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Harley MS 2517
- Record Id:
- 040-002048348
- Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:
- 040-002048348
- MDARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100000000761.0x000131
- LARK:
- SLARK:
- Format:
- ISAD(G)
- Reference (shelfmark):
- Harley MS 2517
- Title:
- Boethius, De Consolatione Philosophiae
- Scope & Content:
-
Contents:
ff. 1r-55v: Boethius, De Consolatione Philosophiae.
Decoration:
Large initial in gold and colours with acanthus leaves and naturalistic flowers extending into the margins at the beginning of book 1 (f. 1r). A very large puzzle initial in red and blue with pen-flourishing in the same colours at the beginning of each subsequent book (ff. 9v, 20v, 35r, 47r). Numerous smaller initials in blue with red pen-flourishing or in red with brown pen-flourishing. Display script with penwork decoration used for the 1st words of each book (ff. 1r, 9v, 20v, 35r, 47r). Capitals marked with yellow.
- Collection Area:
- Western Manuscripts
- Project / Collection:
- Harley Collection
- Hierarchy Tree:
- [{ "id" : "040-002048348", "parent" : "#", "text" : "Harley MS 2517: Boethius, De Consolatione Philosophiae" , "li_attr" : {"class": "orderable"} }]
- Hierarchy Record Ids:
- 032-002045828
040-002048348 - Is part of:
- Harley MS 1-7661 : Harley Manuscripts
Harley MS 2517 : Boethius, De Consolatione Philosophiae - Hierarchy:
- 032-002045828[2518]/040-002048348
- 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:
- 1375
- End Date:
- 1424
- Date Range:
- 4th quarter of the 14th century-1st quarter of the 15th century
- Era:
- CE
- Access:
-
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- User Conditions:
- Physical Characteristics:
-
Materials: Parchment.
Dimensions: 255 x 175 mm (text space: 160 x 120 mm).
Foliation: ff. 55 (+ 4 unfoliated paper flyleaves at the beginning + 3 at the end); 1 paper pastedown on the inside of the lower cover (featuring the Harleian arms gold-stamped on white paper).
Script: Gothic Rotunda.
Binding: Post-1600. Binding of brown mottled calf with gold fillets and blind tooling.
- Custodial History:
-
Origin:
Central Italy (? Florence).
Provenance:
Written by Franciscus: inscribed his name in a colophon on f. 55v: 'Explicit Liber Boetii De phylosofica Consolatione Deo gratias Amen Qui scripsit Scribat Semper Cum domino Vivat. Vivat in celis Franciscus Nomine felix. Amen'. According to unpublished notes of A. C. de la Mare at the Bodleian Library, Oxford, this manuscript was made in Florence in the late 14th or early 15th century.
John Gibson (fl. 1720-1726), dealer; acquired from him for the Harley collection on 17 June 1721 (see Wright, Fontes Harleiani (1972), p. 162).
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 ‘17 die Junij, A.D. 1721’ (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), p. 697.
Codices Boethiani: A Conspectus of Manuscripts of the Works of Boethius, ed. by M. T. Gibson and Lesley Smith, Warburg Institute Surveys and Texts, 25, 27, 28, 29 (London: Warburg Institute, 1995-2001), I: Great Britain and the Republic of Ireland, pp. 137-38 (no. 115).
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, p. 113 n. 12.
Barnet Kottler, 'II. The Vulgate Tradition of the Consolatio Philosophiae in the Fourteenth Century', Mediaeval Studies, 17 (1955), 209-214 (p. 210 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. 162.
- Material Type:
- Archives and Manuscripts
- Legal Status:
- Not Public Record(s)
- Names:
- Boethius, Anicius Manlius Torquatus Severinus, c 480-524/525,
see also http://isni.org/isni/0000000122834442,
see also http://viaf.org/viaf/100218964 - Places:
- Central Italy
Florence, Italy