Add MS 43716

SHORT EXCERPTS IN PRAISE OF BOOKS AND LEARNING, written out perhaps for display as a placard on a schoolroom wall; 15th cent. Latin. The excerpts, three in number, are ascribed respectively to the authorship of Plato, Cicero and Robert of Anjou, the last being apparently derived from Petrarch's account of a conversation with Robert in his Rerum Memorandorum Libri, 1, 37 (ed. G. Billanovich, Florence, 1943, p. 40). They are as follows:-

(1) Headed 'Plato philosophus', beg. 'Non erimus in senectute sapientes nisi iuvenes bene sapere ceperimus';-(2) Headed 'Cicero', beg. '0 preclaram suppellectilem librorum';-(3) Headed 'Robertus rex Hierusalem et Sicilie', i.e. Robert of Aniou, beg. 'Ego (inquit) iuro dulciores et multo chariores mihi literas quam regnum' (see further above). Vellum sheet. 475 mm. x 370 mm. xv cent. Executed in France or Flanders. Ruled, one column 237 mm. wide, with an interval of 16 mm. between the lines. Script, a large book hand. The headings to each extract are in red. The initial capital of the first extract is decorated, white on a red ground. In the left-hand margin are three conventional pen-wash portraits of the authors cited, who are shown standing, three-quarter length, in framed panels 83 mm. wide. These portraits have been partly redrawn in a darker ink. 'Cicero' resembles the 'Isaiah' of Sloane MS. 2321, f. 41 (French; mid xv cent.). 'Robert of Anjou' holds a book with the words 'Deum time et mandata eius observa. Hoc est omnis homo.' The leaf, which has been roughly trimmed on all four sides and cut across the centre, has nail holes round the edges. The verso is blank. At the foot of the recto is a partly erased note of (apparently French) ownership in 1821, and the bookstamp, late 19th cent., of A. G. and M. Hammond (MS. 1).

Presented by Alfred Gauntlett Hammond, Esq., in memory of his wife, Marie Hammond (d. 29 Nov. 1932).