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Harley MS 7195

Record Id:

040-002053049

Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:

040-002053049

MDARK:

ark:/81055/vdc_100000000935.0x0002d4

LARK:

SLARK:

Format:

ISAD(G)

Reference (shelfmark):

Harley MS 7195

Title:

Ptolemy, Geographia, translated by Manuel Chrysoloras and Jacopo d'Angelo

Scope & Content:

This manuscript contains an illustrated copy of the Geographia (Geography), an atlas and treatise on cartography originally written by the Greek mathematician and astronomer Claudius Ptolemy (b. c. 100, d. c. 170), in a Latin translation by the Renaissance humanists Manuel Chrysoloras (b. c. 1355, d. 1415) and Jacopo d'Angelo (b. c. 1360, d. 1411). One leaf of the text is lacking from the volume, containing the beginning of the third book, as well as one of the maps of Europe and half of one of the maps of Asia.

Other illustrated copies of Ptolemy's Geographia in the British Library include Burney MS 111, Harley MS 3686, and Harley MS 7182.

Contents:

f. [iii] recto-verso: two sections of an unidentified document in French, possibly a charter.

ff. 1r-104v: Ptolemy, Geographia, translated by Manuel Chrysoloras and Jacopo d'Angelo, imperfect.

Decoration:

27 full or double-page maps in red, yellow and blue (ff. 56v-57r, 58v-59r, 60v-61r, 62r, 63r, 64v-65r, 66v-67r, 68v-69r, 70v-71r, 72v-73r, 74v-75r, 76v-77r, 78v-79r, 80v-81r, 82v-83r, 84v-85r, 86v-87r, 88v-89r, 90v-91r, 92v-93r, 94v-95r, 96v-97r, 98r, 99r, 100v-101r, 102v, 103r). 1 large white vine initial in colours and gold (f. 1r). 7 large initials in gold on pink grounds with white vine decoration (ff. 1v, 8v, 18v, 27v, 34v, 50r, 57v). Numerous smaller initials in gold on pink grounds with white vine decoration. Plain initials in red or blue. Rubrics in red.

The subjects of the maps are as follows:

ff. 56v-57r: a world map, with personifications of the twelve winds and the signs of the zodiac;

ff. 58v-59r: the British Isles, with part of Gaul and Germany;

ff. 60v-61r: Spain, with part of Gaul;

f. 62r: France;

f. 63r: Germany;

ff. 64v-65r: Retia, Vindelicia, Noricum, Pannonia, Liburnia, Illyris, and Dalmatia, with the Adriatic Sea;

ff. 66v-67r: Italy, Corsica, and the islands of the Tyrrhenian Sea;

ff. 68v-69r: Sardinia, Sicily, and the adjacent islands;

ff. 70v-71r: Sarmatia;

ff. 72v-73r: Dacia, Mysia, and Thrace;

ff. 74v-75r: Greece, and the adjacent islands;

ff. 76v-77r: Mauritania Tingitanica and Mauritania Caesariensis;

ff. 78v-79r: Northern Africa, between the Numidicus Sinus and Cyrene;

ff. 80v-81r: Cyrene and Egypt;

ff. 82v-83r: Marmarica and Ethiopia;

ff. 84v-85r: Asia Minor;

ff. 86v-87r: Sarmatia;

ff. 88v-89r: Colchis, Iberia, Albania, and Armenia Minor;

ff. 90v-91r: Syria, Arabia, Mesopotamia, and Babylonia;

ff. 92v-93r: Assyria, Susiana, Media, and Parthia;

ff. 94v-95r: South Arabia and Carmania;

ff. 96v-97r: Hyrcania, Margiana, Bactriana, the Sogdiani, the Sacae, and part of Scythia;

f. 98r: part of Scythia and Serica;

f. 99r: Aria, Drangiana, Gedrosia, Arachosia, and the Paropanisadae;

ff. 100v-101r: part of India;

f. 102v: part of India and the Sinae;

f. 103r: Taprobana, and the adjacent islands.

Collection Area:

Western Manuscripts

Project / Collection:

Harley Collection

Hierarchy Tree:

[{ "id" : "040-002053049", "parent" : "#", "text" : "Harley MS 7195: Ptolemy, Geographia, translated by Manuel Chrysoloras and Jacopo d'Angelo" , "li_attr" : {"class": "orderable"} }]

Hierarchy Record Ids:

032-002045828
040-002053049

Is part of:

Harley MS 1-7661 : Harley Manuscripts

Harley MS 7195 : Ptolemy, Geographia, translated by Manuel Chrysoloras and Jacopo d'Angelo

Hierarchy:

032-002045828[7205]/040-002053049

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:

1450

End Date:

1474

Date Range:

3rd quarter of the 15th century

Era:

Access:

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User Conditions:

Physical Characteristics:

Material: Parchment.

Condition: Several folios have been severely cropped, including ff. 64, 65, 68, and 69. Humphrey Wanley noted the excisions in his diary, writing that the manuscript was 'somewhat damnified by Childrens cutting out the Clean Velum' (see Diary (1966), II, p. 269 n. 6).

Dimensions: 540 x 390 mm (written space: 420 x 290 mm) in two columns.

Foliation: ff. iii + 104 (+ 3 unfoliated paper flyleaves at the beginning and 5 at the end (one of these is numbered 'iv').

Vertical catchwords.

Script: Humanistic.

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; fore-edges speckled red.

Custodial History:

Origin:

Milan, Italy.

Provenance:

This manuscript was written in Milan in the 3rd quarter of the fifteenth century, according to unpublished notes of A. C. de la Mare at the Bodleian Library, Oxford.

The convent of Franciscan Recollects at St Omer, Pas-de-Calais, France: inscribed, 'conventus audomarensis fratrum minorum recollectorum 1656' (f. 1r).

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: sold to Edward Harley on 18 January 1723/4 (see Wright, Fontes Harleiani (1972)., pp. 254-54)

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 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. 7195.

Catalogue of Manuscript Maps, Charts and Plans, and of the Topographical Drawings in the British Museum, 3 vols (London: British Museum, 1844-1861), I, p. 8.

Joseph Fischer, Claudii Ptolemaei Geographiae Codex Urbinas Graecus 82, Codices e Vaticanis selecti, 19, 3 vols (Leyden: Brill, 1932), I, 214, 327, 331, 333, 368, 410; II, pl. L 10.

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. 269 n. 6.

Cyril Ernest Wright, Fontes Harleiani: A Study of the Sources of the Harleian Collection of Manuscripts in the British Museum (London: British Museum, 1972), pp. 254, 294.

Material Type:

Archives and Manuscripts

Legal Status:

Not Public Record(s)

Names:

Chrysoloras, Manuel, Byzantine humanist, c 1355-1415
Noel, Nathaniel, bookseller, fl 1681, d c 1753
Ptolemaeus (Ptolemy), Claudius, astronomer, c 90-c 168
d'Angelo, Jacopo, Italian scholar and humanist, c. 1360-1411

Places:

Milan, Italy