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Harley MS 5390
- Record Id:
- 040-002051236
- Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:
- 040-002051236
- MDARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100000000859.0x00038f
- LARK:
- SLARK:
- Format:
- ISAD(G)
- Reference (shelfmark):
- Harley MS 5390
- Title:
- Compendium of natural philosophy
- Scope & Content:
-
An anonymous compendium dealing mostly with meteorology and quoting alchemical texts. The same collection is found in a 15th-century manuscript at University College London, Archives, MS Lat/29.
Contents:
ff. 1r-57v: An anonymous compendium of natural philosophy ('Breve ac perutile philosophie naturalis commentum'); begins 'Quantum igitur ad primum premitto illud Aristotelis in principio Methaurorum Necesse est numdum hunc...'; ends '1469 Decimas tertias Kalendas Madii.'.
Decoration:
1 large initial in colours with foliate extensions and a man in academic dress (probably Aristotle) (f. 1r). Plain initials in red. Some rubrics and marginal notes in red, some in green. Some capitals marked in red.
- Collection Area:
- Western Manuscripts
- Project / Collection:
- Harley Collection
- Hierarchy Tree:
- [{ "id" : "040-002051236", "parent" : "#", "text" : "Harley MS 5390: Compendium of natural philosophy" , "li_attr" : {"class": "orderable"} }]
- Hierarchy Record Ids:
- 032-002045828
040-002051236 - Is part of:
- Harley MS 1-7661 : Harley Manuscripts
Harley MS 5390 : Compendium of natural philosophy - Hierarchy:
- 032-002045828[5392]/040-002051236
- 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:
- 1469
- End Date:
- 1469
- Date Range:
- 1469
- Era:
- CE
- Access:
-
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- User Conditions:
- Physical Characteristics:
-
Materials: Paper.
Dimensions: 215 x 135 (140 x 75) mm.
Foliation: ff. 1* + 57 (+ 2 unfoliated paper flyleaves at the beginning + 4 after f. 1* + 4 at the end).
Script: Humanistic cursive.
Binding: Post-1600. Brown leather with gold tooling.
- Custodial History:
-
Origin:
Northern Italy.
Written in 1469: colophon, 'Finis: Laus Deo Sempiterna: 1469 Decimus Tertias Kalendas Madij' (f. 57v).
Provenance:
John Gibson (fl. 1720-1726), dealer; sold to Edward Harley on 28 August 1724 (see Wright, Diary (1966); Wright, Fontes (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 ‘28 die Augusti A.D. 1724’ (f. 1*r).
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/ILLUMIN.ASP?Size=mid&IllID=25745.
- Publications:
-
A Catalogue of the Harleian Manuscripts in the British Museum, 4 vols (London: Eyre and Strahan, 1808-12), III (1808), no. 5390.
A. C. Clark, 'The Library of J. G. Graevius', The Classical Review, 5 (1891), 365-72 (p. 371).
The Diary of Humfrey Wanley 1715-1726, ed. by Cyril Ernest Wright and Ruth C. Wright, 2 vols (London: Bibliographical Society, 1966), II: 1723-1726, p. 312 n. 2.
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. 162.
Andrew G. Watson, Catalogue of Dated and Datable Manuscripts c. 700-1600 in The Department of Manuscripts: The British Library, 2 vols (London: British Library, 1979), no. 832.
Paul Oskar Kristeller, Iter Italicum: Accedunt Alia Itinera: A Finding List of Uncatalogued or Incompletely Catalogued Humanistic Manuscripts of the Renaissance in Italian and other Libraries 7 vols (London: Warburg Institute; Leiden: Brill, 1963-1997), IV (1989), p. 186.
- Material Type:
- Archives and Manuscripts
- Legal Status:
- Not Public Record(s)