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Harley MS 2506

Record Id:

040-001608922

Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:

040-001608922

MDARK:

ark:/81055/vdc_100000001442.0x00024e

LARK:

SLARK:

Format:

ISAD(G)

Reference (shelfmark):

Harley MS 2506

Title:

Collection of astronomical and astrological treatises

Scope & Content:

The manuscript includes:

1. Hyginus, De astronomia (ff. 1r-30r);

2. Priscian, De duodecim signis (ff. 30r-30v);

3. Abbo of Fleury, De differentia circuli et sphere, and De cursu septem planetarum per zodiacum circulum (ff. 30v-32r);

4. De nominibus stellarum (ff. 33r-35r);

5. Marcus Tullius Cicero, Aratea (translation of Aratus of Soli, Phaenomena) (ff. 36r-48v);

6. De Concordia solaris cursus et lunaris, De Concordia maris et lunae, and De praesagiis tempestatum presagia solis xxvii (ff. 49r-51r);

7. Macrobius, Extract from the Commentary on theSomnium Scipionis (I, 20, 14-32) (ff. 51r-52r);

8. Martianus Capella, Quo magnitudo terrae depraensa est, extract from the De nuptiis Philologiae et Mercurii (VI, 598) (ff. 52r-52v);

9. C. Plinius Secundus (Pliny the Elder), Excerpts from the Historia naturalis:De positione et cursu VII planetarum (II, c. viii-ix, 32-44); De intervallis earum (II, c. xx-xxii, 83-84); De absidibus earum (II, c. xv-xvi, 59-64); De cursu earum per zodiacum circulum (II, c. xvi, 66-67) (ff. 53v-54v);

10. Macrobius, Extract from the Commentary on the Somnium Scipionis (II, 11,5-17) (ff. 54v-55r);

11. Liber prognosticorum Arati (f. 55v);

12. Preceptum ingrediendi canonis Tholomei (ff. 55v-68r);

13. Calendrical tables to Preceptum ingrediendi canonis Tholomei (ff. 70r-73v);

14. Martianus Capella, De Astronomia, extract from the De nuptiis Philologiae et Mercurii, book 8 (ff. 74r-83v);

15. Boethius, excerpts from the De divisione liber (ff. 84v-85v)

16. Remigius (Remi) of Auxerre, Commentarius super Marcianum de Capella (ff. 86r-93v).

Decoration:

21 images of constellations (ff. 36r-44v); diagrams (ff. 31v, 53r, 65r); outline drawing of a bird (f. 84r).

Collection Area:

Western Manuscripts

Project / Collection:

Harley Collection
Harley Science Project

Hierarchy Tree:

[{ "id" : "040-001608922", "parent" : "#", "text" : "Harley MS 2506: Collection of astronomical and astrological treatises" , "li_attr" : {"class": "orderable"} },{ "id" : "041-001608924", "parent" : "040-001608922", "text" : "Harley MS 2506, ff 1r-30r: Hyginus, De Astronomia" },{ "id" : "041-001608925", "parent" : "040-001608922", "text" : "Harley MS 2506, ff 30r-30v: Priscian, De duodecim signis" },{ "id" : "041-001608926", "parent" : "040-001608922", "text" : "Harley MS 2506, ff 30v-32r: Abbo of Fleury, De differentia circuli et sphere, and De cursu septem planetarum per zodiacum circulum" },{ "id" : "041-001608927", "parent" : "040-001608922", "text" : "Harley MS 2506, ff 33r-35r: De nominibus stellarum" },{ "id" : "041-001608928", "parent" : "040-001608922", "text" : "Harley MS 2506, ff 36r-48v: Marcus Tullius Cicero, Aratea (translation of Aratus of Soli, Phaenomena)" },{ "id" : "041-001608929", "parent" : "040-001608922", "text" : "Harley MS 2506, ff 49r-51r: De Concordia solaris cursus et lunaris, De Concordia maris et lunae, and De praesagiis tempestatum presagia solis xxvii" },{ "id" : "041-001608930", "parent" : "040-001608922", "text" : "Harley MS 2506, ff 51r-52r: Macrobius, Extract from the Commentary on the somnium Scipionis (I, 20, 14-32)" },{ "id" : "041-001608931", "parent" : "040-001608922", "text" : "Harley MS 2506, ff 52r-52v: Martianus Capella, Quo magnitudo terrae depraensa est, extract from the De nuptiis Philologiae et Mercurii (VI, 598)" },{ "id" : "041-001608933", "parent" : "040-001608922", "text" : "Harley MS 2506, ff 53r-54v: C. Plinius Secundus (Pliny the Elder), Excerpts from the Historia naturalis: De positione et cursu VII planetarum (II, c.…" },{ "id" : "041-001608934", "parent" : "040-001608922", "text" : "Harley MS 2506, ff 54v-55r: Macrobius, Extract from the Commentary on the Somnium Scipionis (II, 11,5-17)" },{ "id" : "041-001608936", "parent" : "040-001608922", "text" : "Harley MS 2506, f 55v: Liber prognosticorum Arati" },{ "id" : "041-001608937", "parent" : "040-001608922", "text" : "Harley MS 2506, ff 55v-68r: Preceptum ingrediendi canonis Tholomei" },{ "id" : "041-001608938", "parent" : "040-001608922", "text" : "Harley MS 2506, ff 70r-73v: Calendrical tables to Preceptum ingrediendi canonis Tholomei" },{ "id" : "041-001608940", "parent" : "040-001608922", "text" : "Harley MS 2506, ff 74r-83v: Martianus Capella, De Astronomia, extract from the De nuptiis Philologiae et Mercurii, book 8" },{ "id" : "041-001608942", "parent" : "040-001608922", "text" : "Harley MS 2506, ff 84v-85v: Boethius, excerpts from the De divisione liber" },{ "id" : "041-001608945", "parent" : "040-001608922", "text" : "Harley MS 2506, ff 86r-93v: Remigius (Remi) of Auxerre, Commentarius super Marcianum de Capella" }]

Hierarchy Record Ids:

032-002045828
040-001608922

Is part of:

Harley MS 1-7661 : Harley Manuscripts

Harley MS 2506 : Collection of astronomical and astrological treatises

Contains:

Click here to View / search full list of parts of Harley MS 2506

Hierarchy:

032-002045828[2507]/040-001608922

Container:

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

Record Type (Level):

File

Extent:

93 folios.

Digitised Content:

http://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/FullDisplay.aspx?ref=Harley_MS_2506 (digital images currently unavailable)

Thumbnail:

Languages:

Latin

Scripts:

Latin

Start Date:

0995

End Date:

1005

Date Range:

c 990-c 1000

Era:

Access:

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User Conditions:

Physical Characteristics:

Materials: Parchment codex.

Dimensions: 295 x 215 mm (text space: 230 x 170 mm).

Foliation: ff. vii + 93.

Script: Caroline minuscule.

Binding: Post-1600 black leather binding with gold tooling on inside covers and gilt edges.

Custodial History:

Origin: France, Central (Fleury).

Provenance:

Perhaps brought to England by Abbo of Fleury or given later to the Benedictines at Ramsey.

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), II (1808), no. 2506.

Francis Wormald, ‘The Survival of Anglo-Saxon Illumination after the Norman Conquest’, Proceedings of the British Academy, 30 (1944), p. 130, pl. Ib.

F. Saxl and H. Meier, Verzeichnis astrologischer und mythologischer illustrierter Handschriften des lateinischen Mittelalters. III: Handschriften in englischen Bibliotheken (London, 1953), pp. 157-60.

M.W. Evans, Medieval Drawings (London, New York, Sydney and Toronto: Hamlyn, 1969), no. 13.

T.A.M. Bishop, English Caroline Minuscule (Oxford, 1971), p. xii, nos.18, 20.

Elżbieta Temple, Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts 900-1066, A Survey of Manuscripts Illuminated in the British Isles, 2 (London: Harvey Miller, 1976), no. 42, pp. 19, 64, 66, 67, 104, 116.

Linda Ehrsam Voigts, ‘One Anglo-Saxon View of the Classical Gods’, Studies in Iconography, University of Northern Kentucky, 3 (1977), 3-16 (p. 14, n. 29).

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. 19.

Texts and Transmission: A Survey of the Latin Classics, ed. by L.D. Reynolds (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1983), pp. 22-24, 187-88.

The Golden Age of Anglo-Saxon Art 966-1066, ed. by Janet Backhouse, D. H. Turner, and Leslie Webster (London: British Museum, 1984), no. 43, pl. X [exhibition catalogue].

Michelle Brown, Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts (London: British Library, 1991), p. 30, pl. 26.

Michael Lapidge, ‘Abbot Germanus, Winchcombe, Ramsey and the Cambridge Psalter’, in Words, Texts and Manuscripts: Studies in Anglo-Saxon Culture Presented to Helmut Gneuss on the Occasion of his Sixty-Fifty Birthday, ed. by Michael Korhammer with Karl Reichl and Hans Sauer (Woodbridge: Brewer, 1992), pp. 99-129 (p. 111).

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

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).

Melanie Holcomb, Pen and Parchment: Drawing in the Middle Ages (New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2009), p. 9, no. 13 [exhibition catalogue].

Richard Gameson, ‘An Itinerant English master around the Millennium’, in England and the Continent in the Tenth Century: Studies in Honour of Wilhelm Levison (1876-1947), ed. by D. Rollason, C. Leyser, and H. Williams (Turnhout: Brepols, '2010', recte 2011), pp. 87-134 (pp. 100-05).

Elly Dekker, Illustrating the Phaenomena: Celestial Cartography in Antiquity and the Middle Ages (Oxford: University Press, 2013), p. 146.

Material Type:

Archives and Manuscripts

Legal Status:

Not Public Record(s)