Add MS 8799

COLLECTION OF HUMANISTIC HISTORICAL TEXTS; 3rd quarter of 15th cent. Latin. The collection includes Poggio Bracciolini, De varietate Fortunae, Books 1-3 (art. 1, ff. 2-51v), Matteo Palmieri, Liber de temporibus (art. 2, ff. 52-109), Agostino Dati, Historia Senensis (art. 3, ff. 110-157v), and a letter from Morbassan neber Gessi to Pope Clement VI (art. 4, ff. 158-159). The MS. is listed in Palma di Cesnola, nos. 343-346, p. 24, and briefly described in P. O. Kristeller, Iter Italicum, iv (1989), p. 85. Owned by Frederick North, 5th Earl of Guilford, but lacking his armorial bookplate. '221' in pencil in top left corner of front pastedown of detached binding. Purchased from R. H. Evans, 8 Dec. 1830, lot 221.

Paper; ff. 159+i, plus one unfoliated blank after f. 51, and two after f. 109. Composite volume from two MSS., assembled soon after their copy: - (A) ff. 1-51v, art. 1; - (B) ff. 52-159, arts. 2-4. 296 x 220mm. Original gatherings, now mounted on guards: 1¹⁰⁺¹ (including original front flyleaf; ff. 1-11), 2-3¹⁰ (ff. 12-31), 4⁹ (10 missing; ff. 32-40), 5¹² (ff. 41-51 and following blank), 6-10¹² (ff. 52-109, plus following two blanks), 11-13¹⁴ (ff. 110-151); ff. 152-159 single leaves on guards. Gatherings 1-5 with original quire signatures 'p^o, 2-5' in centre of lower margin of first rectos, and horizontal catchwords on lower right corner of last versos; gatherings 6-9 and 11-13 with vertical catchwords on lower right corner of last versos. Frame ruled in a single column, with a different pattern for each of the three larger texts: - (a) ff. 2-51, single columns of 27-32 lines, circa 198 x circa 130mm.; - (b) ff. 52-109, single columns of 32-37 lines, circa 210 x circa 115mm.; - (c) ff. 110-159, single columns of 30 lines, circa 175 x 133mm. Four main cursive hands: - (1) ff. 2-3v, black ink; - (2) ff. 3v-51v, brown ink; - (3) ff. 52-157v, dark brown ink; - (4) ff. 109v, 158-159 and rubrics on ff. 53-109v. Five different watermarks, nos. i -ii pointing to Venice, nos. iii-v to Siena and Tuscany: - (i) ff. 1-5, 10, two crossed arrows, similar to Briquet, nos. 6269-6271; - (ii) ff. 6-8, 12-51, ladder with four steps, similar to Briquet, nos. 5904 and 5908; - (iii) ff. 52-62, 76, 99, gothic M surmonted by a cross, similar to Briquet, nos. 8351 and 8354; - (iv) ff. 67-74, 100, 138-158, trimontium, similar to Briquet, no. 11706; - (v) ff. 77-96, 101-135, ladder with four steps, similar to Briquet, no. 5907. Late 18th-early 19th cent. quarter binding of brown leather with marbled brown paper covers over original 15th-cent. wooden boards: detached (spine lost). Contents as follows:

1. ff. 2-51v. Poggio Bracciolini; De varietate Fortunae, Books 1-3, composed for Pope Nicholas V; [1447-1448]. Copy. Rubric 'Poggii florentini de varietate fortune liber primus incipit ad Nicolaum papam quintum', inc. '[N]uper cum Pontifex Martinus paulo antequam diem suum obiret', expl. 'ut qui pacem prae se ferat et otium praeponat armis. hic finis nostro sermoni fuit. / Incipit liber quartus poggi florentini de indis'. Books 1-3 (ff. 2, 16, 35v), omitting the proemium and the forth book. Sec. fol. (f. 3) 'Scipionem et T. Quintum Crispinum'. With late 15th-cent. marginal notabilia of brown and light purple ink. A 18th-cent. note on f. 1 of the MS., allegedly signed by Luigi Rigoli, librarian of the Biblioteca Riccardiana in Florence, and asserting that the present MS. is autograph by comparison with Poggio's autographs in the Riccardiana, has been discussed and contradicted by B. L. Ullman, The Origin and Development of Humanistic Script (Rome, 1960), p. 52. Text and variants similar to Bern, Burgerbibliothek, MS. 562, the only other extant MS. of the text containing only Books 1-3, and to the text of Books 1-3 in Florence, Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale, n.a. 693, ff. 1-56: cf. P. Bracciolini, De varietate Fortunae, ed. O. Merisalo (Helsinki, 1993), with mention of the present MS. as cod. n (no. 14, pp. 36 and 77). A fragmentary copy of Book 1 in Harl. 2500, ff. 129v-138; copies of Book 4 in Add. 25712, ff. 76-87, Harl. 2492, ff. 348v-357, Harl. 3716, ff. 124-133v.

2. ff. 52-109. [Matteo Palmieri], De temporibus, a chronicle of the world to the year 1448, composed for Piero de' Medici, son of Cosimo de' Medici; n.d. Copy. Rubric 'Liber primus incipit de temporibus', inc. 'Principio mundi ab adam primo hominum', expl. (f. 109) '1448... recipiat mentrua illi stipendia pollicentur. / Mediolanenses laudum receperunt'. Sec. fol. (f. 53) '14 Censu Rome'. Lacking Palmieri's prologue. Followed (ff. 109-109v) by additions to the text for the years 1449-1461 in a larger hand, with a strong Sienese connotation in the references to Pope Pius II Piccolomini, Pietro de' Rossi and St. Catherine of Siena for the years 1458-1461, inc. '1449. / 1450. Pestis ingens in tuscia et fere per totam Italiam', expl. '1461. Caterina Senensis Virgo ... a pio pontifice in Cathalago sanctorum describitur'. Dates noted in column at left of main text. With rubrics and marginal notabilia in purple ink. Few marginal additions by a slightly later hand. A copy of Matteo Palmieri's work also in Add. 62994. The text was printed by G. Scaramella Rerum Italicarum scriptores, N. S., xxvi, pt. 1 (1906), pp. xxi-xxii, 2-127.

3. ff. 110-157v. [Agostino Dati: Historiae Senenses]; n.d. Text incomplete. Inc. '[S]enensis civitas quam multis quam magnis ac preclaris', expl. 'indignum prorsus existimare debeam'. Last six lines of text copied by a 16th-cent. hand. Marginalia in a contemporary hand. Text diverges from the version amended by Agostino's son Niccolò and later published by Girolamo Dati, Niccolò's nephew, with the title Fragmenta Senensium Historiarum in Augustini Dati Senensis Opera (Siena: Symionem Nicolai Nardi, 1503), pp. ccxxi verso - ccxxxvi verso, and breaks in correspondence of p. ccxxxiiii, line 18; B.L. copy 632.l.17. For Agostino Dati see DBI, 33 (1987), pp. 15-21.

4. ff. 158-159. 'Exemplum litterarum transmissarum summo Pontifici ex parte Morbassani hebei Gessi. Anno domini M.ccc.xlv. indicione xiii quo tempore predicatum passagium contra thurchos'; n.d. Inc. 'Morbassan heber Gessi cum fratribus suis Cerabi et Luxbayth', expl. 'et dalmatiam visitare data Anno Machometi viic xlv mens casleu .i. decembris' (cf. L. Bertalot, Initia humanistica Latina, ii/1 (Tübingen, 1990), 12222). A copy of the same text in another MS. also containing Poggio's De varietate Fortunae, now Genoa, Archivio Storico Comunale, MS. 360, ff. 93-93v: cfr. P. Bracciolini, De varietate Fortunae, ed. O. Merisalo, op.cit., no. 40, p. 60.