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Harley MS 3509
- Record Id:
- 040-002049340
- Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:
- 040-002049340
- MDARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100000000807.0x000011
- LARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100064919859.0x000001
- SLARK:
- Format:
- ISAD(G)
- Reference (shelfmark):
- Harley MS 3509
- Title:
- Cicero, De inventione; Boethius, Topica; Pseudo-Cicero, Rhetorica ad Herennium
- Scope & Content:
-
This scholarly manuscript contains three texts concerning the art of rhetoric. Its contents and evidence of intensive use attest to the study of Classical texts in the Middle Ages, especially those concerning the rhetorical arts. The manuscript contains marginal or interlinear notes on almost every page (almost all written in the same hand), tree diagrams (ff. 7v and 12v), and its flyleaves include diagrams demonstrating contemporary optical theory.
ff. 3v-10v: Marcus Tullius Cicero (b. 106 BC, d. 43 BC), De inventione (On Invention).
ff. 44r-48v: Boethius (b. c. 480, d. 524), Topica (Topics), Book 4.
ff. 48v-84v: Pseudo-Cicero, Rhetorica ad Herennium (Rhetoric for Herennius), Book 4.
Decoration:
6 large initials in combinations of green, red and yellow (ff. 3r, 21v, 44r, 48v, 53r, 61r), 1 with penwork decoration, possibly added (f. 61r); a space for one initial was left unfilled (f. 68r).
- Collection Area:
- Western Manuscripts
- Project / Collection:
- England and France 700-1200 Project
Harley Collection - Hierarchy Tree:
- [{ "id" : "040-002049340", "parent" : "#", "text" : "Harley MS 3509: Cicero, De inventione; Boethius, Topica; Pseudo-Cicero, Rhetorica ad Herennium" , "li_attr" : {"class": "orderable"} }]
- Hierarchy Record Ids:
- 032-002045828
040-002049340 - Is part of:
- Harley MS 1-7661 : Harley Manuscripts
Harley MS 3509 : Cicero, De inventione; Boethius, Topica; Pseudo-Cicero, Rhetorica ad Herennium - Hierarchy:
- 032-002045828[3510]/040-002049340
- 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_100064919859.0x000001
- Thumbnail:
-
- Languages:
- Latin
- Scripts:
- Latin
- Start Date:
- 1100
- End Date:
- 1199
- Date Range:
- 12th century
- Era:
- CE
- Access:
-
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- User Conditions:
- Physical Characteristics:
-
Materials: Parchment.
Dimensions: 200 x 130 mm (text space: approximately 150 x 90 mm).
Foliation: ff. 86 (+ 3 unfoliated paper flyleaves at the beginning + 4 at the end).
Script: Protogothic.
Binding: British Museum/British Library in-house.
- Custodial History:
-
Origin: England or France.
Provenance:
Unknown 14th-16th-century owners: their annotations on the flyleaves (ff. 1-2v, 85-86v); a (?) 15th-century owner added the title 'Cicero de inve[n]tione' on f. 3r.
Matthew de Varenne (fl. 1723/4), London bookseller and auctioneer, based at the sign of Seneca's Head, near Somerset House in the Strand, London: his sale (through Nathaniel Noel), London, 21 December 1723, lot 33 (see the date in the upper margin of f. 1r).
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), III (1808), no. 3509.
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. 265-66.
Cyril E. Wright, Fontes Harleiani: A Study of the Sources of the Harleian Collection of Manuscripts in the British Museum (London: British Museum, 1972), p. 336.
Birger Munk Olsen, L’Étude des auteurs classiques latins aux XIe et XIIe siècles, 3 vols (Paris: Centre national de la recherche scientifique, 1982-1989), I (1982), p. 214 (no. C. 249).
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; 1963-1997), IV (1989), p. 173.
Codices Boethiani: a Conspectus of Manuscripts of the Works of Boethius, ed. by Margaret T. Gibson, Lesley Smith and Marina Passalacqua Gibson, 3 vols, Warburg Institute Surveys and Texts 25-27 (London: Warburg Institute, 1995-2001), I (1995): Great Britain and the Republic of Ireland, ed. by Margaret T. Gibson and Lesley Smith, p. 147 (no. 127).
- 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.