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Royal MS 6 E IX
- Record Id:
- 040-002106196
- Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:
- 032-002105724
- MDARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100000000277.0x0001ef
- LARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100173657110.0x000001
- SLARK:
- Format:
- ISAD(G)
- Reference (shelfmark):
- Royal MS 6 E IX
- Title:
-
Convenevole da Prato, Carmina regia : Address of the City of Prato to Robert of Anjou
- Scope & Content:
-
Carmina regia: Address of the City of Prato to Robert of Anjou. Address in Latin verse intimately connected with the accompanying miniatures, to Robert of Anjou, King of Naples, from the town of Prato in Tuscany, which had placed itself under his protection, c. 1335-1340. The text may perhaps be attributed to Convenevole da Prato (c. 1270/75-1338), a professor of grammar and rhetoric most famous as Petrarch's teacher. In the address, the city of Prato beseeches the King to unite the Italian peninsula under his rule and restore the papacy to Rome. Incipit: 'Sedes summa dei prout est exemplar amoris....' Explicit: 'Scandat & imploret procunctis qualibet hora'. This was likely the presentation copy of the text, given to Robert of Anjou on behalf of the city of Prato. Two other copies of the text exist: Vienna, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, cod. s.n. 2639, and Florence, Biblioteca nazionale centrale, MS Banco rari 38.
Decoration:
48 miniatures in colours and gold with verses incorporated in them (ff. 1v, 2v, 4v-5r, 6r-9r, 10v-13r, 15r, 19v-25r, 27r, 28v-30v).
Initials in blue with red pen-flourishing or in red with purple or blue pen-flourishing.
The illumination has been attributed to Pacino di Bonaguida, a follower of Giotto, active in Florence c. 1300-c. 1350. See Ada Labriola, 'Pacindo di Buonaguida', in Dizionario Biografico dei Miniatori Italiani: Secoli IX-XVI, ed. by Bollati (2004), pp. 841-43 (p. 841). The miniatures are very similar to those in the other two extant manuscripts of this text: Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Samlung der kunstindustriellen Gegenstände, MS 10 and Florence, Biblioteca Nazionale, Magliabecchiana MS ci vii cod. 17.
- f. 1v: Miniature of the Sedes Dei, the outline of a chair, inscribed with verses and with the arms of King Robert d'Anjou and of the pope, inscribed with verses.
- f. 2v: Miniature of Enoch and Elias kneeling at the foot of the Arbor vitae, with lilies and pomegranates, inscribed with verses.
- f. 4v: Miniature of Christ in glory holding a globe and blessing the Virgin, who kneels on the facing page.
- f. 5r: Miniature of the Virgin Mary kneeling (towards Christ on the previous page). Behind her is a throne atop a set of stairs. Her crown rests on the seat, and a dragon breathes fire, creeping along the ground at the base of the stairs.
- f. 6r: Three miniatures depicting three different angelic orders: Seraphim (red faces and wings, no bodies), Cherubim (all blue, with bodies, kneeling), and Thrones (white wings, yellow robes.
- f. 6v: Three miniatures of the angelic orders of Dominations, Princes and Powers. The Dominations carry thin wands. The Princes, armored and helmeted, carry shields and maces. The Powers, also armored in chain, crush the skulls of demons in their hands.
- f. 7r: Three miniatures of the angelic orders of Virtues, Archangels and Angels. Michael stands among the Archangels, armed and crowned.
- f. 7v: Miniatures of Patriarchs, Prophets and Apostles in three registers. Moses stands among the prophets, horns on his head and holding a blank scroll. Many of the apostles carry books or scrolls.
- f. 8r: Miniatures of Martyrs, Confessors, Virgins, Widows, and the Just in four registers. The Just are a diverse group, including both men and women, and two men crowned with gold.
- f. 8v: Miniature of the cross in the papal chair, with a lion and a dragon below it, inscribed with verses.
- f. 9r: Miniature of Christ holding a labarum with a serpent at the top. The labarum acts as a standard, flying a flag with a cross and the legend ‘Et crucis hoc signum / devincitur / omne / malignum’ (‘And this sign of the cross conquers all evil’).
- f. 10v: Miniature of king Robert of Anjou sitting on his throne, with inscribed fleur-de-lis in the background.
- f. 11r: Miniature of the personification of Italy as a mourning woman, before king Robert of Anjou, on the preceding page.
- f. 11v: Miniature of the personification of Rome as a mourning woman.
- f. 12r: Miniature of Hercules wearing a lion's hide and carrying a mace.
- f. 12v: Text with three fleur-de-lys in the margin, in different colours: silver with internal foliate filigree decoration; gold; and red with internal foliate filigree decoration.
- f. 13r: Miniature of the personification of Florence as a woman with arms folded across her chest.
- f. 15v: Two miniatures of gardens or flowery fields referring to 'Prato'. The garden above contains fruit trees, including pears and pomegranates. Below, the garden contains lilies and other flowers.
- f. 19v: Miniature of the personification of Faith, kneeling and holding up a large book inscribed with verses.
- f. 20r: Miniature of the personification of Hope, looking up at Christ appearing in the sky.
- f. 20v: Miniature of the personification of Charity, crowned and clothed in a fur-lined red robe.
- f. 21r: Miniature of personifications of Prudence, as a young woman, and Justice, as an armed man bearing a shield inscribed with the word 'Lex'.
- f. 21v: Miniature of personifications of Fortitude holding a mace and a shield, and Temperance holding scales. Fortitude’s shield features an elephant on a red ground, inscribed with verses.
- f. 22r: Miniature of the Judgement of Paris, with Pallas Athena, Juno and Venus sitting at a table, and Paris giving a fruit to Venus. Paris is kneeling, dressed in the fashion of the 1330s, wearing a long robe of brocade and the goddesses are wearing super-tunics and tunics of different fabrics. Juno, the queen of the gods, is crowned, with Pallas Athena, the goddess of wisdom is to the left, crowned with laurel and wearing robe decorated with peacocks. She carries the inscription, ‘Me paris hoc / spernit quia / lumina non / bene cernit / Et venerem / laudat que / semper eum ma- / le fraudat’ ('Paris spurns me because he does not see the light well, and he praises Venus who always cheats him badly').
- f. 22v: Miniature of Cassandra kneeling.
- f. 23r: Large miniature of a peacock, inscribed with verses.
- f. 23v: Miniature of two banners, of Anjou (fleur-de-lys on blue ground) and another in yellow and red, held aloft by a young man.
- f. 24r: Miniature of an armed knight of Prato on horseback. His shield appears to be a modification of the arms of Anjou.
- f. 24v: Miniature of the Three Graces, nude, but covered by a white drapery, which they hold to their right shoulders with their bare left arms.
- f. 25r: Miniature of the Tree of the Royal House of France, bearing the crowns of France, Jerusalem and Sicily, Navarre, and Hungary.
- f. 27r: Miniature of the personification of Philosophy, crowned and holding a sceptre. She holds out a small book in her hand and carries three more in the fold of her sleeve.
- f. 28v: Miniature of Pegasus at the foot of a mountain.
- f. 29r: Miniature of the personifications of the Seven Liberal Arts: Astronomy, Music, Arithmetic, Geometry, Rhetoric, Logic and Grammar. Music gestures toward a page of musical notation, ‘Spiritus alme veni tu sancte….’ Grammar holds an open book, inscribed with a verse.
- f. 29v: Miniature of Four Muses: Clio (history) and Melpomene (tragedy) both issue from vase-shaped fountains, water flowing out at their feet. Euterpe (music) holds a flower pot and Thalia (comedy) stretches out her arms, holding up the cloth of her robe to form a ‘lap’, mirroring the accompanying verse (‘In gremio teneo…’).
- f. 30r: Miniature of Four Muses: Polyhymnia (choral poetry) emerges from a vase, likely intended as a fountain, and takes books from a large storage chest. Erato (lyric poetry), issues from a vase and holds up placards with verses. Terpsichore (dance), stands before a bookstand, reading from an open volume. Urania (astrology) flies up from the bottom of the page, with star-spangled wings and cap.
- f. 30v: Miniature of Calliope, the muse of heroic or epic poetry. She stands before a vase-shaped fountain with water flowing out, and plays a wind instrument.
- Collection Area:
- Western Manuscripts
- Project / Collection:
- Royal Collection
- Hierarchy Record Ids:
- 032-002105724
040-002106196 - Is part of:
- Royal MS 1 A I-20 E X : Royal Manuscripts
Royal MS 6 E IX : Convenevole da Prato, Carmina regia : Address of the City of Prato to Robert of Anjou - Hierarchy:
- 032-002105724[0433]/040-002106196
- Container:
- View / search within Archive / Collection: Royal MS 1 A I-20 E X
- Record Type (Level):
- File
- Extent:
-
Parchment codex
- Digitised Content:
- http://access.bl.uk/item/viewer/ark:/81055/vdc_100173657110.0x000001 (digital images currently unavailable)
- Thumbnail:
-
- Languages:
- Latin
- Scripts:
- Latin
- Start Date:
- 1330
- End Date:
- 1340
- Date Range:
- c 1335
- Era:
- CE
- Access:
- Restrictions to access apply please consult British Library staff
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- User Conditions:
-
Letter of introduction required to view this manuscript.
- Physical Characteristics:
-
Materials: Parchment.
Dimensions: 490 x 350mm (text space: 355 x 240mm), in two columns.
Foliation: ff. i + 30. Folio i is a medieval parchment endleaf at the beginning of the volume. (Plus four unfoliated modern paper endleaves at the beginning and at the end).
Collation: i2, ii-iii8, iv1, v10 (ff. 25-26 an inserted sheet), vi2.
Script: Gothic cursive.
Binding: Post-1600; Royal Library binding.
- Custodial History:
-
Origin: Italy (Tuscany).
Provenance:
Robert of Anjou, king of Naples (1277-1343): his arms (f. 2v), and portrait (f. 10). The manuscript is probably the original copy presented to him by citizens of Prato, Tuscany, when the city placed itself under his protection (c. 1335-1340).
Presented to the British Museum by George II in 1757 as part of the Old Royal Library.
- Information About Copies:
-
Full digital coverage available for this manuscript, see Digitised Manuscripts http://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/.
Select digital coverage available for this manuscript, see the Catalogue of Illuminated Manuscripts http://www.bl.uk/catalogues/illuminatedmanuscripts/welcome.htm.
- Publications:
-
W. R. Tymms and M. D. Wyatt, The Art of Illuminating as Practised in Europe from the Earliest Times (London: Day and Sons, 1860; repr. Studio Editions, 1987), pl. XV.13.
[George Warner], Reproductions from Illuminated Manuscripts, 3 vols (London: British Museum, 1907-08), II, pls 39, 40.
J. A. Herbert, Illuminated Manuscripts (London: Methuen, 1911), p. 256.
George F. Warner and Julius P. Gilson, Catalogue of Western Manuscripts in the Old Royal and King’s Collections, 4 vols (London: British Museum, 1921), I, pp. 159-60.
[J. A. Herbert], British Museum: Reproductions from Illuminated Manuscripts, Series 2, 3rd edn (London: British Museum, 1923), pls 39-40.
[J. A. Herbert], Illuminated Manuscripts and Bindings of Manuscripts Exhibited in The Grenville Library, Guide to the Exhibited Manuscripts, 3 (Oxford: British Museum, 1923), no. 124.
P. D'Ancona, La miniature italienne du Xe au XVIe siècle (Brussels: G. van Oest, 1925), p. 45.
Fritz Saxl and Hans Meier, Catalogue of Astrological and Mythological Illuminated Manuscripts of the Latin Middle Ages, 4 vols (London: The Warburg Institute, 1953), III: Manuscripts in English Libraries, p. 195.
Rosy Schilling, 'Ein Gebetbuch des Michelino da Besozzo', Munchner Jahrbuch der bildenden Kunst, 3 (1957) 65-80 (p. 79, n. 24).
Bernhard Degenhart and Annegrit Schmitt, 'Marino Sanudo und Paolino Veneto: Zwei Literaten des 14. Jahrhunderts in ihrer Wirkung auf Buchillustrierung und Kartographie in Venedig, Avignon und neapel', Römisches Jahrbuch für Kunstgeschichte, 14 (1973) 1-137 (pp. 98, 100, il. 95).
Bernhard Degenhart and Annegrit Schmitt, 'Frühe angiovinische Buchkunst in Neapel', in Festschrift Wolfgang Braunfels, ed. by Friedrich Piel and Jörg Träger (Tübingen: Wasmuth, 1977), pp. 71-92 (pp. 71, 88, n. 1).
Janet Backhouse, The Illuminated Manuscript (Oxford: Phaidon, 1979), pl. 42.
A. G. Watson Catalogue of Dated and Datable Manuscripts c. 700-1600 in the Department of Manuscripts, The British Library (London: British Museum, 1979), I, no. 876.
Bernhard Degenhart and Annegrit Schmitt, Corpus der Italienischen Zeichnungen 1300-1450, part 2 in two volumes (Berlin: Gerb. Mann, 1980), II, p. 265, pl. 440, 569.
Convenevole da Prato, Regia carmina: dedicati a Roberto d’Angiò, re di Sicilia e di Gerusalemme, introduction and translation by Cesare Grassi, notes by Marco Ciatti and Aldo Petri, 2 vols (Prato: Gruppo Bibliofili Pratesa, 1982) [facsimile edition with commentary, in reduced dimensions].
Janet Backhouse, The Illuminated Page: Ten Centuries of Manuscript Painting in the British Library (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1997), no. 96.
Darleen Pryds, 'Studias as Royal Offices', in Universities and Schooling in Medieval Society, ed. by William Jmes Courtney and others (Lieden, Brill, 2000), pp.
Nicolas Bell, Music in Medieval Manuscripts (London: British Library, 2001), pp. 8-11.
Dizionario biografico dei miniatori italiani: Secoli IX-XVI, ed. by Milvia Bollati (Milan: Sylvestre Bonnard, 2004), p. 841.
Ada Labriola, 'L'eredita' di Giotto nella miniatura Fiorentina,' in L'eredita di Giotto: Arte a Firenze, 1340-1375 (Florence: Giunti, 2008), pp. 67-75 (p. 68).
Scot McKendrick, John Lowden, and Kathleen Doyle, Royal Manuscripts: The Genius of Illumination (London: British Library, 2011), no. 134 [exhibition catalogue].
Florence at the Dawn of the Renaissance: Painting and Illumination, 1300-1350, ed. by Christine Sciacca (Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 2012), no. 5, figs 5.1, 5.2, 5.17, pp. 5, 8, 21, 37-42, 151, 291-92, 331, 336, 345-47, 346 [exhibition catalogue].
Alessandro Tomei, 'I Regia Carmina dedicati a Roberto d’Angiò nella British Library di Londra: un manoscritto tra Italia e Provenza', Arte medieval, 4th series, 6 (2016), 201-12 (passim).
Caroline Smout, Sprechen in Bildern - Sprechen über Bilder: Die allegorischen Ikonotexte in den Regia Carmina des Convenevole da Prato (Cologne: Böhlau, 2017), pp. 27-64.
- Exhibitions:
- Gold, British Library, London, 20 May 2022 - 2 October 2022
Ludwig der Bayer. Wir sind Kaiser, Centre for Bavarian History, Regensburg, 16 May 2014 - 2 November 2014 - Material Type:
- Archives and Manuscripts
- Legal Status:
- Not Public Record(s)
- Notes:
- Carmen Regia- The Address of Prato to Robert of Anjuo, Florence c. 1335 - 1340. Exhibited: Ludwig der Bayer. Wir sind Kaiser, Centre for Bavarian History, Regensburg, 16 May 2014 - 2 November 2014