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Harley MS 647

Record Id:

040-001608844

Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:

040-001608844

MDARK:

ark:/81055/vdc_100000001442.0x000204

LARK:

SLARK:

Format:

ISAD(G)

Reference (shelfmark):

Harley MS 647

Title:

Collection of astronomical and astrological texts

Scope & Content:

Contents:

1. Astronomical texts based on Isidore of Seville, with two short prayers (ff. 1r-2r);

2. Marcus Tullius Cicero, Aratea, with 22 constellation figures containing extracts from Hyginus, Astronomica (ff. 2v-17v);

3. Excerpts from Pliny, Natural History; Macrobius, Commentary on the Somnium Scipionis; and Martianus Capella, De nuptiis Philologiae et Mercurii, books 8 and 6 (known as The Seven-Book Computus (ff. 17v-20r and ff 16r-16v (margin)).

4. Diagram of the Northern and Southern Hemispheres (f. 21v).

Decoration:

22 full-page representations of the constellations in colours (ff. 2v-6r, 7r-13v). Full-page diagram of the constellations in brown ink (f. 21v). Large diagram of the solar system in brown and red (f. 19r). Small initials in brown or red. Text in red or blue.

Collection Area:

Western Manuscripts

Project / Collection:

Harley Collection
Harley Science Project

Hierarchy Tree:

[{ "id" : "040-001608844", "parent" : "#", "text" : "Harley MS 647: Collection of astronomical and astrological texts" , "li_attr" : {"class": "orderable"} },{ "id" : "041-001608917", "parent" : "040-001608844", "text" : "Harley MS 647, ff 1r-2r: Astronomical texts based on Isidore of Seville with two short prayers" },{ "id" : "041-001608918", "parent" : "040-001608844", "text" : "Harley MS 647, ff 2v-17v: Marcus Tullius Cicero, Aratea, with extracts from Hyginus, Astronomica" },{ "id" : "041-001608919", "parent" : "040-001608844", "text" : "Harley MS 647, ff 17v-20r: Excerpts from Pliny, Natural History, Macrobius, Commentary on the Somnium Scipionis, and Martianus Capella, De nuptiis…" },{ "id" : "041-001608920", "parent" : "040-001608844", "text" : "Harley MS 647, f 21v: Diagram of the Northern and Southern Hemispheres" }]

Hierarchy Record Ids:

032-002045828
040-001608844

Is part of:

Harley MS 1-7661 : Harley Manuscripts

Harley MS 647 : Collection of astronomical and astrological texts

Contains:

Harley MS 647, ff 1r-2r : Astronomical texts based on Isidore of Seville with two short prayers
Harley MS 647, ff 2v-17v : Marcus Tullius Cicero, Aratea, with extracts from Hyginus, Astronomica
Harley MS 647, ff 17v-20r : Excerpts from Pliny, Natural History, Macrobius, Commentary on the Somnium Scipionis, and Martianus Capella, De…
Harley MS 647, f 21v : Diagram of the Northern and Southern Hemispheres

Click here to View / search full list of parts of Harley MS 647

Hierarchy:

032-002045828[0647]/040-001608844

Container:

View / search within Archive / Collection: Harley MS 1-7661

Record Type (Level):

File

Extent:

1 volume

Digitised Content:

http://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/FullDisplay.aspx?ref=Harley_MS_647 (digital images currently unavailable)

Thumbnail:

Languages:

Latin

Scripts:

Latin

Start Date:

0815

End Date:

1099

Date Range:

c 820-11th century

Era:

Access:

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User Conditions:

Physical Characteristics:

Materials: Parchment.

Dimensions: 320 x 280 mm.

Foliation: ff. v + 21 (4 unfoliated flyleaves are parchment and 1 is a modern paper leaf). First folio is missing.

Script: Caroline minuscule.

Binding: Post-1600 green leather binding with patterned tooling.

Custodial History:

Origin:

ff. 1r-2r: England, SE. (St Augustine, Canterbury) and France, N.

ff. 2v-17v: France, N. (Reims?).

ff. 17v-20r: England, SE. (St Augustine, Canterbury).

f. 21v: England, SE. (St Augustine, Canterbury?).

Provenance:

Corrected and repaired by scribe Geruvigus; inscribed 'Ista proprio sudore nomina uno quoque propria. Ego indignus sacerdos et monachus nomine Geruvigus repperi ac scripsi. Pax legentibus' (f. 21v).

The Benedictine abbey of St Augustine, Canterbury: included in the 15th-century catalogue of the library as Gerwicus de astronomia, 2˚ fo octavam, D13 Ga 5 (see Barker-Benfield 2008).

Francis Babington (d. 1569?), college head: inscription 'Francis Babyngton' (f. 2v).

The Harley Collection, formed by Robert Harley (d. 1724), 1st earl of Oxford and Mortimer, politician, and Edward Harley (d. 1741), 2nd earl of Oxford and Mortimer, book collector and patron of the arts.

Edward Harley bequeathed the library to his widow, Henrietta, née Cavendish Holles (d. 1755) during her lifetime and thereafter to their daughter, Margaret Cavendish Bentinck (d. 1785), duchess of Portland; the manuscripts were sold by the Countess and the Duchess in 1753 to the nation for £10,000 (a fraction of their contemporary value) under the Act of Parliament that also established the British Museum; the Harley manuscripts form one of the foundation collections of the British Library.

Publications:

A Catalogue of the Harleian Manuscripts in the British Museum, 4 vols (London: Eyre and Strahan, 1808-12), I, no. 647.

W.Y. Ottley, ‘On a Manuscript of Cicero's translation of Aratus, supposed to be of the 2d or 3d century’, Archaeologia: Miscellaneous Tracts Relating to Antiquity, 26 (1836), pp. 47-214.

Wilhelm Köhler, ‘Die Karolingishen Miniaturen’, in Zweiter Bericht über die Denkmäler Deutscher Kunst (Berlin: Reimer, 1912), pp. 101-07.

T. A. M. Bishop, ‘Notes on Cambridge Manuscripts, Part IV’, Transactions of the Cambridge Bibliographical Society 2/4 (1957) 323-36 (p. 326).

Medieval Libraries of Great Britain: A List of Surviving Books, ed. by N. R. Ker, 2nd edn, Royal Historical Society Guides and Handbooks, 3 (London: Royal Historical Society, 1964), p. 44.

Charlemagne: Oeuvre, Rayonnement et Survivances (Aix-la-Chapelle, 1965), no. 496 [with additional bibliography].

V. H. King, ‘An Investigation of some Astronomical excerpts from Pliny’s Natural History found in manuscripts of the earlier Middle Ages’ (B. Litt. Thesis, Oxford University, 1969), pp. 83-92.

Die Karolingischen Miniaturen, ed. by Wilhelm Koehler and Florentine Mütherich, 6 vols (Berlin: Deutscher Verlag für Kunstwissenschaft, 1930-99), 4, 2 parts, 4.2: Einzelhandschriften aus Lotharingien (1971), pp. 73-74, 77-79, 101-07 [with additional bibliography].

Elżbieta Temple, Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts 900-1066, A Survey of Manuscripts Illuminated in the British Isles, 2 (London: Harvey Miller, 1976), pp. 22, 65, 104.

B. Munk Olsen, L’Étude des auteurs classiques latins aux XIe et XIIe siècles, 3 vols (Paris: Centre national de la recherche scientifique, 1982-1989), I, p. 529 no. B. 18.

M. D. Reeve, ‘Aratea’ in Texts and Transmission: A Survey of the Latin Classics, ed. by L. D. Reynolds (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1983), pp. 18-24 (pp. 22-24).

John E. Murdoch, Album of Science: Antiquity and the Middle Ages, ed. by I. B. Cohen (New York: Scribner's Sons, 1984), no. 226.

Florentine Mütherlich, 'Book Illumination at the Court of Louis the Pious', in Charlemagne's Heir: New Perspectives on the Reign of Louis the Pious (814-840), ed. by Peter Godman and Roger Collins (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990), pp. 593-604 (pp. 597-98, pl. 30).

William Gerard Noel, ‘The Making of B. L. Harley Mss. 2506 and 603’ (unpublished doctoral dissertation, Cambridge University, 1992).

D.N. Dumville, ‘English Square Minuscule Script: The Mid-Century Phases’, Anglo-Saxon England, 23 (1994), 133-64 (p. 137).

Marco Mostert, ‘The Tradition of Classical Texts in the manuscripts of Fleury’, in Medieval Manuscripts of the Latin Classics: Production and Use, ed. by Claudine A. Chavannes-Mazel and Margaret M. Smith (Leiden: Anderrson-Lovelace and the Red Gull Press, 1996), pp. 19-40 (p. 33).

Helmut Gneuss, Handlist of Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts: A List of Manuscripts and Manuscript Fragments Written or Owned in England up to 1100, Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies, 241 (Tempe: Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2001), no. 423.

St Augustine's Abbey, Canterbury, ed. by B. C. Barker-Benfield, Corpus of British Medieval Library Catalogues, 13, 3 vols (London: British Library, 2008), BA I.1164.

Galileo: Images of the Universe from Antiquity to the Telescope, ed. by Paolo Galluzzi, Florence, Palazzo Strozzi 13 March-30 August 2009 (Florence: Giunti, 2009), no. II.4.1 [exhibition catalogue].

Elly Dekker, Illustrating the Phaenomena: Celestial Cartography in Antiquity and the Middle Ages (Oxford: University Press, 2013), pp. 145-48, 163, 167-68,, 173, 175, 239.

The Oxford History of Classical Reception in English literature, ed. by Rita Copeland, 5 vols (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012- ), I, 800-1558 (2016), p. 82.

Material Type:

Archives and Manuscripts

Legal Status:

Not Public Record(s)