Hard-coded id of currently selected item: . JSON version of its record is available from Blacklight on e.g. ??
Metadata associated with selected item should appear here...
Harley MS 2652
- Record Id:
- 040-002048483
- Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:
- 040-002048483
- MDARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100000000761.0x00031e
- LARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100059309874.0x000001
- SLARK:
- Format:
- ISAD(G)
- Reference (shelfmark):
- Harley MS 2652
- Title:
- Cicero, Somnium Scipionis; Ambrosius Theodosius Macrobius, Commentary on Cicero's Somnium Scipionis; Calcidius, Commentary on Plato's Timaeus
- Scope & Content:
-
This manuscript contains Cicero (b. 106 BC, d. 43 BC)’s Somnium Scipionis (The Dream of Scipio), Macrobius (fl. 400)'s commentary on it, as well as Calcidius (4th century)’s commentary of Plato (b. 429 BC, d. 347 BC)’s dialogue Timaeus (Timaios). These philosophical works stood as the basis of medieval Platonist philosophy. The volume was owned and annotated by the German humanist Nicholas of Cusa (b. 1401, d. 1464).
Contents:
ff. 1r-3v: Cicero, Somnium Scipionis (The Dream of Scipio), beginning: ‘Cum in Affricam venissem’.
ff. 4r-60v: Ambrosius Theodosius Macrobius, Commentary on Cicero's Somnium Scipionis, beginning: ‘Inter Platonis et Ciceronis libros quos de re publica’.
f. 61r: An accessus ad auctorem introduction to Plato, beginning: ‘Plato erudicionis gratia in Egiptum’.
ff. 61r-68v: Calcidius, Commentary on Plato's Timaeus, preceded by a prologue beginning: ‘[O]sio suo Calcidius. Socrates in exhortationibus’; the folios have been bound in the wrong order. They should be as follows: ff. 61r-68v, 53r-60v. The text breaks off at 'quod suscipit matris at vero iude' (f. 60v).
Decoration:
5 diagrams or maps in brown ink (ff. 12r, 31v, 35r, 42v, 45v, 48r). Large and smaller initials in dark brown ink or red, occasionally with some pen-work decoration (on ff. 54v, 61r, 61v and 66r the initials have not been filled in). Rubrics in red or in dark brown ink, occasionally highlighted with light brown. Added in plummet:, drawing of a (?) male bust (f. 2r, lower margin).
- Collection Area:
- Western Manuscripts
- Project / Collection:
- England and France 700-1200 Project
Harley Collection - Hierarchy Tree:
- [{ "id" : "040-002048483", "parent" : "#", "text" : "Harley MS 2652: Cicero, Somnium Scipionis; Ambrosius Theodosius Macrobius, Commentary on Cicero's Somnium Scipionis; Calcidius, Commentary on Plato's…" , "li_attr" : {"class": "orderable"} }]
- Hierarchy Record Ids:
- 032-002045828
040-002048483 - Is part of:
- Harley MS 1-7661 : Harley Manuscripts
Harley MS 2652 : Cicero, Somnium Scipionis; Ambrosius Theodosius Macrobius, Commentary on Cicero's Somnium Scipionis; Calcidius, Commentary on… - Hierarchy:
- 032-002045828[2653]/040-002048483
- Container:
- View / search within Archive / Collection: Harley MS 1-7661
- Record Type (Level):
- File
- Extent:
- A parchment codex
- Digitised Content:
- https://iiif.bl.uk/uv/#?manifest=https://bl.digirati.io/iiif/ark:/81055/vdc_100059309874.0x000001
- Thumbnail:
-
- Languages:
- Latin
- Scripts:
- Latin
- Start Date:
- 1075
- End Date:
- 1099
- Date Range:
- 4th quarter of the 11th century
- Era:
- CE
- Access:
-
Please request the physical items you need using the online collection item request form.
Digitised items can be viewed online by clicking the thumbnail image or digitised content link.
Readers who have registered or renewed their pass since 21 March 2024 can request physical items prior to visiting the Library by completing
this request form.
Please enter the Reference (shelfmark) above on the request form.If your Reader Pass was issued before this date, you will need to visit the Library in London or Yorkshire to renew it before you can request items online. All manuscripts and archives must be consulted at the Library in London.
This catalogue record may describe a collection of items which cannot all be requested together. Please use the hierarchy viewer to navigate to individual items. Some items may be in use or restricted for other reasons. If you would like to check the availability, contact our Reference Services team, quoting the Reference (shelfmark) above.
- User Conditions:
- Physical Characteristics:
-
Materials: Parchment.
Dimensions: 210 x 110 mm (text space: 140 x 65 mm).
Foliation: ff. 68 (+ 3 paper flyleaves at the beginning + 3 at the end).
Script: Protogothic.
Binding: Post-1600. Harleian binding of gold-tooled red leather; marbled endpapers.
- Custodial History:
-
Origin: France or Germany.
Provenance:
Nicholas of Cusa (b. 1401, d. 1464), bishop of St Brixen in Tyrol in 1450, cardinal in 1449, founder of the hospital of St Nicholas at Cusa on the Mosel, owned in and before 1464: annotated in his hand and recorded in the inventory of Vicenza (left his entire library to the hospital in his last will dated 6 August 1464).
The Hospital of St Nicholas, Cusa, owned in the 16th century: inscribed 'δ delta, liber hospitalis sancti Nicolai prope Cusam' in a ?16th-century hand (f. 1r).
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 (see Wright, Fontes Harleiani (1972), pp. 253-54).
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.
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:
- Full digital coverage available for this manuscript: see Digitised Manuscripts at http://www.bl.uk.manuscripts/.Select digital coverage available for this manuscript: see Catalogue of Illuminated Manuscripts at http://www.bl.uk/catalogues/illuminatedmanuscripts/welcome.htm.
- Publications:
-
A Catalogue of the Harleian Manuscripts in the British Museum, 4 vols (London: Eyre and Strahan, 1808-12), II (1808), p. 705.
Raymond Klibansky, The Continuity of the Platonic Tradition during the Middle Ages: Outlines of a Corpus Platonicum Medii Aevi (London: The Warburg Institute, 1939), p. 31.
Giovanni Mantese, 'Ein notarielles Inventar von Büchern und Wertgegenständen aus dem Nachlass des Nikolaus von Kues', Mitteilungen und Forschungsbeiträge der Cusanus-Gesellschaft, 2 (1962), 85-116, p. 97 n. 60.
Jan H. Waszink, Timaeus a Calcidio translatus commentarioque instructus, Plato Latinus, 4, ed. by Raymond Klibansky (London: The Warburg Institute, 1962), pp. cxiv-cxv.
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, pp. xxxix-xl; p. xl n. 2.
Alois Krchňák, 'Kritisches Verzeichnis der Londoner Handschriften aus dem Besitz des Nikolaus von Kues', Mitteilungen und Forschungsbeiträge der Cusanus-Gesellschaft, 3 (1963), 16-100 (pp. 48-51); 5 (1965), 137-61; 8 (1970), 199-237; 10 (1973), 58-103; 12 (1977), 15-71; 15 (1982), 43-56; 17 (1986), 21-56.
Margaret Gibson, 'The Study of the Timaeus in the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries', Pensamiento, 25 (1969), 183-94 (pp. 185, 187).
Cyril E. Wright, Fontes Harleiani: A Study of the Sources of the Harleian Collection of Manuscripts in the British Museum (London: British Museum, 1972), pp. 121, 254.
Hermann J. Hallauer, 'Habent sua fata libelli. Von der Mosel zur Themse: Handschriften des St. Nikolaus-Hospitals in der Bibliotheca Harleiana', Mitteilungen und Forschungsbeiträge der Cusanus-Gesellshaft, 17 (1986), 21-56 (pp. 30, 42).
Hans Gerhard Senger, Proclus Latinus: Die Exzerpte und Randnoten des Nikolaus von Kues zu den lateinischen Übersetzungen der Proclus-Schriften: Theologia Platonis - Elementatio theological, Cusanus Texte, 3, Marginalien 2.1 (Heidelberg: Winter - Universitätsverlag, 1986), p. 24.
Sigrid Krämer and Michael Bernhard, Handschriftenerbe des deutschen Mittelalters, 3 vols, Mittelalterliche Bibliothekskataloge Deutschlands und der Schweiz, Supplement 1, ed. by Bernard Bischoff (Munich: Beck, 1989-1990), II: Köln-Zyfflich (1989), p. 159.
Anna Somfai, ‘The Eleventh-Century Shift in the Reception of Plato's "Timaeus" and Calcidius's "Commentary"’, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, 65 (2002), 1-21, pp. 8 (no. 38), 11 (no. 41), 21 (no. 97).
- Material Type:
- Archives and Manuscripts
- Legal Status:
- Not Public Record(s)
- Notes:
- This manuscript is part of The Polonsky Foundation England and France Project: Manuscripts from the British Library and the Bibliothèque nationale de France, 700-1200.