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Harley MS 4337

Record Id:

040-002050174

Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:

040-002050174

MDARK:

ark:/81055/vdc_100000000807.0x000399

LARK:

ark:/81055/vdc_100161636675.0x000001

SLARK:

Format:

ISAD(G)

Reference (shelfmark):

Harley MS 4337

Title:

Le Livre de Boece de Consolacion (Book III)

Scope & Content:

Contents:

This is the third volume of a five-volume set (Harley MSS 4335-4339) containing Boethius, Philosophiae consolatio (The Consolation of Philosophy), with an anonymous French verse-prose translation. Each chapter in Latin (alternating verse and prose) is followed by a commentary in Latin, then a French translation and gloss. The translation, dated c. 1350-1360, is linked to Jean de Meun's version, Li livres de Confort de Philosophie (early 14th century), and to Guillaume de Conches' (c. 1120-1125) glosses of the Latin commentary; it was the most widely copied version in the 15th century.

The colophon at the end of the fifth volume states that the work was copied by André Rousseau in 1477. The foliation is continuous across the five volumes.

Contents:

f. 1r: The final page of Le Livre de Boece de Consolacion, Book 2 (this page was included in Book 3 when the manuscript was separated into 5 volumes as f. 1v contains the miniature and opening lines of Book 3).

ff. 1v-110v: Le Livre de Boece de Consolacion, Book 3, in 24 chapters.

Decoration

One full-page miniature of a man digging in the ground on the lower right, watched by Boethius, Philosophy, and another figure standing; beside them is a seated man with his wife and family, perhaps the rich family from the image in Book 2 (Harley MS 4336, f. 1v) with containers of gold coins and plate on the ground in front of them, waiting to be buried. In the background a group of people are praying in a landscape of hills and a city with spires (f. 2r).

Initials in red or blue with foliate decoration in colours and gold at major text divisions. Small initials, numbering, paraph marks and line-fillers in gold on red or blue grounds. Cadels. Capital letters highlighted in yellow.

The illuminator has been identified as Jean Colombe (b. circa 1430, d. 1490), first librarian of the university library of Bourges, France (see Schaefer, 'Les débuts de l’atelier de Jean Colombe’, p. 144, and Cropp, 'Les manuscrits du Livre de Boece de Consolacion', p. 304).

Collection Area:

Western Manuscripts

Project / Collection:

Harley Collection

Hierarchy Tree:

[{ "id" : "040-002050174", "parent" : "#", "text" : "Harley MS 4337: Le Livre de Boece de Consolacion (Book III)" , "li_attr" : {"class": "orderable"} }]

Hierarchy Record Ids:

032-002045828
040-002050174

Is part of:

Harley MS 1-7661 : Harley Manuscripts

Harley MS 4337 : Le Livre de Boece de Consolacion (Book III)

Hierarchy:

032-002045828[4330]/040-002050174

Container:

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

Record Type (Level):

File

Extent:

1 volume

Digitised Content:

http://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/FullDisplay.aspx?ref=Harley_MS_4337 (digital images currently unavailable)

Thumbnail:

Languages:

French, Middle
Latin

Scripts:

Latin

Start Date:

1477

End Date:

1477

Date Range:

1477

Era:

Access:

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User Conditions:

Letter of introduction required to view this manuscript

Physical Characteristics:

Material: parchment.

Dimensions: 185 x 130 mm (125 x 65 mm).

Foliation: ff. 1* + 110 (+ 1 unfoliated medieval parchment flyleaf after f. 1*; + 1 unfoliated medieval parchment flyleaf at the end).

Medieval foliation in roman numerals.

Catchwords.

Script: Gothic cursive.

Binding: Post-1600. Gold-tooled brown leather, c. 1616; remains of black silk ties; gilt edges.

Custodial History:

Origin:

France, Central (Bourges).

Provenance:

Copied in 1477 by André Rousseau who worked in association with the illuminator Jean Colombe and was the first librarian of the University library of Bourges: inscribed 'Explicit ... Prima mensis februarij Anno domini Millesimo quadringentesimo septuagesimo sexto [1477 n.s.] ... [signed] Roussellj' (Harley MS 4339, f. 80v).

Gabriel Hinselin, by 1616: his name inscribed with the date (f. 1*r); his arms (vol. I, ff. 91r, 92r and vol. V, f. 81r) and a black wax seal inside upper cover.

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 '24 die Januarij, A.D. 1722/3.' (f. 1*r). 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:

Full digital coverage available for this manuscript: see Digitised Manuscripts at http://www.bl.uk.manuscripts/.

Select digital coverage available for this manuscript: see Catalogue of Illuminated Manuscripts at http://www.bl.uk/catalogues/illuminatedmanuscripts/welcome.htm.

Publications:

A Catalogue of the Harleian Manuscripts in the British Museum, 4 vols (London: [n. pub.], 1808-12), III, no. 4335.

Fritz Saxl and Hans Meier, Verzeichnis astrologischer und mythologischer illustrierter Handschriften des lateinischen Mittelalters, ed. by Harry Bober, 4 vols (London: Warburg Institute, 1916-66), III: Handschriften in englischen Bibliotheken (1953), pp. 165-68.

Robert Lucas, 'Medieval French Translations of the Latin Classics to 1500', Speculum, 45 (1970), 225-53 (p. 231).

Claude Schaefer, 'Les débuts de l'atelier de Jean Colombe: Jean Colombe et André Rousseau, prêtre, libraire et escrivain', Gazette des Beaux-Arts, 90 (1977), 137-50 (pp. 143-46, fig. ii).

Glynnis M. Cropp, 'A Checklist of Manuscripts of the Medieval French Anonymous Verse-Prose Translation of the Consolatio of Boethius', Notes and Queries, new series, 26 (1979), 294-96 (p. 296).

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. 808.

Glynnis M. Cropp, ‘Le Prologue de Jean de Meun et Le Livre de Boece de Consolacion’, Romania: revue trimestrielle consacrée à l’étude des langues et des littératures romanes, 103 (1982), 278-98 (p. 289).

Glynnis M. Cropp, 'Les manuscrits du Livre de Boèce de Consolacion', Revue d’histoire des textes, 12-13 (1982-1983), 263-352 (pp. 265, 266, n. 1, 303-05, 345-52).

Renaissance Painting in Manuscripts: Treasures from the British Library, ed. by Thomas Kren (New York: Hudson Hills Press, 1983), no. 20.

Glynnis M. Cropp, ‘Les gloses du Livre de Boece de Consolacion’, Le Moyen Age, revue d’Histoire et de Philologie, 42, 4th series, 41 (1986), 367-81 (p. 367, n. 2).

Sixten Ringbom, ‘Marc Chagalls Selbstporträt mit Sieben Fingern« und die Wiederherstellung verlorener Bildmittel’, in Kunst um 1800 und die Folgen, ed. by Christian Beutler, Peter-Klaus Schuster and Martin Warnke (Munich: Prestel-Verlag, 1988), pp. 360-66 (p. 363, fig. 2, p. 365).

Mise en page et mise en texte du livre manuscrit, ed. by Henri-Jean Martin and Jean Vezin ([n.pl.]: Cercle de la Librairie-Promodis, 1990), p. 301.

Yoshiaki Todoroki, 'A List of Miniatures of Goddess Fortune in Medieval Manuscripts', Cultural and Social Sciences, 41 (1990), pp. 71-114 (p. 89).

François Avril and Nicole Reynaud, Les manuscrits à peintures en France 1440-1520 (Paris: Flammarion, 1993), p. 347 [exhibition catalogue].

F. Ziino, 'Una traduzione latina del Boezio catalano', Romania: revue trimestrielle consacrée à l’étude des langues et des littératures romanes, 119 (2001), 465-82.

'Traduction de l'ouvrage : Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius. De consolatione Philosophiae.', in Frédéric Duval and Jeanne Vielliard, Miroir des classiques 17, 'Éditions en ligne de l'École des chartes' at http://elec.enc.sorbonne.fr/miroir_des_classiques/xml/classiques_latins/de_consolatione_philosophiae_boethius.xml#presentation [accessed 13.01.2022].

Le Livre de Boece de Consolacion ed. by Glynnis M. Cropp, Textes Littéraires Français (Geneva: Droz, 2006), p. 31.

Material Type:

Archives and Manuscripts

Legal Status:

Not Public Record(s)