Opera: De caelesti hierarchia. De ecclesiastica hierarchia. De divinis nominibus. De mystica theologia. Epistolae.

4to (ca. 28 x 19 cm): [104] ff., on vellum, in Latin, expertly written in a humanistic brown and red hand, with a number of marginal annotations, 33 ll., written area: 19,5 x 11 cm (some lines of f. 1v rewritten by a later hand due to erasing, mod. pencil foliation).

Binding gone (remains of 18th-c. gilt leather spine), red edges, paper flyleaves. In excellent condition.

Major works of the Corpus Areopagiticum attributed to Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, a Syrian Christian theologian and Neoplatonic philosopher of the late 5th to early 6th century. The author pseudonymously identifies himself in the corpus as Dionysius the Areopagite, the Athenian convert of Paul the Apostle mentioned in Acts 17:34. This false attribution resulted in the work being given great authority in subsequent theological writing in both the East and the West. The writtings of Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite are one of the main sources of Christian mystical spirituality. They had a profound influence on the Neoplatonist movement of the Renaissance.
Our copy derived from the Latin translation made in 1436 by Ambrogio Traversari (1386-1439), also referred to as Ambrose of Camaldoli, a leading theologian and Hellenist member of the Florence Camaldolese Order. Traversari's preface, not signed, is placed at the end of the manuscript.
Illustration: fine three- to five-line floral initials with red and blue penwork extending into marginal decoration (ff. 1r, 25r, 52v, 88v, 91r, 103r), two- or three-line blue and red initials, capitals touched in red or yellow, headings in red.
Localisation: the pen flourishing decoration is close to those found in manuscripts made in the region of the IJssel river, with a series of subjoined short and outwardly curving lines, each of which is decorated with a row of pearls at the point where it is attached to the previous line, so that to the eye there is a constantly repeated succession of a row of pearls and an outwardly curving line. The IJssel area hosted the first centers of humanism in the Netherlands, like the school of Deventer where Erasmus learned his rudiments of Latin and Greek.
Ref. Korteweg, Anne S. - Kriezels, aubergine en takkenbossen. Randversiering in Noordnederlands handschriften uit de vijftiende eeuw. The Hague, Rijksmuseum; Museum van het boek, 1992, pp. 116-129. Kristeller, Iter Italicum III, (1983), p. 131-132.