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Harley MS 6331

Record Id:

040-001628019

Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:

040-001628019

MDARK:

ark:/81055/vdc_100000000152.0x00038f

LARK:

SLARK:

Format:

ISAD(G)

Reference (shelfmark):

Harley MS 6331

Title:

Several works of Aristotle

Scope & Content:

Contains several works of Aristotle:

Physica (ff. 3r-55v);

De somno et vigilia (ff. 56r-64v);

De vita et morte (ff. 64v-68v);

Liber methaurorum, imperfect (ff. 69r-107v);

De caelo et mundo (ff. 107v-142v);

De somno et vigilia (ff. 142v-149r);

De memoria et reminiscentia (ff. 149r-151v);

De generatione et coruptione (ff. 152r-161v);

De anima (ff. 162r-173v).

Decoration:

23 large and smaller decorated initials in gold and colours with acanthus extending into the margin (ff. 3r, 9r, 16r, 25v, 31v, 39v, 44r, 64v, 66v, 80v, 93r, 97v, 107v, 120r, 131r, 138v, 142v, 145v, 152r, 158r, 162r, 165v, 170r). Large puzzle initial in blue and red with pen-flourishing in purple and red (f. 119v). Numerous initials in red with purple pen-flourishing or in blue with red pen-flourishing. Some capitals with penwork decoration in brown (only ff. 162r-172v).

Collection Area:

Western Manuscripts

Project / Collection:

Harley Collection
Harley Science Project

Hierarchy Tree:

[{ "id" : "040-001628019", "parent" : "#", "text" : "Harley MS 6331: Several works of Aristotle" , "li_attr" : {"class": "orderable"} },{ "id" : "041-001654805", "parent" : "040-001628019", "text" : "Harley MS 6331, ff 3r-55v: Aristotle, Physica" },{ "id" : "041-001654807", "parent" : "040-001628019", "text" : "Harley MS 6331, ff 56r-64v: Aristotle, De somno et vigilia" },{ "id" : "041-001654808", "parent" : "040-001628019", "text" : "Harley MS 6331, ff 64v-68r: Aristotle, De vita et morte" },{ "id" : "041-001654809", "parent" : "040-001628019", "text" : "Harley MS 6331, ff 69r-107v: Aristotle, Liber methaurorum (imperfect)" },{ "id" : "041-001654810", "parent" : "040-001628019", "text" : "Harley MS 6331, ff 107v-142v: Aristotle, De caelo et mundo" },{ "id" : "041-001654811", "parent" : "040-001628019", "text" : "Harley MS 6331, ff 142v-149r: Aristotle, De somno et vigilia" },{ "id" : "041-001654812", "parent" : "040-001628019", "text" : "Harley MS 6331, ff 149r-151v: Aristotle, De memoria et reminiscentia" },{ "id" : "041-001654813", "parent" : "040-001628019", "text" : "Harley MS 6331, ff 152r-161v: Aristotle, De generatione et corruptione" },{ "id" : "041-001654814", "parent" : "040-001628019", "text" : "Harley MS 6331, ff 162r-173v: Aristotle, De anima" }]

Hierarchy Record Ids:

032-002045828
040-001628019

Is part of:

Harley MS 1-7661 : Harley Manuscripts

Harley MS 6331 : Several works of Aristotle

Contains:

Click here to View / search full list of parts of Harley MS 6331

Hierarchy:

032-002045828[6336]/040-001628019

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_6331 (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:

Letter of introduction required to view this manuscript

Physical Characteristics:

Materials: Parchment codex. This manuscript is partially a palimpsest probably of an unfinished choirbook, as the lines are unusually spaced, as if to leave space for musical notation never added (ff. 69r-151r).

Dimensions: 265 x 195 mm (text space: 175 x 100 mm, except ff. 162r-173v: 185 x 100 mm).

Foliation. ff. ii + 173. Catchwords and quire signatures.

Scrript: Gothic. Written by several scribes including Roger: colophon 'Qui legit hoc scriptum benedicit sepe Rogerium Amen' (f. 64v).

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

Custodial History:

Origin: Italy.

Provenance:

Erased medieval inscriptions added in the margins (ff. 87v, 133v-134r).

Inscribed 'Ego Barth[olom]eus Forlii ...', late 14th or early 15th century (f. 3r); and in a similar hand 'Ego Thomasus (?) hac notis ope...' (f. 173v).

Sozomeno da Pistoia (Zomino; Sozomenus) (b. 1387 at Pistoia, d. 1458), studied at the University of Padua in 1407-13, belonged to the Poggio group of humanists at Florence, where he held the chair of Poetry and Rhetoric: inscribed 'Mess[er] Zomino' (f. 2v) and notarial inscriptions (ff. 3r and 173v).

Added texts in various medieval hands, including a list of chapters 14th-15th centuries (ff. 1v-2v).

John Gibson (fl. 1720-1726), dealer; sold to Edward Harley on 22 June 1726 (Diary 1966; Wright 1972).

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, inscribed as usual by their librarian, HumfreyWanley ‘22 die Junij, A.D. 1726’ (f. 1r).

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), III (1808), no. 6331.

George Lacombe, Aristoteles Latinus (Rome: Libreria dello Stato, 1939), no. 305.

The Diary of Humfrey Wanley 1715-1726, ed. by C. E. Wright and Ruth C. Wright, 2 vols (London: Bibliographical Society, 1966), II: 1723-1726, p. 338 n. 5.

Cyril Ernest Wright, Fontes Harleiani: A Study of the Sources of the Harleian Collection of Manuscripts in the British Museum (London: British Museum, 1972), pp. 162, 368-69.

Cyril Ernest Wright, 'Manuscripts of Italian Provenance in the Harleian Collection in the British Museum: Their Sources, Associations and Channels of Acquisition', in Cultural Aspects of the Italian Renaissance. Essays in Honour of Paul Oskar Kristeller, ed. by C. H. Clough (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1976), pp. 462-84 (p. 481 n. 27).

Material Type:

Archives and Manuscripts

Legal Status:

Not Public Record(s)