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Harley MS 4629

Record Id:

040-002050470

Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:

040-002050470

MDARK:

ark:/81055/vdc_100000000859.0x000091

LARK:

SLARK:

Format:

ISAD(G)

Reference (shelfmark):

Harley MS 4629

Title:

Texts on the wars of Julius Caesar

Scope & Content:

Contents:

f. 1v: added maxim on humility, late 15th century.

f. 2v: table of contents.

ff. 3r-4v: Polemius Silvius, list of Roman provinces from his Laterculus.

ff. 5r-70r: Caesar, Commentarii de bello Gallico (Commentaries on the Gallic War).

ff. 70r-79v: Aulus Hirtius, Commentarii de bello Gallico, bk 8.

ff. 80r-126r: Caesar, Commentarii de bello civili (Commentaries on the Civil War).

ff. 126r-142r: De bello Alexandrino (On the Alexandrine War).

ff. 142v-162: De bello Africano (On the African War).

ff. 162v-171v: De bello Hispaniensi (On the Spanish War).

ff. 2r and 4v are blank.

Horizontal catchwords.

Decoration:

Full foliate and spray border and decorated initial in colours and gold with dedicated spaces for arms and a miniature left blank (f. 5r). Initials with foliate decoration extending into the margins in colours and gold. Initials in gold set against blue and red grounds with white tracery (ff. 3r-4r). Titles and colophons in display capitals in red. Small initials highlighted in yellow.

Collection Area:

Western Manuscripts

Project / Collection:

Harley Collection

Hierarchy Tree:

[{ "id" : "040-002050470", "parent" : "#", "text" : "Harley MS 4629: Texts on the wars of Julius Caesar" , "li_attr" : {"class": "orderable"} }]

Hierarchy Record Ids:

032-002045828
040-002050470

Is part of:

Harley MS 1-7661 : Harley Manuscripts

Harley MS 4629 : Texts on the wars of Julius Caesar

Hierarchy:

032-002045828[4626]/040-002050470

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:

1474

Date Range:

3rd quarter 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: 320 x 230 mm (text space: 200 x 150 mm).

Foliation: ff. 171 (+ one unfoliated original leaf after f. 171, and 3 modern paper flyleaves at the beginning and the end).

Script: Semi-humanistic cursive.

Binding: Post-1600. British Museum in-house. Rebound in 1966.

Custodial History:

Origin:

France.

Provenance:

The motto 'Cum modestia sine molestia" followed by a shelfmark (?) 'XXXI' in a parchment label pasted onto f. 1r.

A late 15th-century French Gothic hybrid hand added a list of contents (f. 2v) and associated foliation in Roman numerals in the upper margin of the leaves, and marginal notes throughout.

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. 4629.

Virginia Brown, The Textual Transmission of Caesar's Civil War, Mnemosyne. Bibliotheca Classica Batava, Supplementum 23 (Leiden: Brill, 1972), p. 48.

Material Type:

Archives and Manuscripts

Legal Status:

Not Public Record(s)