17th-century embroidered silk purse stabilized with fragments of medieval manuscript waste17th-century embroidered silk purse stabilized with fragments of medieval manuscript waste

A ca. 17th-century silk purse embroidered with wool and metal-wrapped threads; interior stabilized with four triangular parchment fragments cut from the leaves of a medieval manuscript. Based on analysis of text and rubrics, the manuscript from which the fragments were cut was possibly a breviary and likely Italian, dating from the 14th or 15th centuries. The text is written in double columns in a southern textualis formata (rotunda), with initials rubricated in alternating red and blue. Much text remains visible, including a rubric for the vespers hymn (ad ues[peras] y[mpnus]) and text of Vexilla regis.