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Harley MS 3223
- Record Id:
- 040-002049054
- Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:
- 040-002049054
- MDARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100000000761.0x00024b
- LARK:
- SLARK:
- Format:
- ISAD(G)
- Reference (shelfmark):
- Harley MS 3223
- Title:
- Thomas à Kempis, De imitatione Christi
- Scope & Content:
-
Contents:
ff. 3r-123v: Thomas à Kempis, De imitatione Christi.
The manuscript contains a later addition:
f. 2v: An Italian inscription, beginning: 'Se hai amicizi con alcuno, & aviene che cada in tentazione di fornicazione, porgeli la mano, e non l'abbando'; added in the 16th century.
Decoration:
1 historiated initial in gold and colours of Christ carrying the cross at the beginning of the first book (f. 3v). 3 large initials in red or blue at the beginning of books 2, 3 and 4 (ff. 28v, 45r, 101v). Numerous smaller initials in blue or red at the beginning of chapters. Rubrics and running headers in red. Paraphs in blue or red. An added full-page drawing of the arma Christi in brown ink on f. 1r.
- Collection Area:
- Western Manuscripts
- Project / Collection:
- Harley Collection
- Hierarchy Tree:
- [{ "id" : "040-002049054", "parent" : "#", "text" : "Harley MS 3223: Thomas à Kempis, De imitatione Christi" , "li_attr" : {"class": "orderable"} }]
- Hierarchy Record Ids:
- 032-002045828
040-002049054 - Is part of:
- Harley MS 1-7661 : Harley Manuscripts
Harley MS 3223 : Thomas à Kempis, De imitatione Christi - Hierarchy:
- 032-002045828[3224]/040-002049054
- Container:
- View / search within Archive / Collection: Harley MS 1-7661
- Record Type (Level):
- File
- Extent:
- 1 volume
- Digitised Content:
- Languages:
- Italian
Latin - Scripts:
- Latin
- Start Date:
- 1478
- End Date:
- 1478
- Date Range:
- 1478
- Era:
- CE
- Access:
-
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- User Conditions:
- Letter of introduction required to view this manuscript
- Physical Characteristics:
-
Materials: Parchment.
Dimensions: 180 x 120 mm (text space: 110 x 75 mm).
Foliation: ff. 123 (+ 3 unfoliated paper flyleaves at the beginning + 3 at the end).
Script: Humanistic.
Binding: Post-1600. 'Harleian' binding of gold-tooled red leather pasted onto modern outer cover; marbled endpapers with the Harlieian armorial bookplate gold-stamped on the insides of the upper and lower covers. Re-bound in 1968. A fragment of the old spine (inscribed: 'Johan Gersem [sic] De Imitatione Christi') is pasted on f. [iii]recto.
- Custodial History:
-
Origin:
Italy.
Provenance:
Written in 1478: according to a colophon on f. 123v: 'Explicit liber quartus & ultimus de sacramento altaris. Anno domini nostri yhesu xhristi 1478. Ex floreto'.
Andrea Magnani or Magnanino of Bologna, 16th century: his name inscribed on f. 2r: 'Di Magnanino Magnanini' (see Wright, Fontes Harleiani (1972), p. 231).
Owned by Pellegrinus Othonellius Penes, 16th century: his name inscribed on f. 3r: 'Pellegrinum Othonellium Penes' (see Wright, Fontes Harleiani (1972), p. 262.
John Gibson (fl. 1720-1726), dealer; sold to Harley on 28 August 1724 (see Diary, ed. by Wright and Wright (1966), p. 312 n. 2; Wright, Fontes Harleiani (1972), p. 162.
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 ‘28 die mensis Augusti A.D. 1724’.
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.
- Publications:
-
A Catalogue of the Harleian Manuscripts in the British Museum, 4 vols (London: Eyre and Strahan, 1808-12), III (1808), p. 10.
The Diary of Humfrey Wanley 1715-1726, ed. by C. E. Wright and Ruth C. Wright, 2 vols (London: Bibliographical Society, 1966), II: 1723-1726, p. 312 n. 2.
Tiburzio Lupo, Validità della tesi Gerseniana sull' autore della 'Imitazione di Christo', Biblioteca del Salesianum, 59 (Turin: Società Editrice Internazionale, 1960), p. 20.
Pierre Edouard Puyol, Descriptions bibliographiques des manuscrits et des principales éditions du livre "De imitatione Christi" (Paris: Retaux, 1898), p. 119.
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. 162, 231, 262.
- Material Type:
- Archives and Manuscripts
- Legal Status:
- Not Public Record(s)
- Names:
- Kempis, Thomas à, mystic and writer, c 1380-1471
- Places:
- Italy