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Harley MS 5098
- Record Id:
- 040-002050942
- Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:
- 040-002050942
- MDARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100000000859.0x000269
- LARK:
- SLARK:
- Format:
- ISAD(G)
- Reference (shelfmark):
- Harley MS 5098
- Title:
- Constantinus Africanus, Theorica Pantegni
- Scope & Content:
-
The manuscript includes a copy of the medical compendium entitled Theorica Pantegni or Pantechni written by Constantinus Africanus or Constantine the African (c. 1020-1098/9), a monk of African origin at Monte Cassino in Italy. The work is an adaptation and translation into Latin of part of the Kitāb Kāmil ('the complete' - or 'perfect' - 'book of the medical art) written before 977-978 by Haly Abbas (Άlī ibn al-Άbbās al-Mağūsī). It is preceded (f. 1r) by a dedication to the Abbot of Monte Cassino, Desiderius (1027-1087), who was elected Pope Victor III in 1086. Rubric (f. 1r) 'Hic incipit theorica pantegni a constantinus com/posita', followed by the table of contents to Book 1, incipit: 'De auctoritate yppocratis / quales debe[a]nt esse discipuli', explicit: 'De quatuor humoribus' followed by a note and verses 'Isti versus ponuntur post / enumerationem capitulorum / Omnia constringens specula ... a Constantino ver/bo translata latino, dedication to Desiderius incipit: 'Domino / suo montis cassianen/cis abbati desiderio Reve/rentissimo patrum patri ... Constantinus affricanus / licet indignus suus / tamen monacus ocultatis interius et exterius celi ascribi a/nimalibus', prologue incipit: 'Cum tocius pater sciencie generalitas / tres principales partes habeat, explicit: 'vestra consi/deratione digna iudicetis', rubric 'Qualis debet esse / Medicus / in infirmis / visitan/dis', text incipit: 'Oportet eum qui me/dicine vult optinere habitum', explicit (f. 70r): 'Acutum oportet habere sensum ad intelligendum / Explicit theorica Pantegni'.
The text is divided into ten books, beginning respectively on ff. 1r, 6r, 11r, 17v, 21r, 30r, 36r, 43r, 48v, 62v, each preceded by a table of contents. The title (f. 70v) 'theorica constantini' was added by a 15th-century hand. Includes sparse marginalia by 14th- and 15th-century hands.
Other copies of the text are Additional MS 22719 (ff. 2v-161v), Harley MS 1676 and Harley MS 4982 (imperfect at the end), Royal MS 12 C. xv (ff. 2r-82), Sloane MS 3098 (ff. 1r-89r), and Sloane MS 3481 (ff. 4r-75v, imperfect). Printed for the first time in Lyons in 1515 in the Omnia Opera Ysaac, vol. 2, ff. 1-144. For the text see Thorndike-Kibre, A Catalogue of Incipits of Medieval Scientific Writings in Latin, rev. edn (London, 1963), pp. 348j and k, and its electronic version (Ann Arbor, 2000), nos. 348J and K; Constantine the African and Άlī Ibn Al-Άbbās Al-Mağūsī: The Pantegni and Related Texts, ed. by C. Burnett and D. Jacquart, Studies in Ancient Medicine, 10 (Leiden, 1994), with no mention of the present manuscript. For Constantine see also Constantinus Africanus (11th cent.) and his Arabic Sources: Texts and Studies, ed. by F. Sezgin, Institute for the History of Arabic-Islamic Science, Islamic Medicine, 43 (Frankfurt am Main, 1996).
Decoration:
12 large puzzle initials (8-11 lines) in red and blue with penwork decoration or pen-flourishing and with display script in alternate red and blue with some penwork decoration, at the beginning of books (ff. 1r, 6r, 11r, 17v, 21r, 30v, 36r, 43r, 48v, 62v) and chapters (ff. 1r, 41r. Numerous smaller initials in red or blue with pen-flourishing in the alternate colour, at the beginning of chapters. Simple initials and paragraph marks in red or blue. Running headers in red and blue. Rubrics in red with indications to the rubricator in the upper margins. Simple line-fillers in red and blue (f. 70r).
- Collection Area:
- Western Manuscripts
- Project / Collection:
- Harley Collection
Harley Science Project - Hierarchy Tree:
- [{ "id" : "040-002050942", "parent" : "#", "text" : "Harley MS 5098: Constantinus Africanus, Theorica Pantegni" , "li_attr" : {"class": "orderable"} }]
- Hierarchy Record Ids:
- 032-002045828
040-002050942 - Is part of:
- Harley MS 1-7661 : Harley Manuscripts
Harley MS 5098 : Constantinus Africanus, Theorica Pantegni - Hierarchy:
- 032-002045828[5098]/040-002050942
- Container:
- View / search within Archive / Collection: Harley MS 1-7661
- Record Type (Level):
- File
- Extent:
-
70 folios.
- Digitised Content:
- http://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/FullDisplay.aspx?ref=Harley_MS_5098 (digital images currently unavailable)
- Thumbnail:
-
- Languages:
- Latin
- Scripts:
- Latin
- Start Date:
- 1250
- End Date:
- 1299
- Date Range:
- 2nd half of the 13th century
- Era:
- CE
- Access:
-
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- User Conditions:
- Physical Characteristics:
-
Materials: Parchment codex. Several parchment flaws (see ff. 23r, 37r).
Dimensions: 306 x 225 mm (text space: 192-194 x 125-127 mm).
Foliation: ff. iv + 70 (all flyleaves are modern paper leaves). Modern foliation in pencil '1-70' (f. 70v originally blank).
Collation: Gatherings (flesh-side out), now on guards: i-viii8, ix6, with quire signatures in Roman numerals, mostly with horizontal catchwords on the lower margin of last versos.
Layout: Traces of pricking (see f. 27) from recto. Ruled in ink (double vertical bounding lines for the left margins, single for the right margins, extra double vertical or horizontal lines in the outer margins) for double columns of 51 lines. Text written below top line.
Script: Gothic. Marginalia by later hands (14th- and 15th-century), including a large addition in a cartouche (f. 25v).
Binding: British Museum/British Library binding with the Harley arms and motto gilt at the centre of the covers. Rebound in 1964.
- Custodial History:
-
Origin: France, S.
Provenance:
Added title, 15th century (f. 70v).
An erased note followed by 'st de varey' possibly a name (relating to the De Varey family of Lyons?) 15th century (f. 70v); and similar note reading 'de ?vineze' (f. 70v).
The hospital of St Nicholas, Cues on the Mosel, Germany: inscribed 'liber hospital(is) s(an)c(ti) Nicolai prope cusa(m), 15th century (f. 1r) Apparently not part of the bequest from Cardinal Nicholas of Cusa (1401-1464), who had founded the hospital in 1458: see Sabbadini 1911).
Nathaniel Noel (fl. 1681, d. c. 1753), bookseller, employed by Edward Harley for buying books and manuscripts chiefly on the Continent, where his agent was George Suttie (see Wright 1972).
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 ‘18 die Januarij, A.D. 1723/4’ (f. 1r).
Edward Harley bequeathed the library to his widow, Henrietta, née Cavendish 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. Harley shelfmarks in brown ink '140.D.3 / 5098', followed by '16/I D' in pencil (f. i recto).
- Publications:
-
A Catalogue of the Harleian Manuscripts in the British Museum, 4 vols (London: Eyre and Strahan, 1808-12), III (1808), no. 5098.
Remigio Sabbadini, 'Niccolò da Cusa e i conciliari di Basilea alla scoperta dei codici', Rendiconti della Reale Accademia dei Lincei, 20 (1911), 3-40 (p. 40 n. 1)
Berthold L. Ullman, 'Manuscripts of Nicholas of Cues', Speculum: A Journal of Medieval Studies, 13 (1938), 194-97 (p. 195).
'Kritisches Verzeichnis der Londoner Handschriften aus dem Besitz des Nikolaus von Kues', Mitteilungen und Forschungsbeiträge der Cusanus-Gesellschaft, 3 (1963), 16-100; 5 (1965), 137-161 (pp. 156-158); 8 (1970), 199-237; 10 (1973), 58-103; 12 (1977), 15-71; 15 (1982), 43-56; 17 (1986), 21-56.
Rolf Winau, 'Medizinische Handschriften aus dem Besitz des Nikolaus von Kues im British Museum', Mitteilungen und Forschungsbeiträge der Cusanus-Gesellschaft, 5 (1965), 137-61 (pp. 156-58).
The Diary of Humfrey Wanley 1715-1726, ed. by Cyril Ernest Wright and Ruth C. Wright, 2 vols (London: Bibliographical Society, 1966), I: 1715-1723, pp. xxxix-xl; II: 1723-1726, p. 254 n. 3.
C. E. Wright, Fontes Harleiani: A Study of the Sources of the Harleian Collection of Manuscripts in the British Museum (London: British Museum, 1972), pp. 121, 254.
Hermann J. Hallauer, 'Habent sua fata libelli: Von der Mosel zur Themse: Handschriften des St. Nikolaus-Hospitals in der Bibliotheca Harleiana', Mitteilungen und Forschungsbeiträge der Cusanus-Gesellshaft, 17 (1986), 21-56 (pp. 36 n. 115, 43 no. 37).
Sigrid Krämer, Handschriftenerbe des deutschen Mittelalters, Mittelalterliche Bibliothekskataloge Deutschlands und der Schweiz: Ergänzungsband 1, 3 vols (Munich, 1989-90), I (1989), p. 159.
- Material Type:
- Archives and Manuscripts
- Legal Status:
- Not Public Record(s)