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Add MS 11943
- Record Id:
- 040-002041650
- Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:
- 032-002041530
- MDARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100000000451.0x0000c7
- LARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100055969304.0x000001
- SLARK:
- Format:
- ISAD(G)
- Reference (shelfmark):
- Add MS 11943
- Title:
- Macrobius, Commentarii in Ciceronis Somnium Scipionis
- Scope & Content:
-
Contents:
ff. 1r-49r: Macrobius (b. c 370, d. c 435), Commentarii in Ciceronis Somnium Scipionis (Commentary on Cicero's Dream of Scipio), preceded by a prologue (ff. 1r-3r), beginning: 'Cum in Africam venissem A Manlio consule ad quartam legionem tribunus ut scitis militum'. Book 1 (ff. 3v-29v), beginning: 'Inter Platonis et Ciceronis libros quos de Re Publica uterque constituit'; Book 2 (ff. 30r-49r), beginning: 'Superiore commentario, Eustathi luce mihi dilectior fili', ending: 'quo universa philosophie continetur integritas'.
Decoration:
A decorated initial 'C'(um) in red and green with interlace decoration and a rubric in red and green capitals. A large marginal drawing with colour wash in red, green and brown. Diagrams in the margins with colour wash in red and green. Small initials in red and green, line-fillers in red. Some letters have been highlighted in red.
The subjects of the diagrams are as follows:
f. 8r: A triangular-shaped diagram showing odd and even numbers especially the number 8 (the first even number that has a cube root) and 27 (the first odd number that has a cube root);
f. 8v: A circular diagram of the four elements linked to the humours, in red, green and yellow;
f. 26v: Circular diagrams related to the equinox;
f. 27r: A circular diagram showing the link between the zodiac signs and the movable spheres;
f. 29v: A circular diagram depicting the earth surrounded by the atmosphere and showing how the rain falls;
f. 32r: A robed female figure representing the world soul above a diatessaron or diagram of musical harmonies;
f. 35r: A circular diagram of the five zones of the earth according to temperature;
f. 36v: A circular diagram demonstrating Virgil and Cicero's theories on the zones of the earth;
f. 38v: A circular diagram showing the habitable zones of the earth;
f. 49r: Three circular diagrams of the eclipses of the sun and the moon;
f. 49v: An unfinished circular diagram of an eclipse and an unfinished table.
- Collection Area:
- Western Manuscripts
- Project / Collection:
- Additional Manuscripts
England and France 700-1200 Project - Hierarchy Record Ids:
- 032-002041530
040-002041650 - Is part of:
- Add MS 11828-12117 : Collection belonging to the late Right Rev. Samuel Butler, D.D., Lord Bishop of Lichfield.
Add MS 11943 : Macrobius, Commentarii in Ciceronis Somnium Scipionis - Hierarchy:
- 032-002041530[0114]/040-002041650
- Container:
- View / search within Archive / Collection: Add MS 11828-12117
- Record Type (Level):
- File
- Extent:
-
A parchment codex
- Digitised Content:
- https://iiif.bl.uk/uv/#?manifest=https://bl.digirati.io/iiif/ark:/81055/vdc_100055969304.0x000001
- Thumbnail:
-
- Languages:
- Latin
- Scripts:
- Latin
- Start Date:
- 1100
- End Date:
- 1149
- Date Range:
- 1st half of the 12th century
- Era:
- CE
- Access:
-
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- User Conditions:
- Letter of introduction required to view this manuscript
- Physical Characteristics:
-
Materials: Parchment.
Dimensions: 190 x 125 mm (text space 160 x 85 mm).
Foliation: ff. 49 (+ 4 unfoliated paper flyleaves at the beginning + 3 at the end).
Script: Protogothic.
Binding: Post-1600. Gold-tooled brown leather with the Butler's arms gold-stamped on the upper and lower covers.
- Custodial History:
-
Origin: Northwestern France or England.
Provenance:
An unknown 12th-century owner: 12th-century annotations throughout in margins and in the text (e. g., f. 6r).
An unknown 13th-century owner: 13th-century notes written in a cursive script (e. g., f. 2r).
Samuel Butler (b. 1774, d.1839), headmaster and bishop of Coventry and Lichfield: his arms on the front cover; in the catalogue of his aborted sale on 1 June 1841, lot 313.
The Reverend Thomas Butler (b. 1806, d. 1886), clergyman and naturalist: purchased from him by the British Museum on 5 July 1841.
- Information About Copies:
- Full digital coverage available for this manuscript: see Digitised Manuscripts at http://www.bl.uk.manuscripts/.
- Publications:
-
Catalogue of Additions to the Manuscripts in the British Museum in the Years 1841-1845 (London: British Museum Trustees, 1850), no. 11943.
Wilhelm Köhler, 'Die Karolingishen Miniaturen', in Zweiten Bericht über die Denkmäler Deutscher Kunst (Berlin: Reimer, 1912), pp. 52-77 (p. 59).
Clara Egli LeGear, A List of Geographical Atlases in the Library of Congress (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1963), p. 442.
John E. Murdoch, Album of Science: Antiquity and the Middle Ages, ed. by I. B. Cohen (New York: Scribner's Sons, 1984), no. 248.
Bruce Eastwood, 'Plinian astronomical diagrams in the early Middle Ages', in Mathematics and Its Applications to Science and Natural Philosophy in the Middle Ages: Essays in Honor of Marshall Clagett, ed. by Edward Grant (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), pp. 141-72 (pp. 170-71).
Peter Biller, The Measure of Multitude: Population in Medieval Thought (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), p. xii (pl. 2).
Alfred Hiatt, 'The Map of Macrobius before 1100', Imago Mundi, 59:2 (2007), 149-76 (p. 172).
Bruce Eastwood and Gerd Grasshoff, Planetary Diagrams for Roman Astronomy in Medieval Europe ca. 800-1500 (Philadelphia: The American Philosophical Society, 2004), p. 62.
- Material Type:
- Archives and Manuscripts
- Legal Status:
- Not Public Record(s)
- Notes:
- This manuscript is part of The Polonsky Foundation England and France Project: Manuscripts from the British Library and the Bibliothèque nationale de France, 700-1200.