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Harley MS 3568

Record Id:

040-002049400

Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:

040-002049400

MDARK:

ark:/81055/vdc_100000000807.0x00004d

LARK:

SLARK:

Format:

ISAD(G)

Reference (shelfmark):

Harley MS 3568

Title:

A collection of letters and orations by Italian humanists

Scope & Content:

Contents:

ff. 1r-68r: Antonio Beccadelli, Epistolae.

f. 68r: Philippi Macedonum regis Epistola ad Aristotelem.

ff. 68r-78r: Leonardo Bruni (Aretino), oration.

ff. 78r-79v: Leonardo Bruni (Aretino), Letter to Johannes Marasius Siculus

ff. 79v-80r: Pulex poeta de ortu et obitu hermaphroditi.

ff. 80r-88v: A collection of humanist letters, including by Guarino da Verona, Franciscus Philadelphus, Luchinus Belbellus, Maffeo Vegio, Isotta Nogarola and Poggio Bracciolini.

f. 88v: Plutarch, Letter to Trajan.

ff. 89r-92v: Saccus Cato, Oratio habita ad principium studii (dated 30 October 1437).

ff. 93r-93v: Guarino da Verona, Oratio de laudibus eloquencie et studiorum humanitatis.

ff. 93v-94v: Guarino da Verona, Oratio pro insigni praetore Veronensi Paulo Truno.

ff. 94v-96r: Guarino da Verona, Letter to Franciscus Barbarus.

ff. 97r-99r: Balthazar Rasinus, Oratio in funeralibus doctorum et scolarium gymnasii Ticinensis (dated 15 July 1439).

ff. 100r-101v: Oration for a doctorate entitled ‘Exordium’.

ff. 102r-115v: Leon Battista Alberti, Philodoxius.

ff. 116r-117v: Giovanni Lamola, Letter on chastity to Guidantonius Lambertinus.

ff. 118r-118v: Guarino da Verona, Letter to the lawyer Madius.

ff. 119r-135v: Antonio Barzizza, Cauteraria.

ff. 136r-154v: Ugolino Pisani, Philogenia.

ff. 155r-156v: Form letters.

ff. 157r-163v: Letters dated to 1426.

ff. 164r-167r: Guiniforte Barzizza, Oratio habita pro sponsalibus, dated 1435.

ff. 167v-170v: Cosimo Raimondi, Letter to AmbrogioTignosi.

ff. 171r-176r: Giovanni Lamola, Letter to Jacobus Foscarus Venetus.

ff. 176v-178v: Giovanni Lamola, Letter to Paolo da Pergola.

ff. 179r-179v: Ambrose Traversari, Letter to Pater Matheus.

ff. 180r-180v: Unidentified oration.

ff. 181r-182v: Leonardo Bruni, Preface of his translation of Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics.

ff. 182v-189r: Leonardo Bruni, Isagogicon moralis disciplinae.

ff. 189r-189v: Leonardo Bruni, Letter to Pope Martin V.

ff. 189v-191r: Leonardo Bruni, Letter to Hugo Bencius Senensis.

ff. 192r-194r: Marcus Tullius Cicero, De oratore.

ff. 194v-197v: Poggio Bracciolini, Letter to Nicolaus De Niccolis.

ff. 197v-200v: Poggio Bracciolini, Letter to Leonardo Bruni.

Decoration:

Large and small blue and red initials, some with red filigree penwork decoration, between ff. 102r-115v, ff. 119r-135v.

Collection Area:

Western Manuscripts

Project / Collection:

Harley Collection

Hierarchy Tree:

[{ "id" : "040-002049400", "parent" : "#", "text" : "Harley MS 3568: A collection of letters and orations by Italian humanists" , "li_attr" : {"class": "orderable"} }]

Hierarchy Record Ids:

032-002045828
040-002049400

Is part of:

Harley MS 1-7661 : Harley Manuscripts

Harley MS 3568 : A collection of letters and orations by Italian humanists

Hierarchy:

032-002045828[3570]/040-002049400

Container:

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

Record Type (Level):

File

Extent:

1 volume

Digitised Content:

Languages:

Latin

Scripts:

Latin

Start Date:

1420

End Date:

1463

Date Range:

c 1425-1463

Era:

Access:

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User Conditions:

Physical Characteristics:

Materials: Paper.

Dimensions: 290 x 210 mm.

Foliation: ff. 200 (+ 4 unfoliated modern paper flyleaves at the beginning + 5 at the end).

Script: Humanistic.

Binding: Post-1600. British Museum in-house: re-bound in 1973; a fragment from the old Harleian spine has been pasted on the inside of the upper cover.

Custodial History:

Origin:

? Speyer or Heidelberg, South-Western Germany or Pavia, Northern Italy.

Provenance:

‘Fridericus Steinhuser’ of (?) Speyer, wrote ff. 116r-118v, ff. 167v-170v, 181r-191v, and ff. 194v-200v between 1459 and 1463: his name inscribed in a colophon with the year 1459 on f. 117v; 1463 on f. 170v; 1460 on f. 191r; 1463 on f. 200r. A different hand has added ‘Fridericus steinhuser / Incola Spirensis’ on 167r; a 'Fridericus Stenhuser de Spira' matriculated at the University of Heidelberg in 1420; Steinhuser may have had access to an Italian exemplar there, but may also have been a German student in Italy. In the latter case, he probably was located at Pavia: many of the manuscript’s humanist authors, including Antonio Beccadelli, Leonardi Bruni, Balthazar Rasinus, Antonio Barzizza, Ugolino Pisani, and Poggio Bracciolini, were students or teachers at Pavia. Other parts of the manuscript have been written by different scribes, perhaps earlier in the 2nd quarter of the 15th century: the Oratio habita ad principium studii has been dated to 1437 (f. 89r); Saccus Cato’s Oratio to 1437 (f. 92v); Balthazar Rasinus’s Oratio to 1439 (f. 164r); the letters on ff. 157r-163v to 1426; Guiniforte Barzizza’s Oratio habita pro sponsalibus to 1435 (f. 167r); Giovanni Lamola’s letter to Paolo da Pergola to 1434 (f. 178v).

An unidentified early modern owner: remains of a red wax seal on f. 196v and f. 197v.

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.

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. 42.

Andrew G. Watson, Catalogue of Dated and Datable Manuscripts c. 700-1600 in The Department of Manuscripts: The British Library, 2 vols (London: British Library, 1979), I: The Text, p. 137 (no. 766); II: The Plates, pl. 596.

Material Type:

Archives and Manuscripts

Legal Status:

Not Public Record(s)

Places:

Northern Italy
Southwestern Germany