Hard-coded id of currently selected item: . JSON version of its record is available from Blacklight on e.g. ??

Metadata associated with selected item should appear here...

Add MS 31841

Record Id:

040-002024028

Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:

032-002024016

MDARK:

ark:/81055/vdc_100000001443.0x000212

LARK:

SLARK:

Format:

ISAD(G)

Reference (shelfmark):

Add MS 31841

Title:

Christine de Pizan, Livre des trois vertus

Scope & Content:

Contents:

Christine de Pizan, Le Livre des trois vertus (The Book of the Three Virtues), an educational treatise for women composed in 1405, with the alternative title, Le Trésor de la cité des dames. Written in three books. Several folios, including the opening folio, are missing, and six folios from Book 1 are bound at the end.

Boston, Municipal Library, MS 1528 contains a similar miniature and is a complete copy of the same version of the text, which survives in some 20 copies in total.

ff. 2r-40v: Book 1, chapters 1-23 (imperfect) beginning at the second line of no. xxv of the table of contents, 'que la sage dame ou damoyselle...' ending at, 'Cy fine la permiere parte dece p[rese]nt livre'.

ff. 41r-63r: Book 2, beginning with the rubric, 'Cy commence la iie p[ar]tie de ce livre', ending 'Cy finist la ii^me p[ar]tie de ce p[rese]nt volume'.

ff 63v-64v: Book 3 (fragment), beginning with a table of contents, ending in chapter 1, at 'bonnement les ont apportez et le tort qui out...(f. 64v)

ff. 65r-70v : A section from book 1, beginning in chapter 24 at '... de ce que ci elle est a faire en maniere' ending at Chapter 27 'bon gre ou mal gre que avoir envoye de lui sign...'. (f. 70v).

Decoration:

A miniature in colours and gold of Christine de Pizan lying on a bed awakened by the three Virtues: Reason, holding a gold mirror, Rectitude, holding a gold ruler, and Justice, holding a gold container (damaged), with rinceau border in colours and gold (f. 2v). 3 initials in blue with foliate decoration in rose and blue on gold grounds at the beginning of each of the three books (ff. 2v, 41r, 64r). Partial rinceau borders in colours and gold (ff. 41r, 64r) Initials in gold on blue and rose grounds. Rubrics and paraphs in red.

Collection Area:

Western Manuscripts

Project / Collection:

Additional Manuscripts

Hierarchy Record Ids:

032-002024016
040-002024028

Is part of:

Add MS 31830-31845 : Burges bequest

Add MS 31841 : Christine de Pizan, Livre des trois vertus

Hierarchy:

032-002024016[0012]/040-002024028

Container:

View / search within Archive / Collection: Add MS 31830-31845

Record Type (Level):

File

Extent:

1 volume

Digitised Content:

Languages:

French, Middle

Scripts:

Latin

Start Date:

1400

End Date:

1499

Date Range:

15th century

Era:

Access:

Please request the physical items you need using the online collection item request form.

Digitised items can be viewed online by clicking the thumbnail image or digitised content link.

Readers who have registered or renewed their pass since 21 March 2024 can request physical items prior to visiting the Library by completing
this request form.
Please enter the Reference (shelfmark) above on the request form.

If your Reader Pass was issued before this date, you will need to visit the Library in London or Yorkshire to renew it before you can request items online. All manuscripts and archives must be consulted at the Library in London.

This catalogue record may describe a collection of items which cannot all be requested together. Please use the hierarchy viewer to navigate to individual items. Some items may be in use or restricted for other reasons. If you would like to check the availability, contact our Reference Services team, quoting the Reference (shelfmark) above.

User Conditions:

Letter of introduction required to view this manuscript

Physical Characteristics:

Material: Parchment.

Dimensions: 240 x 180mm (text space: 185 x 125 mm) written in two columns.

Foliation: f. 71 (ff. 1, 71 are paper flyleaves).

Script: Gothic cursive.

Binding: Post 1600. Brown sheepskin with gold tooling.

Custodial History:

Origin:

France (?Paris).

Provenance:

Royal arms of France on the mantelpiece in the image on f. 2v.

Unidentified French owner in the 18th century: the binding and numbers/symbols in brown ink in the upper corner of the pastedowns to inside upper and lower covers.

Sir Samuel Rush Meyrick: his sale, Sotheby's, 20 July 1871, lot 1355; probably bought by the London bookdealers Messrs. Boone (with their? price-code in pencil on the back pastedown).

William Burges ((b. 1827, d. 1881), architect; bequeathed to the British Museum in 1881, along with 15 other manuscripts (Add MSS 31830-31845).

Publications:

Catalogue of Additions to the Manuscripts in the British Museum in the Years 1876-1881 (London: British Museum, 1882), p. 235.

Edith Yenal, Christine de Pisan: abibliography (London: Scarecrow, 1982), pp. 46-47.

Charity Cannon Willard, Christine de Pizan, Le Livre des trois vertus, edition critique (Paris: Honore Champion, 1989), pp. xxiv-xxv.

Laura Rinaldi Dufresne, 'Christine de Pizan's Treasureof the City of Ladies: A Study of Dress and Social Hierarchy', Woman's ArtJournal, 16.2 (1995/96), 29-34 (p. 33).

Dominique T. Hoche, The reception of Christinede Pizan's Fais d'armes in fifteenth-century England: chivalricself-fashioning (Lampeter: Edwin Mellen Press, 2007), p. 196.

Ursula Pieters, Das Ich im Bild: die Figur des Autorsin volksprachigen Handschriften des 13. bis 16. Jahrhunderts (Cologne: Bohlau, 2008), p. 220.

Material Type:

Archives and Manuscripts

Legal Status:

Not Public Record(s)

Names:

Christine de Pizan [da Pizzano], 1364-c 1430,
see also http://isni.org/isni/0000000121033731

Related Material:

From the printed Catalogue of Additions (1882): 'LE LIVRE de la Cite des Dames' [sic] by Christine de Pisan. Imperfect, containing the greater part of the first, the second, and only the beginning of the third Book. Vellum; ff. 71. xvth cent. With a defaced miniature. Quarto.'