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Harley MS 2559

Record Id:

040-002048390

Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:

040-002048390

MDARK:

ark:/81055/vdc_100000000761.0x00019b

LARK:

SLARK:

Format:

ISAD(G)

Reference (shelfmark):

Harley MS 2559

Title:

Boethius, De Consolatione Philosophiae

Scope & Content:

Contents:

ff. 1r-34v: Boethius, De Consolatione Philosophiae.

The manuscript contains later additions:

f. 34r: Marginal commentary, accessus fragment, and Vita Boetii by William of Conches with interlinear notes; added by a contemporary hand (see Codices Boethiani, I (1995), pp. 139-40 (no. 118)).

f. 34v: A note 'In Jerusalem potestas mea'; added in the 15th century

Decoration:

1 large initial in red with a reserved line and penwork decoration in brown, at the beginning of book 4 (f. 22r). Initial in red with a reserved design, at the beginning of books 2, 3 and 5 (ff. 7r, 14r, 29r). Numerous smaller initials in red. Simple initials in red. Rubrics and running headers in red. Paraph marks in red. Highlighting in red.

Collection Area:

Western Manuscripts

Project / Collection:

Harley Collection

Hierarchy Tree:

[{ "id" : "040-002048390", "parent" : "#", "text" : "Harley MS 2559: Boethius, De Consolatione Philosophiae" , "li_attr" : {"class": "orderable"} }]

Hierarchy Record Ids:

032-002045828
040-002048390

Is part of:

Harley MS 1-7661 : Harley Manuscripts

Harley MS 2559 : Boethius, De Consolatione Philosophiae

Hierarchy:

032-002045828[2560]/040-002048390

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:

1200

End Date:

1249

Date Range:

1st half of the 13th century

Era:

Access:

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User Conditions:

Physical Characteristics:

Materials: Parchment.

Dimensions: 220 x 150 mm (text space: 160 x 100 mm, occasionally in two columns).

Foliation: ff. 34 (+ 2 unfoliated paper flyleaves and 2 unfoliated parchment flyleaves at the beginning + 1 unfoliated parchment flyleaf and 2 unfoliated paper flyleaves at the end).

Script: Gothic, written above and below top line.

Binding: Post-1600. Gold- and blind-tooled brown leather over wooden boards.

Custodial History:

Origin:

France or England.

Provenance:

? Johann Georg Graevius (b. 1632, d. 1703), German classical scholar and critic: sold to Johann Wilhelm, Elector Palatine, in 1703 with the rest of his library? (see Wright, Fontes Harleiani (1972), p. 169).

Johann Wilhelm, Elector Palatine (b. 1658, d. 1716), owner of a library in Düsseldorf: bought the entire Graevius library in 1703 (see Wright, Fontes Harleiani (1972), p. 168).

Giovanni Giacomo Zamboni (d. 1753), resident in London for the Landgrave of Hesse-Darmstadt (c. 1723-1753), friend of Michael Mattaire, the classical scholar and historian of printing: bought the Wilhelm library sometime before 1724 through Johann Büchels (b. 1659, d. 1738) (see Wright, Fontes Harleiani (1972), p. 367).

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 ‘6 die Augusti, A.D. 1724’ (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. 699.

A. C. Clark, 'The Library of J. G. Graevius', The Classical Review, 5 (1891), 365-72 (p. 369).

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. 139-40 (no. 118).

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. 303 n. 11.

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. 169, 367.

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:

England
France