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Harley MS 1705

Record Id:

040-002047536

Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:

040-002047536

MDARK:

ark:/81055/vdc_100000000709.0x0000d5

LARK:

SLARK:

Format:

ISAD(G)

Reference (shelfmark):

Harley MS 1705

Title:

Plato's Republic, translated into Latin by Pier Candido Decembrio

Scope & Content:

The preliminary copy of the translation of the first five books of the Republic by Pier Candidio Decembrio (b. 1399, d. 1477), in his autograph. The manuscript also contains Decembrio’s correspondence with Humphrey (b. 1390, d. 1447), prince, soldier, and literary patron, duke of Gloucester from 1414, who commissioned the translation of this work. Out of the 10 books of Plato’s Republic, only the translation of the first five is contained in this manuscript because by 1440 the Duke had only received those. It was not until 1441 that Scaramuccio Balbo, ambassador of Filippo Maria Visconti, brought the whole translation of Plato's Republic to Humphrey (see Borsa, Correspondence (1904)).

Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS. Duke Humfrey d. 1 was also copied by Decembrio.

Contents:

f. 1r: Effaced inscription in the upper margin.

f. 1r-1v: Decembrio's letter to Humphrey, begins '(C)larissima apud Italos omnes...'.

ff. 1v-2r: Humphrey's first letter to Decembrio, begins '(E)a nobis semper sententia fuit...'.

ff. 2r-2v: Humphrey's second letter to Decembrio, begins 'Ut alias nostris tibi scripsimus….' Ends '... Data quarto Idus octobris in nostro Manerio de (sic).'

f. 2v: Decembrio's reply to Humphrey, begins 'Sicuti viatori….'.

ff. 3r-4v. List of chapters in the following Latin translation of the five books of Plato's Republic (‘Incipiunt capitula librorum quinque Politie Platonice inferius annotata per ordinem’).

ff. 5r-6r: Candidio's preface to his translation of Plato's Republic, begins 'Cum singularis ac prope divine virtutis tue...'.

ff. 6r-22r: Plato's Republic, Book I, begins 'Cum ad Pirea heri descendissem….'.

ff. 22r-22v: Decembrio's preface to Book II to Humphrey, begins '(Quam)quam plurime res....'.

ff. 22v-38v: Plato's Republic, Book II, begins 'Cum hec igitur dixissem….'.

ff. 39r-39v: Decembrio, preface of Book III, to Humphrey, begins 'Sepe me a rebus...'.

ff. 39r-58v: Plato's Republic, Book III, begins 'Hec igitur de diis…'.

ff. 58v-59v: Decembrio's preface to Book IV to Humphrey, begins 'Quartus hic liber...'.

ff. 59v-75v: Plato's Republic, Book IV, begins 'Post hec sermonem assumens….'.

f. 76r: Decembrio's preface to Book V to Johannes Amadeus Mediolanensis, begins 'Cum Aristotelis politice...'.

ff. 76r-95r: Plato's Republic, Book V, begins 'Gonam (sic, i.e. Bonam) igitur inquam talem civitatem...' Ends '... Finiunt libri quinque ... conversi per P. Candidum Decembrem ... in laudem ... Ducis Cloucestrensis ... Sequitur summarium reliquorum quinque traducendorum librorum feliciter.'

ff. 95v-96r: Summaries of Books VI-X of Plato's Republic.

f. 96v: Ownership inscription 'Cest livre est de moy Hemfrey Duc de C,loucestre du don p. candidus secretaire du duc de Elylan.'

Decoration:

12 large initials in gold and colours (ff. 2r, 2v, 3r, 5r, 6r, 22v, 39r, 40r, 59r, 59v, 76r, 76v). Numerous white vine initials in colours. Some initials have been excised (e.g., f. 1 (x2), f. 25). A crown drawn in ink accompanies a marginal annotation (f. 91r).

Collection Area:

Western Manuscripts

Project / Collection:

Harley Collection

Hierarchy Tree:

[{ "id" : "040-002047536", "parent" : "#", "text" : "Harley MS 1705: Plato's Republic, translated into Latin by Pier Candido Decembrio" , "li_attr" : {"class": "orderable"} }]

Hierarchy Record Ids:

032-002045828
040-002047536

Is part of:

Harley MS 1-7661 : Harley Manuscripts

Harley MS 1705 : Plato's Republic, translated into Latin by Pier Candido Decembrio

Hierarchy:

032-002045828[1707]/040-002047536

Container:

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

Record Type (Level):

File

Extent:

1 volume

Digitised Content:

Languages:

Latin

Scripts:

Latin

Start Date:

1436

End Date:

1446

Date Range:

c 1441

Era:

Access:

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User Conditions:

Letter of introduction is required to consult this manuscript.

Physical Characteristics:

Materials: Parchment.

Dimensions: 265 x 195 mm (written space: 160 x 110 mm).

Foliation: ff. 96 (+ 5 unfoliated paper flyleaves at the beginning and 4 at the end).

Script: Semi-humanistic.

Collation: Mostly in quires of 8.

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

Custodial History:

Origin:

Milan, Italy.

Provenance:

Translated by Pier Candido Decembrio (b. 1399, d. 1477), humanist author and translator, intermittently in the service of the Sforza dukes of Milan: copied and given by him to Humfrey, Duke of Gloucester in 1438; Decembrio's marginal notes for the reader addressed to Humfrey (ff. 17v, 87v) (see Duke Humfrey (1970)).

Humfrey (b. 1390, d. 1447), prince, soldier, and literary patron, duke of Gloucester from 1414: this translation was commissioned by him from Pier Candido Decembrio and this copy was made for him c. 1441, inscribed ' Cest livre est A moy Homfrey duc de gloucestre du don P. Candidus secretaire du duc de Mylan,' in the duke's handwriting (f. 96v).

Henry Worsley (b. 1675, d. 1747), scholar and manuscript collector, envoy at the Court of Portugal (1714-21) and governor of Barbados (1721-31); donated by him to Robert Harley together with other manuscripts from Worsley's collection (now Harley MSS 1585-1747, 1811, 1812) before December 1712 (see Wright, Diary (1966)).

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 Cavendish, née 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), II (1808), no. 1705.

Mario Borsa, 'Correspondence of Humphrey Duke of Gloucester and Pier Candido Decembrio', The English Historical Review, 19 (1904), 509-26 (especially pp. 510 n. 7, 511-12, 525-26).

B. L. Ullman, ‘Manuscripts of Duke Humphrey of Gloucester’, in Studies in the Italian Renaissance, Storia e letteratura, 51 (Rome: Edizioni di Storia e letteratura, 1955), pp. 345-55 (first publ. in English Historical Review , 52 (1937), 670-72).

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. xix-xx.

Duke Humfrey and English Humanism in the Fifteenth Century: Catalogue of an exhibition held in the Bodleian Library (Oxford: Bodleian Library, 1970), no. 9, pl. X [exhibition catalogue].

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. 126, 200, 361.

Jonathan J. G. Alexander and Albina C. de la Mare, The Italian Manuscripts in the Library of Major J. R. Abbey (London: Faber and Faber, 1969), p. xxxi n. 1.

Paul Oskar Kristeller, Iter Italicum: Accedunt Alia Itinera: A Finding List of Uncatalogued or Incompletely Catalogued Humanistic Manuscripts of the Renaissance in Italian and other Libraries 7 vols (London: Warburg Institute; Leiden: Brill, 1963-1997), IV (1989), p. 155-56.

David Rundle, Of Republics and Tyrants : aspects of quattrocento humanist writings and their reception in England, c.1400-c.1460 (Oxford: University Press, 1997), pp. 379-92.

Material Type:

Archives and Manuscripts

Legal Status:

Not Public Record(s)

Names:

Decembrio, Pier Candido, scholar, author and translator, 1399-1477
Plato, 427 BC-347 BC
Worseley, Henry

Places:

Milan, Italy

Related Material:

Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS. Duke Humfrey d. 1 was also copied by Decembrio.