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Harley MS 57

Record Id:

040-001609005

Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:

040-001609005

MDARK:

ark:/81055/vdc_100000001442.0x000282

LARK:

SLARK:

Format:

ISAD(G)

Reference (shelfmark):

Harley MS 57

Title:

Albertus Magnus, De mineralibus et lapidibus

Scope & Content:

The manuscript includes Albertus Magnus, De mineralibus et lapidibus (ff. 2r-25v) and an excerpt from the Distinctiones de vita eterna (ff. 26r-27v).

A small parchment label pasted on f. 1r includes a 14th-century inscription providing a table of contents for the volume signed by an early owner, the Dominican John Beauchamp or Johannes de Bellocampo (ordained in 1334), 'Minerarium alberti. Item Kylwardby de ortu scientiarum / Item tractatus de motu et tempore. Item tractatus de relationibus / Beuchamp.' This list was removed from an earlier binding and is now pasted onto a parchment flyleaf (f. 1r). This table of contents suggests that the manuscript was originally part of a larger volume including three treatises by the Dominican Robert Kilwardby (d. 1279), Archbishop of Canterbury. The second part of the original volume has been identified in Cotton Vitellius A I, ff. 173r-222v, an early 14th-century copy of Robert Kilwardby's De ortu scientiarum (ff. 173r-209r), De tempore (ff. 209r-214v), and De natura relationis (ff. 214v-222v) (see Kilwardby 1987). It was written by a different scribe, but on parchment leaves of the same quality and dimensions, with similar lay-out and Italian style decoration for the illuminated (f. 173r) and decorated initials, and marginalia analogous to those in the present volume. The same hand that added the title on f. 2r of the present manuscript, wrote the table of contents on f. 222v of the Cotton manuscript listing Kilwardby's treatises as they can be found in the volume.

Decoration:

1 initial in gold and colours at the beginning of the text (f. 2r) and 2 ink diagrams in red, yellow, and blue (ff. 18v, 19, lower inner margins) representing the vessels for the fusion of metals described in the text (Book 3, treatise I, chapter x). Decorated book and chapter initials (2-3 lines) in red. Guide-letters to initials throughout. Paragraph marks in red throughout. Headings in red ink, with scribal guide wording in the margins, often cropped.

Instructions for rubrics are written in lower margins.

Collection Area:

Western Manuscripts

Project / Collection:

Harley Collection
Harley Science Project

Hierarchy Tree:

[{ "id" : "040-001609005", "parent" : "#", "text" : "Harley MS 57: Albertus Magnus, De mineralibus et lapidibus" , "li_attr" : {"class": "orderable"} },{ "id" : "041-001609134", "parent" : "040-001609005", "text" : "Harley Ms 57, ff 2r-25v: Albertus Magnus, De mineralibus et lapidibus" },{ "id" : "041-001609141", "parent" : "040-001609005", "text" : "Harley MS 57, ff 26r-27v: Excerpt from the Distinctiones de vita eterna" }]

Hierarchy Record Ids:

032-002045828
040-001609005

Is part of:

Harley MS 1-7661 : Harley Manuscripts

Harley MS 57 : Albertus Magnus, De mineralibus et lapidibus

Contains:

Harley Ms 57, ff 2r-25v : Albertus Magnus, De mineralibus et lapidibus
Harley MS 57, ff 26r-27v : Excerpt from the Distinctiones de vita eterna

Click here to View / search full list of parts of Harley MS 57

Hierarchy:

032-002045828[0056]/040-001609005

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_57 (digital images currently unavailable)

Thumbnail:

Languages:

Latin

Scripts:

Latin

Start Date:

1300

End Date:

1349

Date Range:

1st half of the 14th century

Era:

Access:

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User Conditions:

Physical Characteristics:

Materials: Parchment codex.

Dimensions: 271 x 198 mm (text space: 240 x 133/142 mm).

Foliation: ff. xliii + 27.

Collation: Gatherings on modern guards: i⁶⁺¹ (including original front flyleaf; ff. 1-7), ii¹⁰ (ff. 8-17), iii^4-2 (third and fourth blank leaves cancelled; ff. 18-19), iv⁶ (ff. 20-25), v² (fragment: an unknown number of leaves missing; ff. 26-27), with fleshsides out and horizontal catchwords underlined in red or in red cartouche in lower margin of right column on last versos.

Layout: Pricked on hairsides and ruled (double bounding lines) in lead point for double columns of 52 lines. Text below top line.

Script: Gothic cursive.

Binding: British Museum/British Library in-house binding.

Custodial History:

Origin:

Italy.

Provenance:

The title 'minerarium alberti' (f. 2r) added by a 14th-century English hand.

John de Beauchamp, a Dominican ordered in 1334: inscribed with his name 'J(ohannes) de Bellocampo' (f. 2r) (see Wright 1972, Kilwardby 1987).

John Leland (b. c.1503, d. 1552), poet and antiquary (see Wright 1972); acquired on 18 May 1556 by John Dee.

John Dee (b. 1527, d. 1609), mathematician, astrologer, and antiquary (see Wright 1972; Roberts and Watson 1990): his astrological marks of ownership (Jupiter symbol) (ff. 1, 2); his MS 38 in 1556 and MS 107 in 1583 (see James 1921, Watson 1958); acquired in 1625 by Sir Simonds D'Ewes (see Watson 1966).

Sir Simonds d'Ewes (b.1602, d. 1650), 1st baronet, diarist, antiquary, and friend of Sir Robert Cotton (see Watson 1966, Wright 1972): his MS 227 (see Additional MS 22917, f. 9v; see Watson 1958).

Sir Simonds D’Ewes (d. 1722), 3rd baronet and grandson of the former: inherited and later sold the D’Ewes library to Robert Harley on 4 October 1705 for £450 (see Additional MS 70478 (formerly Loan 29/254 packet 2); see Watson 1966; Wright and Wright 1966).

The Harley Collection, formed by Robert Harley (b. 1661, d. 1724), 1st earl of Oxford and Mortimer, politician, and Edward Harley (b. 1689, 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 (b. 1694, d. 1755) during her lifetime and thereafter to their daughter, Margaret Cavendish Bentinck (b. 1715, 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 (1808), no. 57.

Montague R. James, Lists of manuscripts formerly owned by Dr John Dee, with preface and identifications, Transactions of the Bibliographical Society, Supplement, no. 1 (London: Oxford University Press for the Bibliographical Society, 1921), p. 13, listed as A38.

Dorothea W. Singer, Catalogue of Latin and Vernacular Alchemical Manuscripts in Great Britain and Ireland, dating from before the XVI Century (Brussels: Maurice Lamertin, 1931), I, p. 152, no. 176, xii.

Andrew G. Watson, 'An Identification of some Manuscripts owned by Dr. John Dee and Sir Simonds D'Ewes', The Library, 5th series, 13 (1958), 194-98 (p. 197).

Andrew G. Watson, The Library of Sir Simonds D'Ewes (London: British Museum, 1966), nos. A863, *C231, B227.

The Diary of Humfrey Wanley 1715-1726, ed. by Cyril E. Wright and Ruth C. Wright, 2 vols (London: Bibliographical Society, 1966), I: 1715-1723, p. xviii n. 3.

Cyril E. Wright, Fontes Harleiani: A Study of the Sources of the Harleian Collection of Manuscripts in the British Museum (London: British Museum, 1972), pp. 69, 126, 131, 218, 372.

Winfried Fauser, Codices manuscripti operum Alberti Magni (Aschendorff: Münster Westfalen, 1982), p. 71.

Robert Kilwardby, On time and Imagination: De Tempore, De Spiritu fantastico, ed. by P. Osmund Lewry, Auctores Britannici Medii Aevi, 9 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987), I, p. xxvi-xxviii.

John Dee's Library Catalogue, ed. by R. Julian Roberts and Andrew G. Watson (London: Bibliographical Society, 1990), pp. 17, 64 n. 78, 122, 153 as [CM 38].

Material Type:

Archives and Manuscripts

Legal Status:

Not Public Record(s)