Harley MS 2660

The volume contains the Etymologiae by Isidore of Seville (599-636), an encyclopedia in twenty books dedicated to Braulio, Bishop of Saragossa (631-651), the editor of the text. Isidore of Seville's De natura rerum (ff. 33r-48v), a short treatise on physics, astronomy and geography, composed around 612-615 at the request of Sisebut, King of the Visigoths (r. 612-621), is incorporated between book IV and V of the Etymologiae. The main text is preceded by four letters of correspondence between Isidore and Braulio (ff. 1r-3r) .

Contents as follows:

ff. 1r-33r, 45r-175v, Isidore, Bishop of Seville, Etymologiae, Books I-XX. Preceded by four letters between St. Isidore and Braulio Bishop of Saragossa (see Patrologiae Cursus Completus... Series latina, ed. by J.-P. Migne, vols 1-161 (Paris 1857-1866), 83, cols. 908D-909A, 910A-914C, letters ix, xi-xiii), rubric (f. 1v): 'Incipit prologus Ysidori episcopi in / librum ethimologiarum / ad Braulionem episcopum', incipit: 'Domino meo et dei / servo Braulioni / episcopo. Hysidorus. Omni / desiderio desideravi nunc / videre faciem tuam', explicit (f. 3r): 'remittantur / facinora. Item manu sua. Ora pro nobis be/atissime frater'; table of contents, incipit (f. 3r): 'Tu valeas que requiris / cito in hoc corpore invenire / haec tibi lector pagina monstrat / de quibus rebus in libris singulis / conditor huius codicis disputavit / In libro primo de grammatica et partibus eius', explicit (f. 3v): 'In xxo de mensis … sive de instrumentis equorum'; rubric (f. 3v): 'Incipit liber ethi/mologiarum Ysidori episcopi / De Discipli/na'; incipit: 'Disci/plina / a discen/do nomen accepit. / unde & scientia / dici potest', explicit (f. 175v) 'ut vis morbi ignis ardore / siccetur. / Explicit liber Vicesimus / Ysidori / ethimologiarum Ad / Braulionem / episcopum'.

The twenty books relate to: Book I (ff. 3v-15v), grammar; Book II (ff. 15v-25r), rhetoric and logic; Book III (ff. 25r-33r), mathematics, arithmetic, music, geometry and astronomy (i.e. the arts of the Quadrivium), with astronomy (ff. 29v-33r) numbered as Book iv; Book V, 28 - 39 (ff. 45r-48v), entitled here 'Liber de Temporibus', including (ff. 34r, 35v, 36v, 37r, 41v) six diagrams; Book IV (ff. 48v-52r), medicine; Book V, 1 - 27 (ff. 52r-56r), laws and division of time (calendars); Book VI (ff. 56r-64v), biblical Scripture, canon law, and the liturgical calendar, including (ff. 60v-61r) tables for Easter cycles; Book VII (ff. 64v-74r), names of the celestial hierarchy, holy fathers, martyrs, and clergy; Book VIII (ff. 74r-82v), various religions, including heresies and paganism, philosophy, poetry, and art of divination; Book IX (ff. 82v-92v), languages, and their names, including diagrams (ff. 90v, 91r, 91v); Book X (ff. 92v-99v), alphabetical glossary of substantives and adjectives relating to mankind and human qualities; Book XI (ff. 99v-106v), the human body and medicine; Book XII (ff. 106v-117v), various animals; Book XIII (ff. 117v-123v), celestial and terrestrial elements, such as air, water, sea, and rivers; Book XIV (ff. 123v-131v), geographical aspects of the earth, including a diagram (f. 123v); Book XV (ff. 131v/132r-139r), aspects of human settlements such as cities, villages, fields and their boundaries, and travels; Book XVI (ff. 139r-148v), stone, ivory, marble, metals, and weights and measures; Book XVII (ff. 148v-158r), agriculture and its products; Book XVIII (ff. 158r-163v), war, weapons and trophies, and games; Book XIX (ff. 163v-171v), ships, metal smithing, building construction, clothing, vesture, and ornaments; Book XX (ff. 171v-175v), furniture, implements for drinking and eating, vehicles, country life and gardening, and saddlery.

Each book is preceded by a table of contents, with the exception of books I, X, XI, XII. A few (ff. 114r, 115r, 118v) scribal marginal notabilia; occasional marginalia added by later readers, including a 13th-century documentary hand to the first two books, and by a 15th-century hand (ff. 124-128), possibly the same hand which drew the wind diagram on f. 41v.

Other copies of the text in Additional MS 15603, Additional MS 21998, Additional MS 22797, and Additional MS 22798, Arundel MS 129, Burney MS 326 and Burney MS 328, Harley MS 6, Harley MS 2686, Harley MS 3025 (only Books VI-IX), Harley MS 3035, Harley MS 3099, and Harley MS 3941, Egerton MS 2835, Royal MS 6 C. i and Royal MS 12 F. iv (ff. 21r-197v); excerpts from Book I in Harley MS 2713 (ff. 1r-34r), from Book IV in Royal MS 12 E. xx (ff. 151v-154r), and from Book V in Additional MS 8167 (ff. 3r-30v).

First edition printed by Günther Zainer in Augsburg on 19 Nov. 1472: see Fredrick R. Goff, Incunabula in American Libraries: A Third Census of Fifteenth-Century Books Recorded in North American Collections (New York: The Bibliographical Society of America, 1964), I181, ISTC ii00181000 (British Library copies are IB.5438, IB.5441, IB.5441a, G.7633, Hirsch.I.255, Hirsch.I.256).

For modern editions see PL, lxxxii (1850), 73-728, based on the edition by Arévalo, vols. 3-4 (1798-1801); Lindsay (1911); individual editions of single books by M. Fontaine and others, Auteurs latins du Moyen Âge, Les Belles Lettres (Paris, 1981-), for which see 'Compte rendu du Colloque Isidorien tenu à l'Institut d'Études latines de l'Université de Paris le 23 Juin 1970', Revue d'histoire des textes, 2 (1972), 282-88; Isidoro de Sevilla, Etimologias, ed. Jose Oroz Reta and Manuel A. Marcos Casquero (Madrid, 1982-1983), with Spanish translation. For an English translation of Books IV and XI see W. D. Sharpe, Isidore of Seville: The Medical Writings. An English translation with an introduction and commentary, Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, n.s., 54, part 2 (Philadelphia, 1964). For the incipits of Books IV, XVI 25-27, XX 3, and other excerpts see Beccaria 1956, pp. 149 (26.8), 172 (35.34), 258 (78.22), 322 (106.9), 420, and L. Thorndike and P. Kibre, Catalogue of Incipits of Medieval Scientific Writings in Latin, The Mediaeval Academy of America Publication, 29 (London, 1963; with supplements in 1965 and 1968), 0857F, 1059K, 1079F, 1375H.

ff. 33r-45v Isidore of Seville, De natura rerum.

The treatise is dedicated to Sisebut, King of the Visigoths, and is divided into 48 chapters relating to hemerology (the division of time in days, weeks, months, and years), cosmography, astronomy, and meteorology. Rubric 'Incipit liber .v. / Ysidori De rerum / natura Ad Sifo/potum regem. Incipit / prefatio. T i.'; incipit: prologue 'Domino et / filio. Si/sopoto. Ysi/dorus / Dum te prestante / ingenio facundiaque', explicit: prologue (f. 33r) 'gentiles vel / ecclesiasticos viros novimus erequamur [sic]', rubric 'De diebus', incipit (f. 33v): 'Dies est Solis orientis presentia / quousque ad occasum perveniat', explicit: 'atque insigniori / lumine decorata semetipsam latius in toto / orbe diffuderit [sic]'.

The text in the present manuscript is almost complete, but for the omission of chapter xliv (De nominibus maris et fluminum); however some chapters have been moved from the position regarded as original by modern editors: (a) chapters xv - xxi (ff. 43v-45r) have been copied at the end of the text, and therefore the text ends here with chapter xxi (De Eclypsin lunae); (b) chapter xlviii (De partibus terre; ff. 39v-40r), originally the last, is found between chapters xxviii (De nocte) and xxix (De tonitruo) in a version longer than the one published by Fontaine in 1960 (see below). The same chapter order is found in Harley MS 3035 (ff. 47r-63v; dated 1496).

Other copies of the text with the traditional chapter order in Cotton MS Vitellius A. xii (ff. 46v-63v; 11th century), and Harley MS 3099 (ff. 154r-164v; 12th century). The first edition printed by Günther Zainer in Augsburg on 7 Dec. 1472, has the same chapter order as the present manuscript, but it includes chapter 44 (see Fontaine pp. 141-142): see Fredrick R. Goff, Incunabula in American Libraries: A Third Census of Fifteenth-Century Books Recorded in North American Collections (New York: The Bibliographical Society of America, 1964), I191, ISTC ii00191000 (British Library copies are IB.5439 and IB.5439a).

For modern editions see Patrologiae Cursus Completus... Series latina, ed. by J.-P. Migne, vols 1-161 (Paris 1857-1866), lxxxiii (1850), 963A-1016C, based on the edition by Arévalo, 7 (1803), pp. 1-62; G. Becker, Isidori Hispalensis, De natura rerum liber (Berlin, 1857), text on pp. 1-78; Isidore de Seville, Traité de la nature, ed. by J. Fontaine, Bibliothèque de l'École des Hautes Étude Hispaniques, 28 (Bordeaux, 1960), pp. 165-316 (with French translation): Fontaine's list of manuscripts on pp. 20-38 omits the present one and does not include any other manuscript with this particular chapter order, which is therefore accounted by Fontaine only in the Zainer edition of 1472.

Decoration:

Large historiated initial with an image of Christ blessing in red, brown, and yellow (f. 92v). Large initials in red with clasps and/or foliate decoration, 1 (f. 1v) with zoomorphic features on a yellow ground (ff. 1v, 3v, 15v, 20r, 25r, 29v, 33r, 45r, 48v, 99v, 106v, 117v, 120r, 132r, 158r, 161v, 163v, 171v). The last five initials by a different hand. Large initials in red, some with penwork decoration. Small initials in brown, a few with faces (ff. 147v, 148, 148v). Chapter initials in red, set partly in the margin; paragraph initials touched in red; sentence initials set in the left margin when at beginning of lines. Headings, rubrics, marginal chapter numbers, and book incipits and explicit (f. 175v) in uncial capitals and minuscules, in red or black ink touched in red or sometimes yellow.

Decorated square or round diagrams (ff. 34v, 35v, 36v, 37r, 41v, 90v (affinity), 91r (consanguinity), 91v (consanguinity), 123v (map of the world)), Easter tables (ff. 60v-61r), and small diagrams (ff. 26v-27v) in red and dark brown ink, occasionally (ff. 36v, 91v) tinted in yellow; diagram (f. 41v) representing the winds added by a 15th-century hand (German) to the allocated space, originally left blank.