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Harley MS 2591

Record Id:

040-002048422

Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:

040-002048422

MDARK:

ark:/81055/vdc_100000000761.0x000261

LARK:

SLARK:

Format:

ISAD(G)

Reference (shelfmark):

Harley MS 2591

Title:

Cicero, Epistulae ad familiares

Scope & Content:

This manuscript contains an imperfect copy of the Epistulae ad familiares (Letters to Friends), a collection of letters sent between the Roman orator Marcus Tullius Cicero (b. 106, d. 43 BC) and various public and private figures.

Contents:

ff. 1r-192v: Cicero, Epistulae ad familiares, imperfect, with some proper nouns and marginal annotations in Greek.

Decoration:

9 large initials in colours with foliate decoration including acanthus leaves extending into the margin (ff. 13v, 23r, 35r, 85v, 97r, 98r, 148r, 172r, 191v). Numerous smaller initials in blue with red pen-flourishing or red with ochre pen-flourishing. Folio torn with only some decoration still visible, contained a large initial in gold and colours with acanthus leaves and besants extending into the margin (f. 1r).

Collection Area:

Western Manuscripts

Project / Collection:

Harley Collection

Hierarchy Tree:

[{ "id" : "040-002048422", "parent" : "#", "text" : "Harley MS 2591: Cicero, Epistulae ad familiares" , "li_attr" : {"class": "orderable"} }]

Hierarchy Record Ids:

032-002045828
040-002048422

Is part of:

Harley MS 1-7661 : Harley Manuscripts

Harley MS 2591 : Cicero, Epistulae ad familiares

Hierarchy:

032-002045828[2592]/040-002048422

Container:

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

Record Type (Level):

File

Extent:

1 volume

Digitised Content:

Languages:

Greek
Latin

Scripts:

Greek
Latin

Start Date:

1400

End Date:

1424

Date Range:

1st quarter of the 15th century

Era:

Access:

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User Conditions:

Physical Characteristics:

Material: Parchment.

Dimensions: 240 x 165 mm (written space: 160 x 95 mm).

Foliation: ff. 192 (+ 3 unfoliated paper flyleaves at the beginning and 2 at the end).

Collation: Mostly in quires of 10.

The first folios are very damaged.Catchwords written horizontally in the centre of the lower margin.Some folios are torn (ff. 1, 45, 159, after ff. 119 and 122).

Script: Semi-humanistic.

Binding: Post-1600. 'Harleian' binding of gold-tooled red leather; marbled endpapers.

Custodial History:

Origin: Northern Italy.

Provenance:

Added annotations in a number of 15th-16th century hands.

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 the Harleys on 20 January 1721/2 (see Wright, Fontes Harleiani (1972), pp. 253-54; Diary (1966), p. 138 n. 8).

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 ‘20 die Januarij, A.D. 1721/22’ (f. 2r). 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.

Information About Copies:

Select digital coverage available for this manuscript; see the Catalogue of Illuminated Manuscripts, https://bl.uk/catalogues/illuminatedmanuscripts/.

Publications:

A Catalogue of the Harleian Manuscripts in the British Museum, 4 vols (London: Eyre and Strahan, 1808-12), II (1808), no. 2591.

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. 138 n. 8.

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:

Noel, Nathaniel, bookseller, fl 1681, d c 1753
Tullius Cicero, Marcus, 106 BC-43 BC,
see also http://isni.org/isni/0000000139322910,
see also http://viaf.org/viaf/78769600

Places:

Northern Italy