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Harley MS 2651
- Record Id:
- 040-002048482
- Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:
- 040-002048482
- MDARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100000000761.0x00031d
- LARK:
- SLARK:
- Format:
- ISAD(G)
- Reference (shelfmark):
- Harley MS 2651
- Title:
- Macer Floridus (Odo of Meung), De viribus herbarum
- Scope & Content:
-
Macer Floridus (Odo of Meung), De viribus herbarum. The manuscript is a humanistic copy of a Latin poem in hexameters describing the medical virtues of herbs written under the pseudonym of Macer (with reference to the Roman poet Aemilius Macer, d. 15 BC). The author is generally identified with the French physician Odo de Meung-sur-Loire whose name is mentioned in a 12th-century copy of the text (Dresden, Sächsische Landesbibliothek, MS. Dc. 160). Incipit (f. 3r): 'Herbarum quasdam dicturus carmine vires / herbarum matrem dedit artemesia nomen', explicit (f. 44r): 'Una diagridii sic et solutio fiet / Geptius de Lucignano scriba scripsit 1448'. The text is interrupted at the end of the 'Cicuta' section (f. 39v: 'Apposita trita poteris curare cicuta') by the insertion of the colophon 'Finis Macronis [later corrected in 'Macri'] de viribus herbarum'; the description of 'Piper' follows (f. 40r) with the title 'De pipere' inserted after its first five lines.
Scribal notabilia throughout.
For the text see L. Choulant, Macer Floridus de viribus herbarum una cum Walafridi Strabonis, Othonis Cremonensis et Ioannis Folcz carminibus similis argumenti secundum codices manuscriptos et veteres editiones … recensuit (Leipzig, 1832) and Der deutsche 'Macer'. Vulgatfassung. Mit einem Abdruck des lateinischen Macer Floridus 'De viribus herbarum', ed. by Bernhard Schnell and William Crossgrove, Texte und Textgeschichte, 50 (Tübingen, 2003). For Odo of Meung or Magdunensis see E. Wickersheimer, Dictionnaire biographique des médecins en France au moyen âge. Réimpression de l'édition de 1936, Hautes Études Médiévales et Modernes, 34 (Geneva, 1979), p. 584; D. Jacquart, Supplément to E. Wickersheimer, Dictionnaire biographique des médecins en France au moyen âge. ed. by Guy Beaujouan, Hautes Études Médiévales et Modernes, 35 (Geneva, 1979), p. 218.
Decoration:
1 large white vine initial in gold, purple, blue and green: 'H'(erbarum), with a butterfly in the upper margin (f. 3r). Dedicated spaces for initials (1 line; throughout) and for large decoration (f. 25v) left blank.
- Collection Area:
- Western Manuscripts
- Project / Collection:
- Harley Collection
Harley Science Project - Hierarchy Tree:
- [{ "id" : "040-002048482", "parent" : "#", "text" : "Harley MS 2651: Macer Floridus (Odo of Meung), De viribus herbarum" , "li_attr" : {"class": "orderable"} }]
- Hierarchy Record Ids:
- 032-002045828
040-002048482 - Is part of:
- Harley MS 1-7661 : Harley Manuscripts
Harley MS 2651 : Macer Floridus (Odo of Meung), De viribus herbarum - Hierarchy:
- 032-002045828[2652]/040-002048482
- Container:
- View / search within Archive / Collection: Harley MS 1-7661
- Record Type (Level):
- File
- Extent:
-
44 folios.
- Digitised Content:
- http://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/FullDisplay.aspx?ref=Harley_MS_2651 (digital images currently unavailable)
- Thumbnail:
-
- Languages:
- Latin
- Scripts:
- Latin
- Start Date:
- 1448
- End Date:
- 1448
- Date Range:
- 1448
- Era:
- CE
- Access:
-
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- User Conditions:
- Physical Characteristics:
-
Materials: Parchment codex
Dimensions: 214 x 122 mm (text space: 148 x 81-86 mm).
Foliation: ff. xviii + 44 (the unfoliated flyleaf are 16 paper leaves and 2 parchment leaves: original lower flyleaf and pastedown). Modern foliation in pencil '1-44' (including original front pastedown and flyleaf as ff. 1-2; f. 44v is blank).
Collation: i-iii10, iv8, v6-1 (sixth excised), with horizontal catchwords.
Layout: Ruled (with double vertical bounding lines) in hard point on hair-side for single columns of 28 lines. Text written above ruled lines.
Script: Humanistic. Written by by 'Geptius de Lucignano scriba' in 1448 (see dated colophon on f. 44).
Binding: Harley binding of red morocco over thin wooden boards with gilt-tooled decoration attributable to Christopher Chapman: some of the tools and the roll used for the gilt-tooled decoration of the covers correspond to tools nos. 3, 8, 13 and roll no. 1 reproduced in H. M. Nixon, 'Harleian Bindings', in Studies in the Book Trade in Honour of Graham Pollard, Oxford Bibliographical Society Publications, New Series, 18 (Oxford: Bibliographical Society, 1975), pl. 14; spine replaced.
- Custodial History:
-
Inscribed with the name 'Paulus' [date uncertain] (f. 1r).
John Gibson (fl. 1720-1726), dealer; sold to Harley on 12 February 1719/20 (Diary 1966; Wright 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 ‘12 Febr. 1719/20’ (f. 3r).
Edward Harley bequeathed the library to his widow, Henrietta, née Cavendish 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), III (1808), no. 2651.
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. 195 n. 9.
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. 162.
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. 463).
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. 685.
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. 165.
- Material Type:
- Archives and Manuscripts
- Legal Status:
- Not Public Record(s)