Hard-coded id of currently selected item: . JSON version of its record is available from Blacklight on e.g. ??

Metadata associated with selected item should appear here...

Harley MS 5421

Record Id:

040-002051267

Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:

040-002051267

MDARK:

ark:/81055/vdc_100000000859.0x0003ae

LARK:

SLARK:

Format:

ISAD(G)

Reference (shelfmark):

Harley MS 5421

Title:

Giovanni Boccaccio, Bucolica

Scope & Content:

This manuscript contains a copy of the Bucolica, a series of allegorical eclogues on contemporary events, written by the Italian poet Giovanni Boccaccio (b. 1313, d. 1375).

Contents:

ff. 1r-60v: Boccaccio, Bucolica.

Decoration:

1 large blue initial with red penwork decoration (f. 1r). Numerous smaller initials in red with purple penwork decoration or in blue with red penwork decoration. Plain red initials (ff. 58r-60r). Rubrics, running headers, and abbreviations of protagonists' names in red. Capitals marked in yellow. Paraphs in red or blue.

Collection Area:

Western Manuscripts

Project / Collection:

Harley Collection

Hierarchy Tree:

[{ "id" : "040-002051267", "parent" : "#", "text" : "Harley MS 5421: Giovanni Boccaccio, Bucolica" , "li_attr" : {"class": "orderable"} }]

Hierarchy Record Ids:

032-002045828
040-002051267

Is part of:

Harley MS 1-7661 : Harley Manuscripts

Harley MS 5421 : Giovanni Boccaccio, Bucolica

Hierarchy:

032-002045828[5423]/040-002051267

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:

1408

End Date:

1408

Date Range:

1408

Era:

Access:

Please request the physical items you need using the online collection item request form.

Digitised items can be viewed online by clicking the thumbnail image or digitised content link.

Readers who have registered or renewed their pass since 21 March 2024 can request physical items prior to visiting the Library by completing
this request form.
Please enter the Reference (shelfmark) above on the request form.

If your Reader Pass was issued before this date, you will need to visit the Library in London or Yorkshire to renew it before you can request items online. All manuscripts and archives must be consulted at the Library in London.

This catalogue record may describe a collection of items which cannot all be requested together. Please use the hierarchy viewer to navigate to individual items. Some items may be in use or restricted for other reasons. If you would like to check the availability, contact our Reference Services team, quoting the Reference (shelfmark) above.

User Conditions:

Physical Characteristics:

Material: Parchment.

Dimensions: 225 x 145 mm (text space: 150 x 90 mm).

Foliation: ff. 60 (+ 1 unfoliated paper and 1 parchment flyleaf at the beginning and at the end).

Script: Semi-humanistic.

Binding: Post-1600. Mottled brown calf-skin with gold tooling.

Custodial History:

Origin: Italy, Central (Florence).

Provenance:

Written in 1408: colophon, 'Scriptus et conpletus florentie per me... die xxo iijo mensis novembris 1408' (f. 57v).

Inscribed: 'Visto per me SS. 22 octobris 1445' ([f. 61]v).

John Gibson (fl. 1720-1726), dealer; sold to Harley on 12 February 1719/20 (see Diary (1966), I, p. 194 n. 9; Wright, Fontes Harleiani (1972), p. 162).

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 ‘12 Febr. 1719/20’ (f. 1r). 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. 5421.

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, p. 194 n. 9.

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.

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. 463).

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. 834.

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. 187.

Material Type:

Archives and Manuscripts

Legal Status:

Not Public Record(s)

Names:

Boccaccio, Giovanni, poet and scholar, 1313-1375
Gibson, John, book-dealer, fl 1720-1726

Places:

Florence, Italy