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Harley MS 3915

Record Id:

040-001615479

Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:

040-001615479

MDARK:

ark:/81055/vdc_100000001515.0x000021

LARK:

SLARK:

Format:

ISAD(G)

Reference (shelfmark):

Harley MS 3915

Title:

Collection of chemical, alchemical and medical recipes and texts on techniques and technology of various arts

Scope & Content:

f. 1v: A recipe for making colours, an extract from the Mappae clavicula.

ff. 2r-109v: Theophilus, De diversis artibus.

ff. 109v-113v: Heraclius, De coloribus et artibus romanorum.

ff. 114r-114v: De temperamento vesice escivi: an extract from a text on book illumination.

ff. 114v-115v: De signis investigande aque: excerpt from M. Vitruvius Pollio, De architectura, book 8, 3.

ff. 115v-119v: Excerpts from the Liber de coloribus and Mappae clavicula.

ff. 120r-142v: De ungentis: a collection of medical and alchemical recipes.

f. 142v: A recipe for making ink.

ff. 143r-143v: Three alchemical recipes.

ff. 143v-144v: A text on the preservation of health.

ff. 145v-146r: Medical and chemical recipes.

f. 146r: A medical recipe.

ff. 146v-147r: A recipe for making glaze.

ff. 147r-147v: Two recipes, one for a spiced wine.

f. 148r: A recipe for making parchment Ad faciendas cartas de pellibus caprinis more bononiense.

ff. 148v-149r: Two recipes for making ink.

f. 149v: An autograph note of Nicholas of Cusa recording the acquisition of the manuscript.

f. 150r: Notes.

Decoration:

Large and smaller initials in red, occasionally with some penwork decoration, three including an animal head (ff. 18v, 33v, 79v). Drawing in crayon of an ornament (f. 9v).

Collection Area:

Western Manuscripts

Project / Collection:

Harley Collection
Harley Science Project

Hierarchy Tree:

[{ "id" : "040-001615479", "parent" : "#", "text" : "Harley MS 3915: Collection of chemical, alchemical and medical recipes and texts on techniques and technology of various arts" , "li_attr" : {"class": "orderable"} },{ "id" : "041-001615481", "parent" : "040-001615479", "text" : "Harley MS 3915, f 1v: A recipe for making colours: extract from the Mappae clavicula" },{ "id" : "041-001615494", "parent" : "040-001615479", "text" : "Harley MS 3915, ff 2r-109v: Theophilus, De diversis artibus" },{ "id" : "041-001615495", "parent" : "040-001615479", "text" : "Harley MS 3915, ff 109v-113v: Heraclius, De coloribus et artibus romanorum" },{ "id" : "041-001615498", "parent" : "040-001615479", "text" : "Harley MS 3915, ff 114r-114v: De temperamento vesice escivi" },{ "id" : "041-001615500", "parent" : "040-001615479", "text" : "Harley MS 3915, ff 114v-115v: De signis investigande aque: an excerpt from M. Vitruvius Pollio, De architectura" },{ "id" : "041-001615502", "parent" : "040-001615479", "text" : "Harley MS 3915, ff 115v-119v: Excerpts from the Liber de coloribus and Mappae clavicula" },{ "id" : "041-001615503", "parent" : "040-001615479", "text" : "Harley MS 3915, ff 120r-142v: De ungentis" },{ "id" : "041-001615512", "parent" : "040-001615479", "text" : "Harley MS 3915, f 142v: A recipe for making ink" },{ "id" : "041-001615514", "parent" : "040-001615479", "text" : "Harley MS 3915, ff 143r-143v: Three alchemical recipes" },{ "id" : "041-001615517", "parent" : "040-001615479", "text" : "Harley MS 3915, ff 143v-144v: A text on the preservation of health" },{ "id" : "041-001615519", "parent" : "040-001615479", "text" : "Harley MS 3915, ff 145v-146r: Medical and chemical recipes" },{ "id" : "041-001615520", "parent" : "040-001615479", "text" : "Harley MS 3915, f 146r: Medical recipe" },{ "id" : "041-001615521", "parent" : "040-001615479", "text" : "Harley MS 3915, ff 146v-147r: Recipe for making glaze" },{ "id" : "041-001615522", "parent" : "040-001615479", "text" : "Harley MS 3915, ff 147r-147v: Two recipes, one for spiced wine" },{ "id" : "041-001615651", "parent" : "040-001615479", "text" : "Harley MS 3915, f 148r: Ad faciendas cartas de pellibus caprinis more bononiense: a recipe for making parchment" },{ "id" : "041-001615653", "parent" : "040-001615479", "text" : "Harley MS 3915, ff 148v-149r: Two recipes for making ink" },{ "id" : "041-001615654", "parent" : "040-001615479", "text" : "Harley MS 3915, f 149v: Nicholas of Cusa, an autograph note recording the acquisition of the manuscript" },{ "id" : "041-001615656", "parent" : "040-001615479", "text" : "Harley MS 3915, f 150r: Notes" }]

Hierarchy Record Ids:

032-002045828
040-001615479

Is part of:

Harley MS 1-7661 : Harley Manuscripts

Harley MS 3915 : Collection of chemical, alchemical and medical recipes and texts on techniques and technology of various arts

Contains:

Click here to View / search full list of parts of Harley MS 3915

Hierarchy:

032-002045828[3907]/040-001615479

Container:

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

Record Type (Level):

File

Extent:

Parchment manuscript

Digitised Content:

http://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/FullDisplay.aspx?ref=Harley_MS_3915 (digital images currently unavailable)

Thumbnail:

Languages:

German
Latin

Scripts:

Latin

Start Date:

1150

End Date:

1200

Date Range:

1150-1200

Era:

Access:

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User Conditions:

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Physical Characteristics:

Materials: Parchment codex.

Dimensions: 150 x 110 mm (text space: 110 x 70 mm).

Foliation: ff. 150 ( + 7 unfoliated paper flyleaves at the beginning + 4 at the end). Quire marks (in the centre of the lower margin of the verso of the last leaf of quires 1-13).

Collation: 19 gatherings of 8, except xiii⁷, xiv⁷, xix⁷. One leaf missing between ff. 102-103, another between ff. 110-111, and another between ff. 149-150.

Script: Protogothic; written by two hands (hand 1: ff. 2r-115v; hand 2: ff. 115v-142v); with added notes in Gothic cursive.

Binding: British Museum/British Library in-house binding; rebound in 1966. Remains of the Harleian binding (gold-tooled red leather, gold-tooled brown leather title plate) pasted inside the covers and on f. [iv]; traces of turn-ins of a previous binding on ff. 1r, 150r.

Custodial History:

Origin: Germany, probably produced in North-West Germany (see Theophilus (1986), p. xxxv).

Provenance:

Unidentified 12th/13th-century owner: interlinear glosses in Latin and German (ff. 143r, 144v, 145v, 148r, 148v).

A 14th-15th-century owner: recipes in German (f. 146r); partially legible German sentence (?) (f. 150r).

Nicholas of Cusa [Nicholaus von Kues, or Nicholas Cusanus] (b. 1401, d. 1464), theologian, bishop of Brixen in Tyrol in 1450 and cardinal in 1449, founder of the hospital of St Nicholas at Cues on the Mosel: purchased by him on or shortly after 19 September 1444 in Nuremberg or Munster: inscribed 'Emi ego N. hunc librum Nurenberge 1444, in die sancti lamberti in dieta inter dominum Eugenium papam et antipapam felicem' (f. 149r); probably left with his entire library to the St Nicholas hospital in his last will dated 6 August 1464.

George Suttie, agent of Nathaniel Noel (fl. 1681, d. c. 1753), bookseller, employed by Edward Harley for buying books and manuscripts chiefly on the Continent; acquired through him for the Harley Collection (for the details of the acquisition see 'Kirtisches Verzeichnis' 17 (1986), 21-56 and 10 (1973), 99).

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: [n. pub.], 1808-12), III (1808) , no. 3915.

Dorothea Waley Singer, Annie Anderson, and Robina Addis, Catalogue of Latin and Vernacular Alchemical Manuscripts in Great Britain and Ireland Dating from before the XVI Century, 3 vols (Brussels: Lamertin, 1928-1931), II, p. 596; III, p. 1043.

Daniel V. Thompson, Jr., 'The Schedula of Theophilus Presbyter', Speculum, 7 (1932), 199-220 (pp. 203, 214, 215).

Rozelle Parker Johnson, 'The Manuscripts of the Schedula of Theophilus Presbyter', Speculum, 13 (1938), 86-103 (pp. 86-89, 94, 100, 102).

J. S. Gardner and Elizabeth Eames, 'A Tile Kiln at Chertsey Abbey', The Journal of the British Archaeological Association, 17 (1954), 24-42 (pp. 28, 42).

The Diary of Humfrey Wanley 1715-1726, ed. by Cyril Ernest Wright and Ruth C. Wright, 2 vols (London: Bibliographical Society, 1966), I: 1715-1723, pp. xxxix-xl.

C. E. Wright, Fontes Harleiani: A Study of the Sources of the Harleian Collection of Manuscripts in the British Museum (London: British Museum, 1972), pp. 120, 254.

'Kritisches Verzeichnis der Londoner Handschriften aus dem Besitz des Nikolaus von Kues', Mitteilungen und Forschungsbeiträge der Cusanus-Gesellschaft, 3 (1963), 16-100; 5 (1965), 137-61; 8 (1970), 199-237; 10 (1973), 58-103 (pp. 102-03); 12 (1977), 15-71; 15 (1982), 43-56; 17 (1986), 21-56 (p. 43).

Acta Cusana: Quellen zur Lebensgeschichte des Nikolaus von Kues ed. by Erich Meuthen and Hermann Hallauer (Hamburg: Felix Meiner, 1976-), I.2 (1983), pp. 170, 469 (no. 595).

Anna Di Majo, Carlo Federici and Marco Palma, 'La Pergamena dei Codici Altomedievali Italiani: Indagine sulle Specie Animali Utilizzate', Scriptorium: Revue internationale des études relatives aux manuscrits,39 (1985), 3-12 (p. 5 n. 12).

Theophilus: 'The Various Arts' De Diversis Artibus, ed. and tr. by C. R. Dodwell (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1986), Siglum H, esp. pp. l-li, lii n. 1, lxiii-lxv, lvii and lxxi-lxxiii.

H. J. Hallauer, 'Habent sua fata libelli: von der Mossel zur Themse: Handschriften des St. Nicholaus-Hospitals in der Bibliotheca Harleiana', in Mitteilungen und Forschungsbeiträge der Cusanus-Gesellshaft, 17 (1986), pp. 21-56 (pp. 31, 43).

Heidi C. Gearhart, Theophilus’ On Diverse Arts The Persona of the Artist and the Production of Art in the Twelfth Century (unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Michigan, 2010), pp. 2, 30, 59, 66, 73, 178, 337.

Exhibitions:

Colour: The Art and Science of Illuminated Manuscripts, Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, 30 July 2016 - 2 January 2017

Material Type:

Archives and Manuscripts

Legal Status:

Not Public Record(s)

Notes:

Theophilus, De diversis artibus. Exhibited: Colour: The Art and Science of Illuminated Manuscripts, Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, 30 July 2016 - 2 January 2017.