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Harley MS 2593

Record Id:

040-002048424

Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:

040-002048424

MDARK:

ark:/81055/vdc_100000000761.0x000263

LARK:

SLARK:

Format:

ISAD(G)

Reference (shelfmark):

Harley MS 2593

Title:

Giannozzo Manetti, De dignitate et excellentia hominis

Scope & Content:

This volume contains a copy of De dignitate et excellentia hominis (On the Dignity and Excellence of Man), a treatise written by the Italian politician and diplomat Giannozzo Manetti (b. 1396, d. 1459). The work in four books was a response to Pope Innocent III's De miseria humane conditionis (On the wretchedness of the human condition). Manetti dedicated his text to Alfonso V (r. 1416-1458), King of Aragon.

The manuscript's scribe was Gherardo di Giovanni del Ciriagio (b. 1412, d. 1473), a Florentine notary and associate of the humanist and librarian Vespasiano da Bisticii (b. 1421, d. 1498). 37 manuscripts bear his signature, including Add MS 16422, Add MS 54244, and Paris, Bibiliothèque nationale, MSS lat. 6408 and 6447.

Contents:

ff. 1r-106r: Giannozzo Manetti, De dignitate et excellentia hominis.

[f. 106v is blank].

Decoration:

A white vine border inhabited by putti, birds and animals; a historiated initial enclosing an author portrait; an unidentified coat of arms in the lower margin; Manetti's dedication of the text to Alfonso V in gold letters (f. 1r). 4 white vine scroll initials in colours and gold at the beginning of the 4 books (ff. 3v, 25r, 47v, 73r).

The decoration has been attributed to Francesco di Antonio del Chierico and Maestro delle Deche di Alfsonso d'Aragona (see de la Mare, 'New Research on Humanistic Scribes' (1984), I, pp 430-31).

Collection Area:

Western Manuscripts

Project / Collection:

Harley Collection

Hierarchy Tree:

[{ "id" : "040-002048424", "parent" : "#", "text" : "Harley MS 2593: Giannozzo Manetti, De dignitate et excellentia hominis" , "li_attr" : {"class": "orderable"} }]

Hierarchy Record Ids:

032-002045828
040-002048424

Is part of:

Harley MS 1-7661 : Harley Manuscripts

Harley MS 2593 : Giannozzo Manetti, De dignitate et excellentia hominis

Hierarchy:

032-002045828[2594]/040-002048424

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:

1455

End Date:

1455

Date Range:

1455

Era:

Access:

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User Conditions:

Letter of introduction required to view this manuscript

Physical Characteristics:

Material: Parchment.

Dimensions: 240 x 165 mm (text space: 155 x 80 mm).

Foliation: ff. 106 (+ 3 unfoliated paper flyleaves at the beginning and at the end).

Script: Humanistic.

Binding: Post-1600. Gold-tooled red leather decorated with putti, flowers, leaves, and insects; gilt edges.

Custodial History:

Origin: Italy, Central (Florence).

Provenance:

Written by the Florentine notary Gerardus del Ciriagio: his colophon, 'Scriptus autem fuit per me Gherardum Johannis Cerasij civem et notarium Florentinum. De anno domini millesimo quadringentesimo quinquaggesimo quarto. De mense Martij. In Civitate Florentie. Post obitum Niccole pape' (f. 106r). Pope Nicolas V died on 24 March of 1454/5 (Florentine dating).

Possibly made for a member of the Strozzi family (see Wright, Fontes Harleiani (1972), p. 412). Wright identifies the arms as those of the Strozzi, but this identification has been challenged (see Watson, Catalogue of Dated and Datable Manuscripts (1979), no. 675; de la Mare, 'New Research on Humanistic Scribes' (1984), pp. 430-31).

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 1723/4 (see Wright, Fontes Harleiani (1972), p. 412).

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. 1723/4’ (f. [i]r). 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. 2593.

W. R. Tymms and M. D. Wyatt, The Art of Illuminating as Practised in Europe from the Earliest Times (London: Day and Sons, 1860; repr. Studio Editions, 1987), pl. XV.18.

E.A. Lowe, 'Handwriting,' in The Legacy of the Middle Ages, ed. by C.G. Crump and E.F. Jacob (Oxford, Clarendon, 1926), pl. 39.

Alfred John Fairbank, A Book of Scripts (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1949), pl. 13.

Berthold Louis Ullman, The Origin and Development of Humanistic Script (Rome: Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura, 1960), pp. 113, 117.

Elizabeth R. Leonard, 'De dignitate et excellentia hominis by Giannozo Manetti: a critical edition', Dissertation Abstracts, 25 (1965), p. 4192.

The Diary of Humfrey Wanley 1715-1726, ed. by C. E. Wright and Ruth C. Wright, 2 vols (London: Bibliographical Society, 1966), II: 1723-1726, p. 238, no. 66.

E.A. Lowe, Handwriting: Our Medieval Legacy (Rome: Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura, 1969), pl. 21.

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. 412.

Cyril Ernest Wright, 'Manuscripts of Italian Provenance in the Harleian Collection in the British Museum: Their Sources, Associations and Channels of Acquisition', in Cultural Aspects of the Italian Renaissance. Essays in Honour of Paul Oskar Kristeller, ed. by C. H. Clough (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1976), pp. 462-84 (p. 475).

Andrew G. Watson, Catalogue of Dated and Datable Manuscripts c. 700-1600 in The Department of Manuscripts: The British Library, 2 vols (London: British Library, 1979), no. 675.

Albinia de la Mare, 'New Research on Humanistic Scribes in Florence', in Miniatura fiorentina del Rinascimento, 1440-1525: un primo censimento, ed. by Annarosa Garzelli, 2 vols, ([Florence]: Giunta regionale toscana, 1985), I, pp. 395-574 (pp. 430-31, 497); II, pl. 594.

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. 164.

Andrew G. Watson, Medieval Manuscripts in Post-medieval England (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2004), p. 98.

Dizionario biografico dei miniatori italiani: Secoli IX-XVI, ed. by Milvia Bollati (Milan: Sylvestre Bonnard, 2004), p. 229.

Leila Avrin, Scribes, Script, and Books: The Book Arts from Antiquity to the Renaissance (Chicago: American Library Association, 2010), pl. 161.

Material Type:

Archives and Manuscripts

Legal Status:

Not Public Record(s)

Names:

Gherardo di Giovanni del Ciriagio, Florentine notary, 1412-1473
Manetti, Giannozzo, Florentine politician and diplomat, 1396-1459,
see also http://isni.org/isni/0000000121380303
Noel, Nathaniel, bookseller, fl 1681, d c 1753

Places:

Florence, Italy