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Harley MS 2695

Record Id:

040-002048526

Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:

040-002048526

MDARK:

ark:/81055/vdc_100000000761.0x000389

LARK:

SLARK:

Format:

ISAD(G)

Reference (shelfmark):

Harley MS 2695

Title:

Collection of classical and humanistic texts

Scope & Content:

This manuscript contains a collection of classical texts, including works by the Roman poets Virgil (b. 70, d. 19 BC) and Ovid (b. 43 BC, d. 17/18) and the Christian poet Lactantius (b. c. 250, d. c. 325). It also includes a Latin translation of the Batrachomyomachia (Battle of the Frogs and Mice), by the Carolus Marsuppinus Aretinus of Florence (b. c. 1399, d. 1453), and the Gramatica of Guarino da Verona (b. 1374, d. 1460). The manuscript features extensive marginal and interlinear annotations, in a variety of hands, some written in Greek.

Contents:

f. 1*r: added ownership inscriptions and pen-trials in a numbet of different hands.

ff. 1r-24r: Virgil, Eclogae (Eclogues).

ff. 25r-46v: Virgil, Aeneid, Bk. VI.

ff. 47r-49v: Pseudo-Virgil, Moretum (The Pesto).

ff. 50r-55v: Ovid, Epistola Sapphus ad Phaonum (Heroides XV).

ff. 55v-58r: Lactantius, De resurrectione (On the Resurrection).

ff. 58r-62r: Lactantius, De Phoenice (On the Phoenix).

ff. 62r-70r: Batrachomyomachia, attributed to Homer, in a Latin translation by Carolus Marsuppinus Aretinus.

ff. 70r-75v: Guarino da Verona, Grammatica (Grammer).

ff. 76r-80v: Ovid, Fasti (Book of the Roman Calendar), Bk. II, ll. 679-852.

ff. 84r-90v: excerpts from the verse Romulus, a collection of fables attributed to Gualterus Anglicus.

ff. 91r-92v: added notes and pen-trials in a number of different hands.

ff. 1*v, 24v, 81v, and 82v-83r are blank.

Decoration:

17 initials in blue with red penwork decoration or in red with blue penwork decoration (ff. 1r, 3r, 5r, 8r, 10r, 12v, 15r, 17r, 20r, 22r, 25r, 50r, 55v, 62r, 70r, 76r, 84r). An unidentified coat of arms, 3 fleur-de-lis above a tree, with two pendants hanging from the branches, drawn in pen and ink (f. 81r). An unidentified coat of arms, a black cross with a cresent moon in the centre and in each of the four quadrants (f. 82r). Paraphs in red or blue (ff. 88r-89r).

Collection Area:

Western Manuscripts

Project / Collection:

Harley Collection

Hierarchy Tree:

[{ "id" : "040-002048526", "parent" : "#", "text" : "Harley MS 2695: Collection of classical and humanistic texts" , "li_attr" : {"class": "orderable"} }]

Hierarchy Record Ids:

032-002045828
040-002048526

Is part of:

Harley MS 1-7661 : Harley Manuscripts

Harley MS 2695 : Collection of classical and humanistic texts

Hierarchy:

032-002045828[2696]/040-002048526

Container:

View / search within Archive / Collection: Harley MS 1-7661

Record Type (Level):

File

Extent:

1 volume

Digitised Content:

Languages:

Greek
Latin

Scripts:

Greek
Latin

Start Date:

1425

End Date:

1474

Date Range:

2nd quarter of the 15th century-3rd quarter of the 15th century

Era:

Access:

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User Conditions:

Physical Characteristics:

Material: Paper.

Dimensions: 140 x 100 mm (written space: 90 x 70 mm).

Foliation: ff. 1* + 92 (+ 3 unfoliated paper flyleaves at the beginning + 1 blank paper leaf after 1* + 7 paper leaves ruled in hardpoint after f. 90 + 3 unfoliated paper flyleaves at the end).

f. 1* is a paper leaf.

Script: Humanistic cursive.

Binding: Post-1600. 'Harleian' binding of gold-tooled red leather; marbled endpapers.

Custodial History:

Origin: Central Italy.

Provenance:

'Guelfus', owned 15th century: inscribed, 'Hic liber est civis Guelfi Florentini' (f. 1*r; see Wright, Fontes Harleiani (1972), p. 173).

An unidentified coat of arms, added 16th century, 3 fleur-de-lis above a fruit tree, with two pendants hanging from the branches (f. 81r).

An unidentified coat of arms, added 16th century, a black cross with a cresent moon in the centre and each of the four quadrants (f. 82r).

Paul Vaillant (b. 1672, d. 1739), London bookseller: sold to Harley on 19 April 1722 (see Wright, Fontes Harleiani (1972), p. 335; Diary (1966), I, p. 139 n. 5).

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 ‘19 die Aprilis A.D. 1722’ (f. 1*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. 2695.

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. 139 n. 5.

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. 173, 335.

E.H. Alton, D. E. W. Wormell, and E. Courtney, 'A Catalogue of the Manuscripts of Ovid's Fasti', London University Institute of Classical Studies Bulletin, 24 (1977), pp. 37-63.

G. L. Bursill-Hall, A Census of Medieval Latin Grammatical Manuscripts, Grammatica Speculativa: Sprachtheorie und Logik des Mittelalters, 4 (Stuttgart: Frommann-Holzboog, 1981), p. 117 no. 131.

R. D. Williams, T. S. Pattie, Virgil. His Poetry through the Ages (London: The British Library, 1982), p. 133.

Georg N. Knauer, 'Item per miscellanea: Homer's Batrachomyomachia and Johannes Reuchlin', in The Whole Book: Cultural Perspectives on the Medieval Miscellany, ed. by Stephen G. Nichols and Siegfried Wenzel (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1996), pp. 22-36 (p. 25 n. 10).

Material Type:

Archives and Manuscripts

Legal Status:

Not Public Record(s)

Names:

Guarino da Verona, Italian humanist and scholar, 1374-1460,
   see also http://isni.org/isni/0000000123211124
Lactantius, Lucius Caecilius Firmianus, rhetorician and Christian apologist, c 260-c 340
Marsuppinus Aretinus, Carolus, c 1399-1453
Ovidius Naso, Publius, Roman poet, 43 BC-17,
   see also http://isni.org/isni/0000000121427757
Pseudo-Virgil, Undetermined
Vaillant, Paul, bookseller, of London; nephew of Isaac Vaillant, 1672-1739
Vergilius Maro, Publius, 70 BC-19 BC,
   see also http://isni.org/isni/0000000430695667

Places:

Central Italy