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Harley MS 3955
- Record Id:
- 040-002049792
- Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:
- 040-002049792
- MDARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100000000807.0x0001d3
- LARK:
- SLARK:
- Format:
- ISAD(G)
- Reference (shelfmark):
- Harley MS 3955
- Title:
-
Virgil, Aeneid
- Scope & Content:
-
Contents:
ff. 1 and 133 are a flyleaves made of fragments of book 6 of Justinian's Codex (Italy, late 14th-century) with initials in blue with red pen-flourishing and in red with purple pen-flourishing.
f. 2r: Added inscription: Stefanus, early 15th century: inscribed 'Iste liber est mei stefani ccccxviii', 'In die Nomine Anno Ab incarnatione milesimo tregentesimo Nonagesimo Inditione quinta Apud Alvex [?Alessandria] [...] Ego Stefanus filius olim Simonis ser Michaelis Notarius Sciscrissi'.
ff. 3r-9v: added notes by Sozomeno (b. 1387 at Pistoia, d. 1458), who studied at the University of Padua in 1407-13, and belonged to the Poggio group of humanists at Florence, where he held the chair of Poetry and Rhetoric.
ff. 10-130v: Virgil, Aeneid, written in 1385, according to the colophon: '[...] explicit die xxvij mensis aprilis ottava Indiccione m^o^iij^o^xxxv [...]' (f. 130r).
Decoration:
Large initials in blue, blue-grey, red and/or ochre with pen-flourishing using the same colours (ff. 10r (x2), 19v, 29r, 38r (x2), 47r, 57v, 68r, 78r, 97r). The flourishing includes foliate decoration and 2 heads (f. 29v), 2 architectural columns (f. 97r). Smaller coloured initials in dark red (f. 2r). Small initials in brown with red penwork decoration. Catchwords decorated with red and brown ink. Some excised initials.
- Collection Area:
- Western Manuscripts
- Project / Collection:
- Harley Collection
- Hierarchy Tree:
- [{ "id" : "040-002049792", "parent" : "#", "text" : "Harley MS 3955: Virgil, Aeneid" , "li_attr" : {"class": "orderable"} }]
- Hierarchy Record Ids:
- 032-002045828
040-002049792 - Is part of:
- Harley MS 1-7661 : Harley Manuscripts
Harley MS 3955 : Virgil, Aeneid - Hierarchy:
- 032-002045828[3948]/040-002049792
- 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:
- 1385
- End Date:
- 1385
- Date Range:
- 1385
- Era:
- CE
- Access:
-
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- User Conditions:
- Physical Characteristics:
-
Materials: Paper. f. 9 is a parchment leaf.
Dimensions: 295 x 210 (200 x 90) mm.
Foliation: ff. 133 (+ 2 unfoliated paper flyleaves at the beginning + 1 unfoliated parchment and 2 paper leaves after f. 1 + 1 unfoliated paper flyleaf at the end).
Script: Gothic.
Binding: Post-1600. Binding of brown mottled calf with blind tooling.
Watermark of a tower and a 'M'.
- Custodial History:
-
Origin:
Italy.
Written in 1385: inscribed colophon: '[...] explicit die xxvij mensis aprilis ottava Indiccione m^o^iij^o^xxxv [...]' (f. 130r).
Provenance:
Stefanus, early 15th century: inscribed 'Iste liber est mei stefani ccccxviii', 'In die Nomine Anno Ab incarnatione milesimo tregentesimo Nonagesimo Inditione quinta Apud Alvex [?Alessandria] [...] Ego Stefanus filius olim Simonis ser Michaelis Notarius Sciscrissi' (f. 2r).
Numerous added texts, inscriptions, annotations and ink drawings in various 15th-century hands (ff. 2r-9v, 131r-132v).
Ownership inscription, with name erased, 15th century (f. 132r).
Inscribed with various names in 15th-century hands '?Bandinellius', 'Filippus', 'Bernardo gherardo' (f. 2r), 'Giovannij', 'Lodovicho Lodovichus Cecho ?Bastis Chechus' Francischus', 'Domenichus martinis', '... Andreas simonis Nicholaus iohannis pro viduis simonis nanes bandini ?Poggus francischi' (f. 132v).
Sozomeno (b. 1387 at Pistoia, d. 1458), studied at the University of Padua in 1407-13, belonged to the Poggio group of humanists at Florence, where he held the chair of Poetry and Rhetoric: added notes in his hand (ff. 3r-9v), presumably bequeathed by him with his other books to the Opera di San Jacopo in Pistoia (see Watson, Catalogue (1979)).
Probably the Opera di San Jacopo in Pistoia, 2nd half of the 15th century: probably bequeathed by Sozomeno, may be the 'Virgilius Eneidos glosatus' in the inventory made in 1460 (see Watson, Catalogue (1979)).
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: Catalogue of Illuminated Manuscripts, https://bl.uk/catalogues/illuminatedmanuscripts/,
- Publications:
-
A Catalogue of the Harleian Manuscripts in the British Museum, 4 vols (London: [n. pub.], 1808-12), III (1808) , no. 3955.
Franciscus Antonius Zacharia, Bibliotheca Pistoriensis (Augustae taurinorum: Typographia Regia, 1752), p. 38.
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. 797.
R. D. Williams, T. S. Pattie, Virgil. His Poetry through the Ages (London: The British Library, 1982), p. 136.
Giancarlo Savino, 'Nomenclatura codicologica nell'inventario della libreria di Sozomeno', Labibliofilia: raccolta di scritti sull'arte antica in libri, stampe, manoscritti, autografi e legature, 86 (1984), 173-78.
Irene Ceccherini, Sozomeno da Pistoia (1387-1458): scrittura e libri di un umanista (Firenze: Leo S. Olschki, 2016), no. 10 (pp. 78-84).
- Material Type:
- Archives and Manuscripts
- Legal Status:
- Not Public Record(s)