts, orators, poets, and philosophers, and he was the founder of the first library in Florence which was of central importance to the humanist movement in the Florentine Republic during the Renaissance. Cosimo died on August 1st, 1464 and “on the following day” — as it is described by his son Piero in his memorandum-book — “he was interred in the church of San Lorenzo, in the vault previously chosen by him, without pomp of burial, in the presence of the canons and priests of the aforesaid church, and the regular canons of Fiesole, with neither more nor fewer tapers than are used at ordinary obsequies, as he had commanded with his last words, saying, one should give alms during life, then they were of more use than after death” (in Reumont, p. 163). After Cosimo’s death, the Signoria (civic government) awarded him the title Pater Patriae ‘Father of the Country’ and had it carved upon his tomb.

Bibl.: Reumont, A. von: Lorenzo De' Medici, the Magnificent. Vol 1. London: Smith, Elder, & Co., 1876.

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Price: €135,000.00