http://manuscriptroadtrip.wordpress.com/2014/01/03/manuscript-road-trip-a-welshman-in-reno
“As it turns out, until recently the Nevada Museum of Art did own four medieval manuscripts. All were de-accessioned in 2013 to raise funds for the Museum, since they did not really fit the Museum’s collection parameters. The manuscripts were sold by Christie’s on 12 June 2013 as lots 23, 24, 25, and 26.”
Die Handschriften passten nicht zum Sammlungskonzept und schwups waren sie weg. Dass öffentliche Sammlungen den Sinn haben, Kulturgut für die Nachwelt dauernd aufzubewahren (im Sinne eines Public Trust) betont das Art Law Blog wieder und wieder, wenn es um solche “Deaccession” geht.
http://theartlawblog.blogspot.de/search?q=public+trust
Natürlich wurde die Museumprovenienz von Christie’s verschwiegen, und natürlich war es nicht nur Dutzendware, die verscherbelt wurde.
Lot 24 war eine autographe Psalter-Abkürzung, die nun vermutlich unzugänglich in einer Privatschatulle sich befindet.
“APPARENTLY THE AUTHOR’S OWN COPY, ANNOTATED BY HIM; he records that he finished composing the text at Castel San Pietro, near Bologna, while he was with the anti-pope John XXIII (1410-1415): at the end of the main text is written by a contemporary hand: ‘Hic fini op(er)a mea. du(m) era(m) inusita(ti)s[?] (cum) d(ominus) n(oster) p(a)p(a) io(hannes) 23. in cast(r)o s(an)c(t)i pet(r)i bonon(iensis) dioc(esis) io. ost.’ (f.67v), followed by a rhymed request for prayers ‘Do tibi flores, pro nobis omnibus ores’ (I give flowers to you, pray for us all). The anti-Pope John XXIII was in Castel San Pietro in 1410, when he took refuge from the plague that was raging in Bologna, and the final page of the volume has a plague-prayer (‘… pestem ab hac civitate fuga …’). It was presumably also the author of the main text who wrote next to the start of the capitula ‘sequencia non sunt meam, sed Cassiodorii’ (f.68v). Tantalisingly, he only gives us the first letters of his names, ‘Io. Ost.’, and while the forename was doubtless Iohannes the surname is uncertain, but if he was Italian, Ostiensis (i.e. Giovanni d’Ostia) is a possible expansion.”