Featured Illuminated Vellum manuscript validity

Hello All!
Recently I found what claims to be a 16th century-page from a Spanish Antiphonal in a steamy attic at a small fine antique furniture store. As a musicologist, I am familiar with the history and musical notation, but I do not have enough knowledge to determine if this is a true 16th-century relics or a more modern replica.
It is on vellum, is rather sizable, and came with a brief description that seems to indicate it may have been an auction item. The description mentions the red and blue tempera "I" and that the pagination is contemporary as well.
Any thoughts? I've attached as wide a variety of pictures that I could; if more are needed of specific bits, I would gladly post them.

-Andrew

 

I'd plump for the real deal. Those antiphonals were big suckers; they didn't have wall projection in the old days, and everyone had to literally read from the same page since they were all hand-copied into the 18th century. There was one in every decent-sized church and each had a lot of pages, so I'd say odds are good. (and don't ask me where I learned ANY of that! There are lots of random bits jammed into odd corners of my skull.) What it's worth I haven't the faintest.

 

It's double sided? If they're at all common, I can't see forging these as a profitable activity.

 

JMHO.
there's 2 sides to every story.
in this case the European side and the US side.
Europe: after WWII there was a whole generation of art students working on these. sold by the famous bouquinistes especially in Paris but also in other cities by the Brocante dealers to GIs. in reality the whole business already started during the Spanish civil war when the churches, abbeys and universities etc. where robbed of the incunabiles and missals.
USA: Johnny went to war and was in Pareee and was told by Monsieur Jules that he had - exclusivement pour nos amis Americain !!! - real medieval prints safed from se Krauts and hidden in se vine-cellar of Monsieur Jules' old moffer...

the truth - as always - will be somewhere in the middle (of nowhere...).
only specialists can decide after hands-on inspection what you have.

 

P.S., here a bit of the problems looked at by one of the specialists that is working in one of the places that don't need money...
https://blog.nationalmuseum.ch/en/2017/05/book-printing-in-europe-3/

 

As said, these need to be looked at by an expert, in person. It is impossible to say anything about them from photos.

 

There are a lot of these sheets with musical notation around and they are quite affordable considering the age and the beauty of them. When I want to ask about these kind of fragments I usually ask people from DACT: http://dact-chant.ca/

 

Your fragment is part of Psalm 100 by the way.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psalm_100

1. Jubilate Deo omnis terra : servite Domino in lætitia.
2. Introite in conspectu ejus : in exsultatione.
3. Scitote quoniam Dominus ipse est Deus : ipse fecit nos, et non ipsi nos.
4. Populus ejus, et oves pascuæ ejus, introite portas ejus in confessione : atria ejus in hymnis, confitemini illi.
5. Laudate nomen ejus, quoniam suavis est Dominus ; in æternum misericordia ejus : et usque in generationem et generationem veritas ejus.

 

I have no reason to doubt the authenticity of this sheet. By my knowledge it would be much more expensive to fake a sheet like this (and the obtain a vellum sheet of this size) compared to the moderate value (< $100).

 

there were many thousands of empty sheets around after the Spanish civil war and WWII. mostly empty pages from the start and end of the booktexts.

 

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