Antonio Loschi (1369–1441)
Leaf from Epistolae ad familiares in Latin, manuscript on vellum [Italy, late(?) 15th century].
An extremely rare verse epistle addressed to a female Humanist.

c. 200 x 140mm. 29 lines, written in verse in a fine Humanistic script, using an early form of the modern question-mark, the text comprising the end of a letter to Franciscus de Fiano and the beginning of one to Maddalena Scrovegni (‘Fulgentem radiis virtutum: et avara fugantem […] Antionius Luscus Magdalene Scrovegne salutem. Inclyta feminei lux et nova gloria sexus […] Tecta pudicię quorum [next words erased]’, one rubric and initial in red (some losses of part of the blank upper margin and small holes in the lower margin, some cockling and stains).

Provenance:
Colker MS 153; acquired in 1969 from Renzo Rizzi.

This is a leaf of an extremely rare text. No copy recorded in the Schoenberg database has been offered for sale since the 19th century. The first letter is published in the 1858 edition of Loschi’s works; the second was apparently not published until a century later: Vittorio Zaccaria, ‘Una epistola metrica di Antonio Loschi a Maddalena Scrovegni’, Bollettino del Musea Civico di Padova, 46 (1957–58), 153–68. For a detailed discussion of the author, his work, and Maddalena, see Margaret L. King, ‘Goddess and Captive: Antonio Loschi’s Epistolary Tribute to Maddalena Scrovegni (1389), Study and Text’, Medievalia et Humanistica, 10 (1981), pp.103–27.

This lot is offered without reserve.
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