The Breviarium Romanum kept in the House of the Blessed Hosanna is an incunable, or a printed volume of the fifteenth century, containing the Divine Office in its pages, then the various prayers to be tuned according to hours, days, weeks, festivals. It is a rare example, indeed almost unique.
Breviarium Romanum
One of its fundamental characteristics is to be a bag, or scarsella. It is collected in a kind of linen bag that surrounds it and allows it to be easily held in hand, or tied to the belt. The ligature, writes the scholar Irma Pagliari, consists of wooden boards completely covered in brown leather.
The beginning
The precious example is part of the small but very significant Library of Casa Andreasi, formed through the years thanks to the donations of various benefactors. There are five incunabula, eleven volumes from the sixteenth century, three from the seventeenth century, seven from the eighteenth century, two from the nineteenth century and three from the twentieth. Naturally, these are religious texts, among which there are many Lives of the Blessed Osanna and a Missale Dominicanum printed in Venice by Simon Bevilacqua in 1497.
Turning pages
The Breviarium is printed on columns, in Gothic characters that alternate red and black. It is certainly the only copy of this edition known in Italy. It is probably flanked by four others in the world. It is unknown in which hands this Breviarium was in the past. A fairly credible hypothesis is that it belonged, together with the Missale Dominicanum, to the Blessed Osanna. Count Alessandro Magnaguti, the former owner of the House, in one of his biography of the Blessed Osanna, appeared in 1949, claims that the Missale and the Breviarium "belong to the Blessed relic in the house ..." and declares that they are certainly related to her. By giving the House to the Dominican Order, the benefactor also gived the two incunabula.
Incipiunt
The volume's printer is Giorgio Arrivabene, born in Canneto sull'Oglio in Mantua, but Venetian by adoption. He personally printed about sixty editions, legal texts and theological texts. He also completed one Virgil in 1489, and one Horace in 1490. He used the German Gothic characters, but he used in four cases the Roman ones and, on one occasion, the Greek characters.
Tabula hymnorum
The volume is edited by Pietro Arrivabene, a Mantuan. He was a Franciscan theologian. He is the author of a work conserved in the Teresian Library of Mantua: 'Opera devotissima continente le piissime meditatione de la passion de Christo'.
Tabula dominicarum
An index, to find easily the prayer sought.
Red and black
The red and the black rhythm the hours of faith.
King David
Here is Psalm I, Domenica ad nocturnum: "Beatus vir qui non abiit in consilio impiorum", Blessed is the man who did not go to the council of the wicked. The beautiful initial letter portrays a large B in which appears the inventor of the same psalm, namely King David.
Handwriting
Last hand-written annotations of a small jewel of the typographic art.
Ideato e promosso da / Founded and Promoted by: Mattia Palazzi (Sindaco del Comune di Mantova) con Lorenza Baroncelli (Assessore alla rigenerazione urbana e del territorio, marketing urbano, progetti e relazioni internazionali del Comune di Mantova) Coordinamento Scientifico / Scientific Coordinator: Sebastiano Sali Curatore testi e immagini / Superintendent texts and images: Giovanni Pasetti Foto di / Photo by: Art Camera Redazione / Editor: Erica Beccalossi Assistente / Assistant: Annica Boselli
