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Harley MS 3754

Record Id:

040-002049586

Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:

040-002049586

MDARK:

ark:/81055/vdc_100000000807.0x000107

LARK:

SLARK:

Format:

ISAD(G)

Reference (shelfmark):

Harley MS 3754

Title:

Collection of classical texts, including Virgil's Bucolica, Georgica and Aeneid and Ovid's Metamorphoses, with annotations by Petrarch

Scope & Content:

Contents:

ff. 1r-4v: Virgil, Bucolica.

ff. 4v-14v: Virgil, Georgica.

ff. 14v-61r: Virgil, Aeneid, with a verse preface.

ff. 61v-101r: Lucan, De Bello Civili (On the Civil War) or Pharsalia.

ff. 101r-120v: Statius, Thebaid, imperfect, comprising Bks. I-VI (up to l. 482).

ff. 121r-155v: Horace, Opera (Works), imperfect at the beginning.

ff. 156r-159r: Aulus Persius Flaccus, Satirae (Satires), Bk. I.

f. 159r-v: Juvenal, Satirae, imperfect, comprising Bk. I (up to l. 151).

ff. 160r-173v: Ovid, Metamorphoses, imperfect, comprising Bks. I-IV (up to l. 636), V (ll. 259-478), and VI (ll. 4-222), with marginal annotations by the Italian poet Francesco Petrarca (b. 1304, d. 1374).

Decoration:

1 miniature in colours of a man pruning vines (f. 7r).

4 drawings in brown ink of agricultural tasks (ff. 1r, 4v, 9v, 12r). 1 added drawing in brown ink of a mounted solder (f. 15r).

Initials in blue with red pen-flourishing and in red with purple pen-flourishing (ff. 121r-139v).

Rubrics in red. Capitals marked in red.

Horizontal catchwords in frames with simple penwork decoration in brown, yellow and red.

Numerous blank spaces intended for miniatures.

Collection Area:

Western Manuscripts

Project / Collection:

Harley Collection

Hierarchy Tree:

[{ "id" : "040-002049586", "parent" : "#", "text" : "Harley MS 3754: Collection of classical texts, including Virgil's Bucolica, Georgica and Aeneid and Ovid's Metamorphoses, with annotations by Petrarch" , "li_attr" : {"class": "orderable"} }]

Hierarchy Record Ids:

032-002045828
040-002049586

Is part of:

Harley MS 1-7661 : Harley Manuscripts

Harley MS 3754 : Collection of classical texts, including Virgil's Bucolica, Georgica and Aeneid and Ovid's Metamorphoses, with annotations…

Hierarchy:

032-002045828[3755]/040-002049586

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:

1325

End Date:

1374

Date Range:

2nd quarter of the 14th century-3rd quarter of the 14th century

Era:

Access:

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User Conditions:

Physical Characteristics:

Material: Parchment.

Dimensions: 410 x 290 mm (written space: 300 x 195 mm), written in two columns.

Foliation: ff. 173 (+ 2 unfoliated paper flyleaves at the beginning and at the end); f. 3 has been trimmed vertically, so that only half of the folio remains.; 80 mm has been trimmed from the lower margin of f. 150.

Script: Gothic.

Binding: British Museum in-house. Black leather binding, with the Harleian arms gold-stamped on the upper and lower covers.

Custodial History:

Origin:

Northern Italy.

Provenance:

Francesco Petrarca (b. 1304, d. 1374), Italian poet and humanist: annotations in his hand accompanying Ovid's Metamorphoses (ff. 160r-173v).

The Jesuit College in Agen (Lot-et-Garonne, France), maintained by the Jesuits from 1591 to 1762: inscribed, 17th century, 'Colle. Agen. Soc. Jesu Cat. Inscri' (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:

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), III (1808), no. 3754.

Franco Munari, Catalogue of the Manuscripts of Ovid's Metamorphoses, Supplement 4 (London: University of London Institute of Classical Studies, 1957), no. 171.

Cyril Ernest Wright, Fontes Harleiani: A Study of the Sources of the Harleian Collection of Manuscripts in the British Museum (London: British Museum, 1972), p. 47.

R. D. Williams, T. S. Pattie, Virgil. His Poetry through the Ages (London: The British Library, 1982), p. 135.

David Anderson, 'Boccaccio Glosses on Statius', Studi sul Boccaccio, 22 (1994), 3-134 (p. 125).

Matteo Venier, Per una storia del testo di Virgilio nella prima eta del libro a stampa (1469-1519) (Udine: Forum, 2001), p. 16 n. 44.

Maurizio Fiorilla, Marginalia figurati nei codici di Petrarca, Biblioteca di Lettere Italiane, Studi e Testi, 15 (Florence: Leo S. Olschki, 2005), pp. 28-29, n. 35.

Maurizio Fiorilla, I classici nel 'Canzoniere': Note di lettura e scrittura poetica in Petrarca (Padua: Antenore, 2012), pp. 4-5.

Julie Van Peteghem, Italian Readers of Ovid from the Origins to Petrarch: Responding to a Versatile Muse (Leiden: Brill, 2020), pp. 226, 270, 271 n. 124.

Material Type:

Archives and Manuscripts

Legal Status:

Not Public Record(s)

Names:

Places:

Northern Italy