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Harley MS 4869

Record Id:

040-002050712

Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:

040-002050712

MDARK:

ark:/81055/vdc_100000000859.0x000183

LARK:

SLARK:

Format:

ISAD(G)

Reference (shelfmark):

Harley MS 4869

Title:

Publius Papinius Statius, Thebais

Scope & Content:

This manuscript contains a copy of the Thebais (Song of Thebes), a Latin epic poem by the Roman poet Publius Papinius Statius (b. c. 45, d. c. 96). It recounts the story of two brothers Eteocles and Polynices, who clash over the throne of the city of Thebes. The volume also contains a set of arguments for Statius' poem the Achilleid, attributed to the Italian humanist and notary Coluccio Salutati (b. 1331, d. 1406).

Contents:

ff. 1*v-3*r: Accessus ad Statium, with a piece of parchment bearing an inscription A 'Liber Sozomeni pistoriensis XXIIII' pasted to f. 1*r.

f. 3*v: General arguments for Statius' Thebais.

ff. 1r-150r: Statius, Thebais, with extensive marginal and interlinear annotation.

ff. 150v-151r: Arguments for Statius' Achilleid, attributed to Coluccio Salutati.

f. 151v is blank.

Decoration:

12 large puzzle initials in red and blue (ff. 1r, 11v, 23v, 34v, 47v, 59r, 73v, 86r, 98r, 112r, 126r, 138r). 12 smaller initials in blue with red penwork decoration or in blue with red penwork decoration (ff. 2*v, 3*v, 11v, 34r, 47r, 59r, 73r, 85v, 97v, 111v, 126r, 137v). Numerous smaller plain initials in red or blue. Paraphs in red or blue. Running headers in red. Capitals marked in yellow. Incipits and explicits in red.

Collection Area:

Western Manuscripts

Project / Collection:

Harley Collection

Hierarchy Tree:

[{ "id" : "040-002050712", "parent" : "#", "text" : "Harley MS 4869: Publius Papinius Statius, Thebais" , "li_attr" : {"class": "orderable"} }]

Hierarchy Record Ids:

032-002045828
040-002050712

Is part of:

Harley MS 1-7661 : Harley Manuscripts

Harley MS 4869 : Publius Papinius Statius, Thebais

Hierarchy:

032-002045828[4868]/040-002050712

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:

1400

End Date:

1449

Date Range:

1st half of the 15th century

Era:

Access:

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User Conditions:

Physical Characteristics:

Material: Parchment.

Dimensions: 270 x 165 mm (written space: 185 x 75 mm).

Foliation: ff. 1*-3* + 151 (+ 3 unfoliated paper flyleaveaves at the beginning and 4 at the end).

ff. 1*-3* are parchment leaves; a piece of parchment bearing an inscription has been pasted to f. 1*r.

Script: Gothic.

Horizontal catchwords.

Binding: British Museum in-house. Rebound in 1969. Red half-leather binding with the Harleian armorial bookplate, gold-stamped on the upper and lower covers.

Custodial History:

Origin: Central Italy.

Provenance:

Sozomeno (b. 1387, d. 1458), studied at the University of Padua in 1407-13, belonged to the Poggio group of humanists at Florence, where he held the chair of Poetry and Rhetoric: his ownership inscriptions: 'Liber Sozomeni pistoriensis XXIIII' (piece of parchment pasted onto f. 1*r; f. 151r); many notes and additions by him throughout the manuscript.

The Opera di San Jacopo in Pistoia: inscribed by two notaries: Ser Bartolomeo da Forlì, chancellor of Pistoia in 1460 (f. 1r), and Franciscus Luce, 15th-century, (f. 151r).

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://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. 4869.

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. 369.

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. 468).

David Anderson, 'Boccaccio Glosses on Statius', Studi sul Boccaccio, 22 (1994), 3-134 (p. 125).

Harald Anderson, The Manuscripts of Statius, 3 vols (revised edition: Arlington, Virginia, 2009), I, pp. 208-10, no. 315; III, p. 2.

Material Type:

Archives and Manuscripts

Legal Status:

Not Public Record(s)

Names:

Salutati, Coluccio, Italian humanist, chancellor of Florence, 1331-1406,
   see also http://isni.org/isni/0000000121017539
Statius Papinius, Publius, c 45-c 96,
   see also http://isni.org/isni/0000000118566297,
   see also http://viaf.org/viaf/100904338
Zomino [Sozomeno] da Pistoia, humanist and cleric, 1387-1458,
   see also http://isni.org/isni/0000000002525047,
   see also http://viaf.org/viaf/66823116

Places:

Central Italy