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Harley MS 2639
- Record Id:
- 040-002048470
- Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:
- 040-002048470
- MDARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100000000761.0x000311
- LARK:
- SLARK:
- Format:
- ISAD(G)
- Reference (shelfmark):
- Harley MS 2639
- Title:
-
Caius Suetonius Tranquillus, De grammaticis et rhetoribus; Publius Cornelius Tacitus, Dialogus de oratoribus
- Scope & Content:
-
This manuscript contains copies of two rhetorical works by Roman historians: De grammaticis et rhetoribus (On Grammarians and Rhetoricians) by Caius Suetonius Tranquillus (b. c. 69, d. after 122) and Dialogus de oratoribus (Dialogue on oratory) by Publius Cornelius Tacitus (b. c. 56, d. c. 120). The manuscript was written for John Tiptoft (b. 1427, d. 1470), 1st Earl of Worcester, by his secretary John Free (d. 1465).
Contents:
f. 1v: List of contents;
ff. 2r-14v: Caius Suetonius Tranquillus, De grammaticis et rhetoribus;
ff. 15r-42v: Publius Cornelius Tacitus, Dialogus de oratoribus.
[f. 1r is a ruled parchment leaf].
Decoration:
1 white vine initial and wreath enclosing the arms and crest of John Tiptoft, Earl of Worcester (f. 2r). 1 large initial in gold on a blue and red panel with pen-flourishing and besants extending into the margin (f. 15r). Smaller initials in purple or green with pen-flourishing in the other colour.
- Collection Area:
- Western Manuscripts
- Project / Collection:
- Harley Collection
- Hierarchy Tree:
- [{ "id" : "040-002048470", "parent" : "#", "text" : "Harley MS 2639: Caius Suetonius Tranquillus, De grammaticis et rhetoribus; Publius Cornelius Tacitus, Dialogus de oratoribus" , "li_attr" : {"class": "orderable"} }]
- Hierarchy Record Ids:
- 032-002045828
040-002048470 - Is part of:
- Harley MS 1-7661 : Harley Manuscripts
Harley MS 2639 : Caius Suetonius Tranquillus, De grammaticis et rhetoribus; Publius Cornelius Tacitus, Dialogus de oratoribus - Hierarchy:
- 032-002045828[2640]/040-002048470
- Container:
- View / search within Archive / Collection: Harley MS 1-7661
- Record Type (Level):
- File
- Extent:
- A parchment codex
- Digitised Content:
- Languages:
- Latin
- Scripts:
- Latin
- Start Date:
- 1449
- End Date:
- 1461
- Date Range:
- c. 1450-c. 1460 (before 1462)
- Era:
- CE
- Access:
-
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- User Conditions:
- Physical Characteristics:
-
Material: Parchment.
Dimensions: 200 x 145 mm (135 x 85 mm).
Foliation: ff. 43 (+ 1 unfoliated paper flyleaf at the beginning + 1 unfoliated ruled parchment leaf after f. 37 + 3 unfoliated paper flyleaves at the end).
Script: Humanistic.
Binding: Post-1600. 'Harleian' binding of gold-tooled red leather; marbled endpapers.
- Custodial History:
-
Origin: Italy, N. (Padua).
Provenance:
Written by John Free, probably in Padua, for John Tiptoft, 1st Earl of Worcester (b. 1427, d. 1470), administrator and humanist: his arms and crest (f. 2), probably sent to him after his return to England from Italy in September 1461 (see Wright, Fontes Harleiani (1972)).
William Cecil (b. 1520/21, d. 1598), 1st Baron Burghley, royal minister: his library sold on 21 November 1687, lot 108 (Wright, Fontes Harleiani (1972)).
Ambrose Bonwicke, the elder (b. 1652, d. 1722), nonjuring Church of England clergyman and schoolmaster, headmaster of the Merchant Taylors' School from 1686 to 1691: inscribed 'Ambrosij Bonvici 1687' (f. 1r).
William Bowyer the younger (b. 1699, d. 1777), printer, executor of James Bonwicke, younger son of Ambrose Bonwicke: sold to Edward Harley together with other manuscripts from the Bonwicke collection on 11 September 1725 (Wright, Fontes Harleiani (1972)).
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 ‘11 Septembris, A.D. 1725’ (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.
- Information About Copies:
- Select digital coverage available for this manuscript; see the Catalogue of Illuminated Manuscripts, https://bl.uk/catalogues/illuminatedmanuscripts/.
- Publications:
-
Edward Bernard, Catalogi librorum manuscriptorum Angliae et Hiberniae, 3 vols (Oxford: Sheldonian, 1697), II, p. 250, no. 8723.
A Catalogue of the Harleian Manuscripts in the British Museum, 4 vols (London: Eyre and Strahan, 1808-12), II (1808), no. 2639.
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. 376 n. 5.
Duke Humfrey and English Humanism in the Fifteenth Century: Catalogue of an exhibition held in the Bodleian Library (Oxford: Bodleian Library, 1970), no. 71 [exhibition catalogue, with additional bibliography].
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. 76, 79, 99, 329, 337.
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 (pp. 474, 476).
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), pp. 164-65.
- Material Type:
- Archives and Manuscripts
- Legal Status:
- Not Public Record(s)
- Names:
- Bonwicke, Ambrose, Headmaster of the Merchant Taylors' School, 1652-1722
Bowyer, William, the younger, printer, 1699-1777
Cecil, William, 1st Baron Burghley, royal minister, Lord Treasurer 1572, 1520-1598,
see also http://isni.org/isni/0000000121428768
Cornelius Tacitus, Gaius, Roman historian, c 55-after 117
Suetonius Tranquillus, Caius, c 69-after 122,
see also http://isni.org/isni/0000000121029695,
see also http://viaf.org/viaf/89599270
Tiptoft, John, 1st Earl of Worcester, Lord High Treasurer, 1427-1470 - Places:
- Padua, Italy