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Harley MS 4858
- Record Id:
- 040-002050701
- Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:
- 040-002050701
- MDARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100000000859.0x000178
- LARK:
- SLARK:
- Format:
- ISAD(G)
- Reference (shelfmark):
- Harley MS 4858
- Title:
- Writings of Senaca and Cicero
- Scope & Content:
-
Contents:
ff. 1r-9r: Pseudo-Seneca, Epistolae Senecae (Letters of Senaca).
ff. 10r-11: Seneca, De quatuor virtutibus (On the Four Virtues).
f. 12v: Quotes from Seneca’s writings, in a later hand.
ff. 13r-108v: Seneca, Epistulae morales ad Lucilium (Moral Letters to Lucilius), or Letters from a Stoic.
ff. 109r-120r: Seneca, De beneficiis (On Benefits).
ff. 120r-121r: Sententiae philosophorum (Wisdom of the Philosophers).
ff. 121r-123r: Pseudo-Seneca, De moribus (On Death).
ff. 123r-129v: Seneca, Controversiae (Debates), Bk I, imperfect.
ff. 130r-136r: Cicero, Paradoxa stoicorum (Paradoxes of the Stoics).
ff. 137r-146v: Cicero, De senectute (On Old Age).
ff. 147r-159r: Cicero, De amicitia (On Friendship).
ff. 159r-160r: Seneca, Epistulae morales ad Lucilium, Letter 16.
ff. 9v, 11v, 12r, 136v, 160v are blank.
Horizontal catchwords.
Decoration:
Partial borders in colours and gold with bas de page scenes, coats of arms, and illuminated or historiated initials (ff. 13, 137, 147). 1 large initial in colours and gold with foliate extensions (f. 1). 1 large initial in colours and gold with a dragon (f. 120). Blue initials with red pen-flourishing and red initials with purple pen-flourishing (ff. 10-160). Rubrics, running headers, and protagonists' names in red. Paraphs in red or blue.
- Collection Area:
- Western Manuscripts
- Project / Collection:
- Harley Collection
- Hierarchy Tree:
- [{ "id" : "040-002050701", "parent" : "#", "text" : "Harley MS 4858: Writings of Senaca and Cicero" , "li_attr" : {"class": "orderable"} }]
- Hierarchy Record Ids:
- 032-002045828
040-002050701 - Is part of:
- Harley MS 1-7661 : Harley Manuscripts
Harley MS 4858 : Writings of Senaca and Cicero - Hierarchy:
- 032-002045828[4857]/040-002050701
- 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:
- 1300
- End Date:
- 1349
- Date Range:
- 1st half of the 14th century
- Era:
- CE
- Access:
-
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- User Conditions:
- Physical Characteristics:
-
Material: Parchment.
Dimensions: 255 x 200 mm (text space: 180 x 140 mm).
Foliation: ff. 160 (+ 2 unfoliated paper flyleaves at the beginning and at the end).
Script: Gothic.
Binding: Post-1600. British Museum in-house; rebound in 1965.
- Custodial History:
-
Origin:
France (ff. 10-129, 137-160); Italy, N. (ff. 1-9, 130-136).
Provenance:
Petrus Galesius [Pedro Galés], (b. 1537, d. 1595), born in Ulldecona in Tarragona; studied law in Italy; Professor at Orange from 1588 to 1591; in 1593 he was arrested by the Inquisition and imprisoned in Marmande where he died: his ownership inscriptions, 'P. Miralli' and 'P. Mirallii Galaesii' (f. 160v).
The Jesuit college in Agen (Lot-et-Garonne, France), maintained by the Jesuits from 1591 to 1762: inscribed, 17th century, 'Colleg. 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.
- Publications:
-
A Catalogue of the Harleian Manuscripts in the British Museum, 4 vols (London: Eyre and Strahan, 1808-12), III (1808), no. 4858.
Leighton Durham Reynolds, The Medieval Tradition of Seneca's Letters (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1965), p. 74.
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. 47,159.
Cyril Ernest Wright, 'Manuscripts of Italian Provenance in the Harleian Collection in the British Museum: Their Sources, Associations and Channels of Acquisition', in Cultural Aspects of the Italian Renaissance. Essays in Honour of Paul Oskar Kristeller, ed. by C. H. Clough (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1976), pp. 462-84 (p. 478).
Jeannine Fohlen, 'Les manuscripts P et B des Epistulae ad Lucilium et leurs descendants', Revue d'Histoire des Textes, 25 (1995), 129-157 (p. 148).
- Material Type:
- Archives and Manuscripts
- Legal Status:
- Not Public Record(s)