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Harley MS 2563
- Record Id:
- 040-002048394
- Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:
- 040-002048394
- MDARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100000000761.0x00019f
- LARK:
- SLARK:
- Format:
- ISAD(G)
- Reference (shelfmark):
- Harley MS 2563
- Title:
- Terence, Comoediae
- Scope & Content:
-
Contents:
f. 1r: Terence's epitaph.
ff. 1r-170v: Terence, Comoediae; with marginal annotations throughout.
The manuscript contains later additions:
ff. 2*, 167v, 168v-170r: Numerous annotations in various hands, some in Italian, mainly late 15th-century-early 16th century.
Decoration:
Coloured ink drawing of a nude youth and maiden, used as frontispiece combined with a full border with foliate decoration, rabbits, and a coloured ink drawing of a man seated (? Terence) on a piece of land with books (f. 1r). Decorated initials in brown and red ink shaped as a vase with putti and masks (f. 58v), with winged putti (f. 86v), foliate interlace and head of a man (f. 165v). Initials in (?) pencil or black ink with red penwork decoration (f. 1v). Coloured initials in red ink. Some catchwords framed in red and brown ink (e. g. ff. 20v, 40v). Space for historiated initial left blank (f. 29r). Spaces for initials left blank or initials left unpainted. Some capitals decorated with faces in brown ink (e. g. f. 40v). Possibly added initials in a different hand: a nude youth, a swan and banner with a piece of armour (f. 114r), a nude youth and a swan (f. 140r). Most smaller initials seem to have been completed later with various types of ornament (see for instance ff. 106v, 123r, 130r, 135r) and some large initials were probably also added later (especially f. 140r). Added drawing of a human head with a peacock looking into its mouth (f. 168v); and human heads (f. 169r).
- Collection Area:
- Western Manuscripts
- Project / Collection:
- Harley Collection
- Hierarchy Tree:
- [{ "id" : "040-002048394", "parent" : "#", "text" : "Harley MS 2563: Terence, Comoediae" , "li_attr" : {"class": "orderable"} }]
- Hierarchy Record Ids:
- 032-002045828
040-002048394 - Is part of:
- Harley MS 1-7661 : Harley Manuscripts
Harley MS 2563 : Terence, Comoediae - Hierarchy:
- 032-002045828[2564]/040-002048394
- Container:
- View / search within Archive / Collection: Harley MS 1-7661
- Record Type (Level):
- File
- Extent:
- 1 volume
- Digitised Content:
- Languages:
- Italian
Latin - Scripts:
- Latin
- Start Date:
- 1475
- End Date:
- 1524
- Date Range:
- 4th quarter of the 15th century-1st quarter of the 16th century
- Era:
- CE
- Access:
-
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- User Conditions:
- Physical Characteristics:
-
Materials: Paper.
Dimensions: 220 x 155 mm (text space: 120 x 75 mm).
Foliation: ff. 1*-2* + 170 (+ 1 modern unfoliated paper flyleaf at the beginning + 1 unfoliated modern paper flyleaf at the end); 1 unfoliated ruled leaf after f. 167.
Script: Humanistic.
Binding: British Museum in-house. Rebound on 12 December 1963.
- Custodial History:
-
Origin:
Italy.
Provenance:
An unknown owner: their erased ownership inscription on a piece of paper glued to f. 1*v.
‘Atila (?) bolatti fle del ladro', owned in the (?) 16th century: inscribed his name on f. 168 (not in Wright, Fontes Harleiani (1972)).
'Louis Gregor', 16th or 17th-century owner: inscribed their name on f. 168v (not in Wright, Fontes Harleiani (1972)).
Nathaniel Noel (fl. 1681, d. c. 1753), bookseller, employed by Edward Harley for buying books and manuscripts chiefly on the Continent, where his agent was George Suttie: sold to Edward Harley on 18 January 1723 (see Wright, Fontes Harleiani (1972), p. 254).
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 ‘18 die Januarij, A.D. 1723’ (f. 2*recto).
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. 700.
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. 239 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), pp. 253-54.
- Material Type:
- Archives and Manuscripts
- Legal Status:
- Not Public Record(s)
- Names:
- Terentius Afer, Publius, 195 BC-159 BC
- Places:
- Italy