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Harley MS 2453
- Record Id:
- 040-002048284
- Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:
- 040-002048284
- MDARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100000000709.0x0003c1
- LARK:
- SLARK:
- Format:
- ISAD(G)
- Reference (shelfmark):
- Harley MS 2453
- Title:
- Lucius Annaeus Seneca, Tragoediae
- Scope & Content:
-
Contents:
ff. 1r-211v: Lucius Annaeus Seneca, Tragoediae.
Decoration:
Ink drawing of a hunting scene (boar hunt) drawn in the space left below the text (ff. 54v-55r). Large initials in red and/or brown ink with crowned figures and various motifs extending into the margin (ff. 2r, 23v), or made of a fish and bird (f. 80r, ?added), with pen-flourishing and a crown (f. 141r). Smaller initials with decoration in red and brown ink. Capitals marked in red ink. Catchwords written on scrolls (fish on f. 30v). Spaces for initials left blank. - Collection Area:
- Western Manuscripts
- Project / Collection:
- Harley Collection
- Hierarchy Tree:
- [{ "id" : "040-002048284", "parent" : "#", "text" : "Harley MS 2453: Lucius Annaeus Seneca, Tragoediae" , "li_attr" : {"class": "orderable"} }]
- Hierarchy Record Ids:
- 032-002045828
040-002048284 - Is part of:
- Harley MS 1-7661 : Harley Manuscripts
Harley MS 2453 : Lucius Annaeus Seneca, Tragoediae - Hierarchy:
- 032-002045828[2454]/040-002048284
- 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:
- 1435
- End Date:
- 1435
- Date Range:
- 1435
- Era:
- CE
- Access:
-
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- User Conditions:
- Physical Characteristics:
-
Materials: Paper; Watermark visible on f. [ii] (similar to C. M. Briquet, Les Filigranes: Dictionnaire historique des marques du papier dès leur apparition vers 1282 jusqu'en 1600, A Facsimile of the 1907 edition with supplementary material, ed. by Allan Stevenson, 4 vols (Amsterdam: Paper Publications Society, 1968), no. 8390-92 (dated early 1529-1580 to Florence, Lucca and Ferrara, but the shape of the shield is different). Another watermark is visible on ff. [213b-c], 214 with a running dog, similar to Briquet no. 3597 (dated 1413-16 to Palermo).
Dimensions: 280 x 215 mm (written space: 185 x 95 mm).
Foliation: ff. 216 (+ 2 unfoliated paper flyleaves at the beginning + 3 unfoliated leaves after f. 213 + 1 unfoliated flyleaf after f. 216).
Script: Semi-humanistic.
Binding: Post-1600. Brown mottled calf with gold fillets and blind tooling.
- Custodial History:
-
Origin:
Italy.
Provenance:
Written by Magister Honofrius in 1435: colophon 'Deo om[n]ipotenti atque Beate marie [...] Mathelire lerte & finite per Mag[ist]rum honofrium In Anno d[omi]ni Mo cccco xxxmo & ?v.' (f. 211v).
Added texts in Latin (ff. 1r-v, 212r-213v, 215v) and in Italian (ff. 214v-215, 216v), annotations and numerous manicula throughout, drawing added in the margin referring to a comet (f. 107r), figure with a snake (f. 134v), ink drawing of a dog repeating the watermark (f. 212v) repeated on f. 214v, unfinished circular diagram (f. 216r), 15th century.
Some initials added ?early 16th century, to fill the spaces left blank: e. g. initial in the shape of a belt's buckle (f. 71v), initial in the shape of a belt (f. 100r), or as scrolls (ff. 122v, 157v).
John Wright, librarian to George Henry Hay, 7th Earl of Kinnoull and husband of Abigail, youngest daughter of Robert Harley: sold by him to Harley on 24 June 1723 (see 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, inscribed as usual by their librarian, Humfrey Wanley ‘24 die Junij, A.D. 1723’ (f. 1r).
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. 2453.
Walter de Gray Birch and Henry Jenner, Early Drawings and Illuminations: An Introduction to the Study of Ilustrated Manuscripts (London: Bagster and Sons, 1879), p. 14.
The Diary of Humfrey Wanley 1715-1726, ed. by Cyril Ernest Wright and Ruth C. Wright, 2 vols (London: Bibliographical Society, 1966), II: 1723-1726, p. 418 n. 2.
Cyril Ernest Wright, Fontes Harleiani: A Study of the Sources of the Harleian Collection of Manuscripts in the British Museum (London: British Museum, 1972), p. 363.
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. 158.
- Material Type:
- Archives and Manuscripts
- Legal Status:
- Not Public Record(s)
- Names:
- Annaeus Seneca, Lucius, also known as Seneca the Younger, 4 BC-65,
see also http://isni.org/isni/0000000121030100,
see also http://viaf.org/viaf/90637919 - Places:
- Italy