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Harley MS 3996

Record Id:

040-002049833

Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:

040-002049833

MDARK:

ark:/81055/vdc_100000000807.0x0001fc

LARK:

SLARK:

Format:

ISAD(G)

Reference (shelfmark):

Harley MS 3996

Title:

Nicolas de Nicolay, Navigation de la Mer

Scope & Content:

An account of James V’s navigation round Scotland in 1540 written by Nicolas de Nicolay (1517-83), royal geographer and lord of Arfeuille et Bel-Air. Based upon the pilot book of James’ navigator, Alexander Lindsay. A presentation copy for Cardinal Charles de Lorraine (1524-74). De Nicolay would publish his translation in 1583 as Navigation du roy d’Écosse Jacques V.

The manuscript dates to between 1547, when Charles de Lorraine was created a cardinal, a year after Nicolay acquired Lindsay’s pilot book, and 1566, when de Nicolay began his surveys of the French Provinces, as the text states that he had only thus far only made a new map of the Boulonnais.

Contents:

f. 1r: Title page.

ff. 2r-3v: Dedication to Cardinal Charles de Lorraine.

ff. 4r-5r: List of contents.

ff. 5v-22v: The Navigation.

ff. 1v, 23r-v are blank.

Decoration:

Scientific diagrams in gold and colours (ff. 18r, 19v, 20v, 22r, 22v). Capitals in blue and gold (1r, 4r, 5v, 7v, 10v) and in red and gold (ff. 9v, 14v, 17r, 18v, 19v, 20v). Gold ruled margins throughout.

Collection Area:

Western Manuscripts

Project / Collection:

Harley Collection

Hierarchy Tree:

[{ "id" : "040-002049833", "parent" : "#", "text" : "Harley MS 3996: Nicolas de Nicolay, Navigation de la Mer" , "li_attr" : {"class": "orderable"} }]

Hierarchy Record Ids:

032-002045828
040-002049833

Is part of:

Harley MS 1-7661 : Harley Manuscripts

Harley MS 3996 : Nicolas de Nicolay, Navigation de la Mer

Hierarchy:

032-002045828[3989]/040-002049833

Container:

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

Record Type (Level):

File

Extent:

1 volume

Digitised Content:

Languages:

French

Scripts:

Latin

Start Date:

1547

End Date:

1566

Date Range:

1547-1566

Era:

Access:

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User Conditions:

Physical Characteristics:

Material: Parchment.

Dimensions: 225 x 165 mm (written space: 165 x 115 mm).

Foliation: ff. 23 (+ 3 early modern paper flyleaves at the beginning and end).

Script: Humanistic cursive.

Binding: Pre-1600. Brown polished calf-skin; tooled in gold, all over design, interlacing ribbons; traces of 2 pairs of ties on upper and lower covers; gilt edges.

Custodial History:

Origin:

France.

Provenance:

Charles de Lorraine (b. 1524, d. 1574), cardinal of Lorraine, presented to by Nicolas de Nicolay: inscription ‘Ex dono auctoris’ (f. ii).

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, Humfrey Wanley ‘10 June 1723’ (f. ii).

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: [n. pub.], 1808-12), III (1808) , no. 3996.

John Eaton Reid, History of the County of Bute and Families Connected Therwith (Glasgow: T. Murray and Son, 1864), p. 70.

E. G. R. Taylor, Tudor Geography 1485-1583 (London: Methuen, 1930), p. 61.

A. E. Stephens, '"The Booke of the Sea Carte": A Seaman's Manual of the Sixteenth Cenutury', Imago Mundi, 2 (1937), 55-59 (p. 55 n. 2).

Alfred J. Fairbank and Berthold Wolpe, Renaissance Handwriting: An Anthology of Italic Scripts (London: Faber and Faber, 1960), pp. 76-77.

David Buisseret, Monarchs, Ministers, and Maps: The Emergence of Cartography (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992), p. 51 n. 81.

Elizabeth Bonner, 'The Recovery of St Andrews Castle in 1547: French Naval Policy and Diplomacy in the British Isles', The English Historical Review, 111 (1996), 578-598 (pp. 583-584).

Material Type:

Archives and Manuscripts

Legal Status:

Not Public Record(s)

Places:

France