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Harley MS 2685
- Record Id:
- 040-002048516
- Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:
- 040-002048516
- MDARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100000000761.0x00037f
- LARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100056035808.0x000001
- SLARK:
- Format:
- ISAD(G)
- Reference (shelfmark):
- Harley MS 2685
- Title:
- Boethius, Consolatio philosophiae; Fulgentius Mythographus, Mythologiae; Fulgentius Mythographus, Expositio Virgilianae Continentiae; Martianus Capella, De nuptiis Philologiae et Mercurii
- Scope & Content:
-
Contents:
ff. 1r-23v: Boethius (b. c. 480, d. 524), Consolatio philosophiae (Consolation of Philosophy), Book 1-5, including contemporary and 10th-century interlinear and marginal glosses.
ff. 24r-35v: Fulgentius Mythographus (fl. 500), Mythologiae (Mythologies), preceded by capitula (f. 24r), Books 1-3, including contemporary and 10th-century marginal and interlinear glosses and corrections.
ff. 35v-39r: Fulgentius Mythographus, Expositio Virgilianae Continentiae (Allegorical Content of Virgil), beginning: 'Expetebat quidem, Levitarum sanctissime'.
ff. 39r-102r: Martianus Capella (fl. early 5th century), De nuptiis Philologiae et Mercurii (Marriage of Philology and Mercury), Books 1-9, including contemporary and 10th-century interlinear and marginal glosses.
Decoration:
Titles in display capitals and initials coloured in red or purple.
- Collection Area:
- Western Manuscripts
- Project / Collection:
- England and France 700-1200 Project
Harley Collection - Hierarchy Tree:
- [{ "id" : "040-002048516", "parent" : "#", "text" : "Harley MS 2685: Boethius, Consolatio philosophiae; Fulgentius Mythographus, Mythologiae; Fulgentius Mythographus, Expositio Virgilianae Continentiae;…" , "li_attr" : {"class": "orderable"} }]
- Hierarchy Record Ids:
- 032-002045828
040-002048516 - Is part of:
- Harley MS 1-7661 : Harley Manuscripts
Harley MS 2685 : Boethius, Consolatio philosophiae; Fulgentius Mythographus, Mythologiae; Fulgentius Mythographus, Expositio Virgilianae… - Hierarchy:
- 032-002045828[2686]/040-002048516
- 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_100056035808.0x000001
- Thumbnail:
-
- Languages:
- Latin
- Scripts:
- Latin
- Start Date:
- 0875
- End Date:
- 0899
- Date Range:
- 4th quarter of the 9th century
- Era:
- CE
- Access:
-
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- User Conditions:
- Letter of introduction required to view this manuscript
- Physical Characteristics:
-
Materials: Parchment.
Dimensions: 345 x 255 mm (text space: 275 x 200/205 mm, in two columns).
Foliation: ff. ii + 102 (+ 2 unfoliated modern paper flyleaves at the beginning + 3 at the end); f. i is an early modern paper upper flyleaf; f. ii an original parchment upper flyleaf.
Collation: Gatherings mostly of 8, with quire signature at centre of the lower margin of the last verso of gatherings.
Script: Caroline minuscule.
Binding: British Museum/British Library in-house. Covers of the previous 'Harleian' binding of gilt-tooled red morocco attributable to Thomas Elliott pasted inside modern boards.
- Custodial History:
-
Origin: Western Germany or Eastern France.
Provenance:
An unknown scriptorium in Eastern France: according to Bischoff, Katalog (2004).
Cologne Cathedral: a 15th-century inscription 'Liber maioris Ec(clesiae)' (f. ii recto), (see Wright, Fontes Harleiani (1972)).
Johann Georg Graevius (b. 1632, d. 1703), German classical scholar and critic: his manuscript number 5; sold to Wilhelm in 1703 with the rest of his library (see Wright, Fontes Harleiani (1972)).
Johann Wilhelm, Elector Palatine (b. 1658, d. 1716), owner of a library in Düsseldorf: bought the entire Graevius library in 1703 (see Wright, Fontes Harleiani (1972)).
Giovanni Giacomo Zamboni (d. 1753), resident in London for the Landgrave of Hesse-Darmstadt (c. 1723-1753), friend of Michael Mattaire, the classical scholar and historian of printing: bought the Wilhelm library sometime before 1724 through Johann Büchels (b. 1659, d. 1738) (Wright, Fontes Harleiani (1972)); sold to Edward Harley on 20 October 1725 (see Wright and Wright, The Diary of Humphrey Wanley (1966); 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 ‘20 die mensis Octobris, A.D. 1725’ (ff. ii recto, 24r).
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), no. 2865.
Albert C. Clark, 'The Library of J. G. Graevius', The Classical Review, 5 (1891), 365-72 (pp. 370, 372).
Wilhelm Köhler, 'Die Karolingischen Miniaturen', in Zweiten Bericht über die Denkmäler Deutscher Kunst (Berlin: Reimer, 1912), pp. 51-77 (p. 56).
Herbert Thoma, ‘Altdeutsches aus Londoner Handschriften’, Beiträge zur Geschichte der deutschen Sprache und Literatur, 73 (1951), 197-271 (pp. 240, 242).
Claudio Leonardi, 'I codici di Marziano Capella', Aevum, 34 (1960), 1-99 (pp. 77-78).
The Diary of Humfrey Wanley 1715-1726, ed. by Cyril E. Wright and Ruth C. Wright, 2 vols (London: Bibliographical Society, 1966), II: 1723-1726, pp. 385 n. 6.
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. 109, 169, 367, 414.
Jean Préaux, 'Les manuscrits principaux du De nuptiis Philologiae et Mercurii de Martianus Capella', in Lettres latines du Moyen Âge et de la Renaissance, ed. by Guy Cambier, Carl Deroux and Jean Préaux, Collection Latomus, 158 (Brussels: Latomus, 1978), pp. 76-128 (p. 78).
Michael Winterbottom, 'Martianus Capella', in Texts and Transmission: A Survey of the Latin Classics, ed. by Leighton D. Reynolds (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1983), pp. 245-46 (p. 246).
Sigrid Krämer, Handschriftenerbe des deutschen Mittelalters, Mittelalterliche Bibliothekskataloge Deutschlands der Schweiz, ed. by Bernard Bischoff, Supplement 1, 3 vols (Munich: Beck, 1989-1990), II (1989): Köln-Zyfflich, p. 417.
Codices Boethiani: A Conspectus of Manuscripts of the Works of Boethius, ed. by Margaret Templeton Gibson and Lesley Smith, ed. by Margaret Templeton Gibson and others, 3 vols, Warburg Institute Surveys and Texts, 25, 27, and 28 (London: Warburg Institute, University of London, 1995-2001), I: Great Britain and the Republic of Ireland, ed. by Margaret Templeton Gibson, Lesley Smith, and Joseph Zeigler, pp. 140-41 no. 119 [with further bibliography].
Joachim M. Plotzek, 'Zur Geschichte der Kölner Dombibliothek', in Glaube und Wissen im Mittelalter: Die Kölner Dombibliothek. Ausstellung, Erzbischöfliches Diözesanmuseum, Köln, 7 August - 15 November 1998, ed. by Joachim M. Plotzek and others (Munich: Hirmer, 1998), pp. 15-64 (p. 34).
Bernhard Bischoff, Katalog der festländischen Handschriften des neunten Jahrhunderts, 3 vols (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1998-2014), II (2004): Laon-Paderborn, ed. by Birgit Ebersperger, no. 2446.
Rolf Bergmann and Stefanie Stricker, Katalog der althochdeutschen und altsächsischen Glossenhandschriften, 6 vols (Berlin: Walter De Gruyter, 2005), II, pp. 879-80 no. 413 [with further bibliography].
Iulius Africanus Cesti: The Extant Fragments, ed. by Martin Wallraff and others, trans. by William Adler, Die Griechischen Christlichen Schriftsteller, Neue Folge, 18 (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2012), p. CXXXI.
Rosalind C. Love, 'The Latin Commentaries on Boethius's De consolatione philosophiae from the 9th to the 11th Centuries', in A Companion to Boethius in the Middle Ages, ed. by Noel Harold Kaylor and Philip Edward Philipps (Leiden: Brill, 2012), pp. 75-134 (p. 88).
- 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.