Papal Bull of 896 on Papyrus, Lombardic Script, Antique Print, 1849

A single long fragment of papyrus carrying the enormous looping Lombardic chancery hand of the papal court. The sheet is lettered as a fragment of a bull of Pope John the Seventh, a papyrus of the year 896, then in the Bibliotheque nationale in Paris. The writing is drawn out to an extraordinary width, each letter a tall narrow stroke, and the ground is printed to show the crossed fibers of the papyrus and the losses along its upper edge.

The sheet comes from Le Moyen Age et la Renaissance, the great illustrated survey of medieval and Renaissance life edited by Paul Lacroix and Ferdinand Sere and published in Paris from the Administration at 5 rue du Pont-de-Lodi. This is Tome Second, dated 1849 on its own title page. The colored drawings were made by A. Rivaud and his colleagues and printed in chromolithography by the Paris house of Lemercier, then the finest color printer in Europe.

A dated document of the ninth century is a rarity on paper or on papyrus, and the curatorial note that the original is a papal bull gives this sheet a hook that the other script plates do not have. It is a quiet, severe image, almost monochrome, and it suits a room where a single horizontal sheet is wanted over a long piece of furniture.

Even age toning. Marked handling soiling along the bottom, left and right edges. Scattered foxing in the margin. All four corners complete.

This is an original antique print, not a modern reproduction. This item is sold unframed.