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Egerton MS 1500
- Record Id:
- 032-001984589
- Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:
- 032-001984589
- MDARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100000000057.0x00023b
- LARK:
- SLARK:
- Format:
- ISAD(G)
- Reference (shelfmark):
- Egerton MS 1500
- Title:
-
Abreviamen de las Estorias, a diagrammatic chronicle in Occitan
- Scope & Content:
-
Content:
Abreviamen (Abreujamen) de las Estorias, with the following components:
ff. 1r-2v: Notes and rubrics;
ff. 3r-60v: Paolino Veneto (Paulin de Venise), Compendium gestarum rerum, a universal history from the creation of the world to the death of the Emperor Henry the Seventh (d. 1314), with a prologue. The work is a translation into the Provençal dialect of the Latin chronicle of Paolino (b. c. 1275, d. c. 1344), a Fransiscan friar and diplomat from Venice. The closest Latin text is in Venice, Biblioteca Marciana, MS Zanetti Latino 399 (see Degenhart and Schmitt, Italienischen Zeichnungen, 1973). It consists of genealogical diagrams with notes and synchronic tables of kings, including English kings, emperors and popes, and includes the canonization of Thomas Aquinas in 1323. The following texts are interpolated in the diagrammatic chronicle:
ff. 8r-13r: 'De las ficcios e de las faulas dels poetas', an account of the mythology of the Greeks, based on the Mythographus tertius derived from a commentary on Martianus Capella;
f. 14r: 'La istoria Dalixandre', the legend of Alexander the Great;
ff. 17v-19r: 'Dels fachs dels apostols', the Acts of the Apostles;
f. 19v-30r: 'De gestis Sanctorum', Saints' lives;
ff. 45v-53v: 'Passazia et auxilia Terre Sancte', an account of the First Crusade, with miniatures and maps of Antioch (f. 47v) and Jerusalem (f. 49r) ;
ff. 61r-62r: Additions to the chronicle in a later hand;
ff. 63r-67v: Provincial, a list of cardinals, archbishops and bishops in the Western and Eastern churches.
28 of the 32 folios lacking between ff. 62 and 63 are now British Library Additional MS 17920, (see Wüstefeld, 'Las Merevilhas' (1987) and 2 folios lacking between ff. 28 and 29 are lost.
For further details of the contents, see Botana, ‘Making of L’Abreujamen', (2013).
Decoration:
Tables of rulers, historical figures and events containing over 1600 portraits or busts; 16 miniatures in colours and gold (ff. 45v (x2), 46r (x7), 46v, 51v, 52v (x3), 53v (x3), 57r) of scenes from the crusades. A map of the globe (f. 3v) and plans of cities in colours (ff. 47v, 49r). 1 small decorated initial, in colours (f. 3r). Small initials in red with purple pen-flourishing or in blue with red pen-flourishing.
Attributed to two artists, the first of whom worked on Paris, BnF, MS. lat. 17336, a pontifical made between 1305 and 1314 and the second of whom perhaps worked on Avignon Bibliothèque Municipale, MS. 24, an evangeliary from the cathedral of Notre-Dame-des-Doms, Avignon.
Two sets of foliation in Roman numerals. Instructions for artists (e.g., f. 11v) and for rubricators (e.g., f. 40r) in the upper margins, some in Paolino's hand (see Botana, ‘Making of L’Abreujamen', (2013)).
- Collection Area:
- Western Manuscripts
- Project / Collection:
- Egerton Manuscripts
- Hierarchy Tree:
- [{ "id" : "032-001984589", "parent" : "#", "text" : "Egerton MS 1500: Abreviamen de las Estorias, a diagrammatic chronicle in Occitan" , "li_attr" : {"class": "orderable"} }]
- Hierarchy Record Ids:
- 032-001984589
- Is part of:
- not applicable
- Hierarchy:
- 032-001984589
- Container:
- not applicable
- Record Type (Level):
- Fonds
- Extent:
-
A parchment codex, 67 folios
- Digitised Content:
- http://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/FullDisplay.aspx?ref=Egerton_MS_1500 (digital images currently unavailable)
- Thumbnail:
-
- Languages:
- Occitan
Provençal, Old - Scripts:
- Latin
- Start Date:
- 1321
- End Date:
- 1324
- Date Range:
- 1321-1324
- Era:
- CE
- Access:
-
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- User Conditions:
- Letter of introduction required to view this manuscript.
- Physical Characteristics:
-
Materials: Parchment.
Dimensions: 380 x 290 mm (text space: 350 x 260 mm).
Foliation: ff. i + 67 (f. i + 3 unfoliated modern paper flyleaves at the beginning, and 4 at the end).
Collation: i2 (ff. 1-2), ii-iv12 (ff. 3-38),v12-2 (ff. 39-48), vi6 (ff. 49-60), vii2 (ff. 61-62), viii4+1 (ff. 63-67).
Script: Gothic, written by three main scribes (see Ibarz, ‘'Provenance of the Abreujamen', 2013).
Binding: BM/BL in-house. Re-bound in 1983.
- Custodial History:
-
Origin: France, S. (Avignon).
Provenance:
The text includes the canonization of Thomas Aquinas in 1323.
M. de Martres, Baron of Loupian in Languedoc, bought by the British Museum from him, 9 November 1850 (note on f. i verso), using the Farnborough Fund (£3,000 bequeathed in 1838 by Charles Long, Baron Farnborough (b. 1761, d. 1838), a cousin of Francis Henry Egerton, 8th Earl of Bridgewater (b. 1756, d. 1829), founder of the collection.
- Information About Copies:
-
Full digital coverage available for this manuscript: see Digitised Manuscripts at http://www.bl.uk/manuscripts.
Select digital coverage available for this manuscript, see Catalogue of Illuminated Manuscripts http://www.bl.uk/catalogues/illuminatedmanuscripts/welcome.htm.
- Publications:
-
Catalogue of Additions to the Manuscripts in the British Museum in the Years 1848-1853 (London: British Museum, 1868), no. Eg. 1500.
Walter de Gray Birch and Henry Jenner, Early Drawings and Illuminations: An Introduction to the Study of Illustrated Manuscripts (London: Bagster and Sons, 1879), p. 9.
A Guide to the Exhibition of Some Part of the Egerton Collection of Manuscripts in the British Museum (London: British Museum, 1929), no. 137.
André Vernet, 'Une version provençale de la 'Chronologia magna' de Paulin de Venise', Bibliothèque de l'école des chartes,104 (1943), 115-36.
Fritz Saxl and Hans Meier, Verzeichnis astrologischer und mythologischer illustrierter Handschriften des lateinischen Mittelalters, ed. by Harry Bober, 4 vols (London: Warburg Institute, 1916-66), III: Handschriften in englischen Bibliotheken (1953), pp. 143-46.
Bernhard Degenhart and Annegrit Schmitt, 'Marino Sanudo und Paolino Veneto: Zwei Literaten des 14. Jahrhunderts in ihrer Wirkung auf Buchillustrierung und Kartographie in Venedig, Avignon und Neapel', Römisches Jahrbuch für Kunstgeschichte, 14 (1973), 1-137 (pp. 25, 35, 39, 78, 90, figs. 72, 78-79, 156).
The Image of the Black in Western Art, ed. by David Bindman and Henry Louis Gates (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Belknap Press, 1979), pp. 108, 353.
Bernhard Degenhart and Annegrit Schmitt, Corpus der Italienischen Zeichnungen 1300-1450, part 2 in two volumes (Berlin: Gerb. Mann, 1980), I, pp. 41, 57, pls 85-87.
Wilhemina H. Wüstefeld, 'Las Merevilhas de la terra de Ybernia: Une traduction occitane et sone modèle, Actes du premier congress international d'Etudes Occitanes (London, 1987), 529-37 (pp. 533-34).
Pamela Porter, Medieval Warfare in Manuscripts (London: British Library, 2000), p. 22.
Francesca Manzari, La miniatura ad Avignone al tempo dei papi (1310-1410) (Modena: F.C. Panini, 2006), pp. 33-34, 53-72, 76.
Federico Botana, ‘The Making of L’Abreujamen de las estorias', Electronic British Library Journal, (2013) no. 16.
Alexander Ibarz, ‘The Provenance of the Abreujamen de las estorias (London, British Library, Egerton MS. 1500) and the Identification of Scribal Hands (c. 1323)', Electronic British Library Journal (2013), no. 17.
Catherine Leglu, ‘A Genealogy of the Kings of England in Papal Avignon: British Library, Egerton MS 1500,’ Electronic British Library Journal (2013), no. 18.
Loïc Pierrot, 'Espace et mémoire dans l'Ordre des Frères mineurs à la fin du Moyen Âge: Étude et édition critique du Provinciale ordinis fratrum Minorum de Paolino da Venezia' (unpublished École des Chartes thesis, École nationale des chartes, 2022), pp. 123-130 and 134-142.
- Material Type:
- Archives and Manuscripts
- Legal Status:
- Not Public Record(s)