The Tuscan Provenance of Framfǫr Maríu

This essay traces the provenance and circulation of the Old Norse translation of Pseudo-Joseph’s Transitus Mariae. It is argued that the presence of variant readings typical of a newly identified ‘Tuscan redaction’ in that text indicates that its lost manuscript source was a Latin codex circulating in Florence during the second quarter of the fifteenth century. The lost volume might have been acquired by the English Bishop of Hólar Jón Vilhjálmsson Craxton (d. 1440) during his visit to Pope Eugene IV (1383– 1447) in Florence in the years 1433–1436 and later sent by him to Iceland with other codices of English provenance in order to settle part of his debts contracted with the Hólar diocese. Finally, two previously unnoticed scenes depicting the Transitus Mariae as related by the Pseudo-Joseph of Arimathea are identified in coeval English alabaster altarpieces from the churches of Hítardalur (Mýrasýsla) and Möðruvellir (Eyjafjörður).