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Harley MS 4794

Record Id:

040-002050637

Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:

040-002050637

MDARK:

ark:/81055/vdc_100000000859.0x000138

LARK:

SLARK:

Format:

ISAD(G)

Reference (shelfmark):

Harley MS 4794

Title:

Macrobius, Commentary on Cicero's De somno Scipionis

Scope & Content:

Contents:

ff. 1r-74v: Macrobius, Commentary on Cicero's De somno Scipionis.

f. 74v: Added pen-trials and drawing of a bearded head, 16th century.

Decoration:

White vine initials in colours and gold (ff. 1r, 5r, 46v). Display script in gold (f. 5r). Circular diagram in brown ink (ff. 46v, 54v, 57v).

Collection Area:

Western Manuscripts

Project / Collection:

Harley Collection

Hierarchy Tree:

[{ "id" : "040-002050637", "parent" : "#", "text" : "Harley MS 4794: Macrobius, Commentary on Cicero's De somno Scipionis" , "li_attr" : {"class": "orderable"} }]

Hierarchy Record Ids:

032-002045828
040-002050637

Is part of:

Harley MS 1-7661 : Harley Manuscripts

Harley MS 4794 : Macrobius, Commentary on Cicero's De somno Scipionis

Hierarchy:

032-002045828[4793]/040-002050637

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:

Physical Characteristics:

Materials: Paper, probably made in Ferrara. Watermark of a griffin (see f. 11r), similar to (but facing the other way) as that in C. M. Briquet, Les Filigranes: Dictionnaire historique des marques du papier dès leur apparition vers 1282 jusqu'en 1600, A Facsimile of the 1907 edition with supplementary material, ed. by Allan Stevenson, 4 vols (Amsterdam: Paper Publications Society, 1968), no. 7464 (Udine and Venice, 1461; Rome, 1464), and 7465 (Florence, 1464; Venice, 1460-67, 1470-71, 1472; Venice and Ferrara, 1471-76).

Dimensions: 290 x 200 (220 x 110) mm.

Foliation: ff. 74 (+ 1 unfoliated paper flyleaf at the beginning and at the end).

Script: Semi-humanistic.

Binding: British Museum/British Library in-house. Brown mottled calf with gold fillets.

Custodial History:

Origin:

Northern Italy, probably Ferrara.

Provenance:

Pen-trials and added drawing of a bearded head, 16th century (f. 74v).

The Jesuit College in Agen (Lot-et-Garonne, France), maintained by the Jesuits from 1591 to 1762: inscribed, 17th century 'Coll. Agen. Soc. Jesu. Catal. Insc.' (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.

Information About Copies:

Select digital coverage available for this manuscript; see the Catalogue of Illuminated Manuscripts: https://www.bl.uk/catalogues/illuminatedmanuscripts.

Publications:

A Catalogue of the Harleian Manuscripts in the British Museum, 4 vols (London: Eyre and Strahan, 1808-12), III (1808), no. 4794.

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. 47.

Bruce C. Barker-Benfield, 'Macrobius' in Texts and Transmission: A Survey of the Latin Classics, ed. by L. D. Reynolds (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1983), pp. 222-32 (p. 223).

John E. Murdoch, Album of Science: Antiquity and the Middle Ages, ed. by I. B. Cohen (New York: Scribner's Sons, 1984), no. 248.

Material Type:

Archives and Manuscripts

Legal Status:

Not Public Record(s)