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Harley MS 4121

Record Id:

040-002049958

Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:

040-002049958

MDARK:

ark:/81055/vdc_100000000807.0x00028b

LARK:

SLARK:

Format:

ISAD(G)

Reference (shelfmark):

Harley MS 4121

Title:

Historia Augusta, imperfect

Scope & Content:

Biographies of Roman emperors, their heirs, and usurpers from Hadrian (76-138) to Numerian (d. 284), often spurious, and attributed to six authors also of doubtful authenticity (Aelius Spartianus, Julius Capitolinus, Vulcacius Gallicanus, Aelius Lampridius, Trebellius Pollio, Flavius Vopiscus Syracusanus), imperfect, ending mid-sentence in the biography of Carinus (d. 285).

ff. 217 and 219v is blank.

The scribe was copying the text from an incomplete exemplar: marginal annotations in the scribe's hand: 'Hic multum deficit judicio meo' (f. 172r), 'Deficit in exemplari' (f. 217r).

Decoration:

Large white vine initial in colours and gold with white vine decoration extending into the margins, butterfly in the inner margin; white vine in the lower border with an effaced coat of arms enclosed in a wreath supported by 2 putti (f. 1). White vine initials in colours and gold. Smaller initials in gold on a red, green and blue panel.

Collection Area:

Western Manuscripts

Project / Collection:

Harley Collection

Hierarchy Tree:

[{ "id" : "040-002049958", "parent" : "#", "text" : "Harley MS 4121: Historia Augusta, imperfect" , "li_attr" : {"class": "orderable"} }]

Hierarchy Record Ids:

032-002045828
040-002049958

Is part of:

Harley MS 1-7661 : Harley Manuscripts

Harley MS 4121 : Historia Augusta, imperfect

Hierarchy:

032-002045828[4114]/040-002049958

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:

1450

End Date:

1499

Date Range:

2nd half of the 15th century

Era:

Access:

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User Conditions:

Letter of introduction required to view this manuscript

Physical Characteristics:

Material: Parchment.

Dimensions: 315 x 200 mm (text space: 215 x 100 mm).

Foliation: ff. 219 (+ 1 unfoliated parchment flyleaf at the beginning).

Script: Humanistic cursive.

Binding: Post-1600. Brown leather with gold fillets.

Custodial History:

Origin:

Italy, Central (Florence).

Scribe:

Attributed to Petrus ser Nicolai Honestus (Onesti?) of Pescia by Ruysschaert.

Provenance:

Effaced arms, 15th century (f. 1r).

Numerous annotations throughout, 16th century.

Text added in a 16th-century hand to provide a passage missing on f. 21 (ff. 218-219).

Peter Thomas, 16th century: inscribed 'Petri Thomae, ex Bibliotheca volumen ?fectum Tam cassidem quam codicem' (f. 1r).

Added notes drawing comparisons with the text of a manuscript in the Bibliotheca Vaticana, ?18th century (e.g. 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.

Publications:

A Catalogue of the Harleian Manuscripts in the British Museum, 4 vols (London: Eyre and Strahan, 1808-12), III (1808), no. 4121.

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. 327.

Albinia de la Mare, 'New Research on Humanistic Scribes in Florence', in Miniatura fiorentina del Rinascimento, 1440-1525: un primo censimento, ed. by Annarosa Garzelli, 2 vols, ([Florence]: Giunta regionale toscana, 1985), I, pp. 395-574, at 530 [with additional bibliography].

Material Type:

Archives and Manuscripts

Legal Status:

Not Public Record(s)