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Harley MS 3577
- Record Id:
- 040-002049409
- Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:
- 040-002049409
- MDARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100000000807.0x000056
- LARK:
- SLARK:
- Format:
- ISAD(G)
- Reference (shelfmark):
- Harley MS 3577
- Title:
-
Anthology of Italian verse treatises
- Scope & Content:
-
Two volumes of Italian verse treatises, one from the 16th and the other from the 15th century, which were bound together in the 18th century.
Contents:
ff. 1r-81v: Francesco Maria Molza (b. 1489, d. 1544), La Ficheide with commentary by Annibale Caro (b. 1507, d. 1566).
ff. 82r-136v: Relatione dell' eccellentissimo Erizzo ambasciatore Veneto in Roma al serenissimo Doge et al Senato eccellentissimo sopra lo stato presente del pontefice Clemente XI, con diverse osservazioni sopra la corte Romana.
ff. 137r-143v: Leonardo Bruni (b. 1370, d. 1444), Speech of Heliogabalus, begins ‘Incredibilis me libido tenet conmilitones…’ printed in M. Z. Boxhorn, Historiae Augustae scriptorum latinorum minorum (Leiden, 1632), p. 97.
ff. 144r-158v: Compendio di Memorie Istoriche della Citta di Pisa, racolte dal dottore Giovanni Antonio Pieracini, cittadino Fiorentino.
ff. 159r-231v: Cecco d'Ascoli (b. 1269 or 1280, d. 1327), Acerba, incomplete as title and beginning of first chapter is missing, ends 'Equata vita e luce de miserria (sic). MCCCCLXXXI adi 13 denovembre finito.' Printed in Cecco d'Ascoli, L'Acerba [Acerba etas], ed. by Marco Albertazzi (Trento, La Finestra editrice, 2002).
Decoration:
Tinted drawings in colours at the beginning of each section (ff. 159r, 160r, 161v, 162v, 163r, 164r, 165r, 167r, 167v, 168v, 170v, 172r, 172v, 173v, 174v, 175r, 176r, 177r, 177v, 179r, 180v, 181v, 182v, 184r, 185r, 186r, 186v, 187v, 189v, 190r, 190v, 191r, 191v, 192r (x 2), 192v (x 2), 193r (x 2), 193v, 194r, 194v (x 2), 195r (x 2), 195v, 196r, 196v (x 2), 197r, 197v, 198r (x 2), 198v (x 2), 199r (x 2), 199v, 200r (x2), 200v, 201r, 201v (x 2), 202r, 202v, 203r, 203v, 204r, 204v (x 2), 205r, 205v (x 2), 206r). The subjects include angels circling the cosmos (f. 159r); a woman with her newborn (f. 168r); an enthroned king rending a lion (f. 173v); a dragon fighting an elephant (f. 200r); and many other sketches of animals and allegorical figures. Historiated initial in colours and gold (f. 187v). Alternating red or blue initials. Paraphs in red or blue.
- Collection Area:
- Western Manuscripts
- Project / Collection:
- Harley Collection
- Hierarchy Tree:
- [{ "id" : "040-002049409", "parent" : "#", "text" : "Harley MS 3577: Anthology of Italian verse treatises" , "li_attr" : {"class": "orderable"} }]
- Hierarchy Record Ids:
- 032-002045828
040-002049409 - Is part of:
- Harley MS 1-7661 : Harley Manuscripts
Harley MS 3577 : Anthology of Italian verse treatises - Hierarchy:
- 032-002045828[3579]/040-002049409
- Container:
- View / search within Archive / Collection: Harley MS 1-7661
- Record Type (Level):
- File
- Extent:
- 1 volume
- Digitised Content:
- Languages:
- Italian
- Scripts:
- Latin
- Start Date:
- 1481
- End Date:
- 1599
- Date Range:
- 1481-16th century
- Era:
- CE
- Access:
-
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- User Conditions:
- Physical Characteristics:
-
Materials: Paper (ff. 1-158), parchment (ff. 159-231).
Dimensions: 300 x 200 mm (250 x 85 mm).
Foliation: ff. 231 (+ 3 unfoliated paper flyleaves at the beginning + 2 at the end + 4 unfoliated leaves after f. 158).
Script: Semi humanistic.
Binding: British Museum in-house; rebound in 1966.
Horizontal catchwords.
- Custodial History:
-
Origin:
North-Eastern Italy.
Provenance:
The manuscript is a composite. It consists of two separate parts: the first (ff. 1-158) was copied in the 16th century and the second (ff. 159-231) in 1481. The two separate parts were only bound together after their acquisition by Harley.
An unidentified monogram: CENTA (f. 231r).
A piece of parchment, possibly bearing an ownership inscription, has been excised and replaced with a patch (f. 231r).
Conyers Middleton (b. 1683, d. 1750), Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge from 1706, head librarian of the University Library at Cambridge (1721-50) sold first part (ff. 1-158) on 25 February 1724/25 (Wright, Fontes Harleiani (1972); Wright, Diary (1966)).
Nathaniel Noel (fl. 1681, d. c. 1753), bookseller, employed by Edward Harley for buying books and manuscripts chiefly on the Continent, where his agent was George Suttie sold the second part (ff. 159-231) to Harley in 1716 (see 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 by their librarian, Humfrey Wanley ‘Bought by my Lord of Mr Noel A.D. 1716' (f. [158v]).
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://www.bl.uk/catalogues/illuminatedmanuscripts/record.asp?MSID=18443&CollID=8&NStart=3577
- Publications:
-
A Catalogue of the Harleian Manuscripts in the British Museum, 4 vols (London: Eyre and Strahan, 1808-12), III (1808), no. 3577.
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, pp. 341 n. 10 (for ff. 1-158).
C. E. Wright, Fontes Harleiani: A Study of the Sources of the Harleian Collection of Manuscripts in the British Museum (London: British Museum, 1972), pp. 239, 253.
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), no. 767.
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; Leiden: Brill, 1963-1997), IV (1989), p. 174
- Material Type:
- Archives and Manuscripts
- Legal Status:
- Not Public Record(s)
- Names:
- Bruni, Leonardo, Italian humanist, 1370-1444,
see also http://isni.org/isni/0000000121442279