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...
Royal MS 14 C III
- Record Id:
- 040-002106984
- Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:
- 032-002105724
- MDARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100000000338.0x000087
- LARK:
- SLARK:
- Format:
- ISAD(G)
- Reference (shelfmark):
- Royal MS 14 C III
- Title:
- Eusebius of Caesarea, Chronici canones (translated by Jerome)
- Scope & Content:
-
Eusebius of Caesarea, Chronici canones in the Latin version of Jerome, including: Jerome, prologue, incipit: 'Eusebius Hieronymus Vincentio et Galieno suis salutem. Vetus iste disertorum mos fuit' (ff. 2r-3v); Eusebius, preface, incipit: 'Mosen gentis Hebraeae qui primus' (ff. 4r-6r); text, incipit: 'Incipiunt tempora totius saeculi'.
The manuscript was written by Bartolomeo Sanvito of Padua (b. c. 1435, d. 1512), and decorated probably by Gaspare da Padova, the painter of the Homer's Iliad, Vatican, Biblioteca Apostolica Vativana, MS Vat. Gr. 1626, commissioned by cardinal Francesco Gonzaga and left unfinished by his death. (Payment was claimed by Gaspare in letters to the cardinal's executors, see: Alexander, The Painted Page (1994), p. 104). Both Bartolomeo Sanvito and Gaspare Gonzaga were members of the household of Cardinal Francesco Gonzaga from the 1460s to the cardinal's death in 1483.The manuscript is one of four known volumes that Sanvito wrote for Bernardo Bembo, the father of cardinal Pietro Bembo, and Sanvito's close friend (see Renaissance Painting, ed. by Kren (1983), p. 103).
Decoration:
2 miniatures in colours and gold: Jerome reading, with a full architectural border composed of two columns (inspired by Trajan's column in Rome), and putti playing with a mask, in the lower margin (f. 2r); Nativity with an inscription reading: 'Ihesus Christus filius dei in Betleem iudae nascitur' (f. 119v).
1 full page coloured-ink drawing of a stele with an inscription beginning: 'Adiuro te quicunque hos descripseris' (f. 17r).
1 large coloured-ink drawing of a cartouche (f. 138r).
22 smaller coloured-ink drawings of cartouches with inscriptions in gold (ff. 37r, 49r, 58v, 59v, 60r, 64v, 74v, 76r, 77v, 78r, 79v, 80r, 84v, 90v, 91v, 92v, 94r, 101v, 102, 104r, 114v, 117r).
Arcades in coloured ink over the headings at the top of each page (ff. 17v-150r).
Faceted initials in gold and colours with rubrics in a two, three, four, or five-colour alternating sequence of gold, blue, green, red and purple (ff. 4r, 6r, 8r, 9v).
- Collection Area:
- Western Manuscripts
- Project / Collection:
- Royal Collection
- Hierarchy Record Ids:
- 032-002105724
040-002106984 - Is part of:
- Royal MS 1 A I-20 E X : Royal Manuscripts
Royal MS 14 C III : Eusebius of Caesarea, Chronici canones (translated by Jerome) - Hierarchy:
- 032-002105724[1188]/040-002106984
- Container:
- View / search within Archive / Collection: Royal MS 1 A I-20 E X
- Record Type (Level):
- File
- Extent:
-
Parchment codex
- Digitised Content:
- http://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/FullDisplay.aspx?ref=Royal_MS_14_C_III (digital images currently unavailable)
- Thumbnail:
-
- Languages:
- Latin
- Scripts:
- Latin
- Start Date:
- 1485
- End Date:
- 1488
- Date Range:
- 1485-1488
- Era:
- CE
- 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:
- Letter of introduction required to view this manuscript.
- Physical Characteristics:
-
Materials: Parchment.
Dimensions: 330 x 230 mm (text space: 200 x 145 mm).
Foliation: ff. 150 (+ 2 unfoliated parchment leaves pasted onto modern paper flyleaves: 1 at the beginning and 1 at the end; and 1 unfoliated parchment leaf after f. 150; f. 1 is a former parchment pastedown).
Collation: i10+1 (ff. 1-11; f. 1 is an added leaf); ii-xiv10 (ff. 12-141); xv10 (ff. 142-150 + 1 unfoliated leaf at the end); quire signatures (A-P); and bifolium signatures (a quire-signature letter followed by a number).
Script: Humanistic cursive. Written by Bartolomeo Sanvito.
Binding: Post-1600. Royal Library brown-leather binding; gilt edges.
- Custodial History:
-
Origin: Italy, Central (Rome).
Provenance:
Bernardo Bembo (b. 1433, d. 1519), humanist, governor successively of Ravenna, Bergamo, and Verona, and diplomat for the Venetian Republic: his arms (f. 2r); perhaps commissioned by him during one of his diplomatic journeys to Rome in 1485 or 1487 (November)-1488 (October), and written for him by Bartolomeo Sanvito of Padua (b. c. 1435, d. 1512), a notary and calligrapher active at Padua and Rome, and Bembo's close friend.
Presented to the British Museum by George II in 1757 as part of the Old Royal Library.
- Administrative Context:
- Italy, Central (Rome).
- 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 Catalogue of Illuminated Manuscripts http://www.bl.uk/catalogues/illuminatedmanuscripts/welcome.htm.
- Publications:
-
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), II, p. 133.
J. Wardrop, The Script of Humanism: Some aspects of humanistic script, 1460-1560 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1963), pp. 24, 25, 29, 51.
Cecil H. Clough, 'Pietro Bembo's Library Represented in the British Museum', The British Museum Quarterly, 30 (1966), 3-17 (p. 15, n. 29).
[Derek Howard Turner], Illuminated Manuscripts exhibited in the Grenville Library (London, British Museum, 1967), no. 61.
G. Robertson, Giovanni Bellini (Oxford; Clarendon Press), pl. 36.
Jonathan J.G. Alexander and Albina C. de la Mare, The Italian Manuscripts in the Library of Major J.R. Abbey (London: Faber and Faber, 1969), pp. 104-10.
Jonathan J.G. Alexander, Italian Renaissance Illuminations (London: Chatto and Windus, 1977), pp. 64-67.
Dorothy Mahoney, The Craft of Calligraphy (London: Pelham Books, 1981), pl. on p. 82.
Renaissance Painting in Manuscripts: Treasures from the British Library, ed. by Thomas Kren (New York: Hudson Hills Press, 1983), no. 13.
Albinia C. de la Mare, 'The Florentine scribes of Cardinal Giovanni of Aragona' in Il libro e il testo, Atti del convegno internazionale, Urbino, 20-23 settembre 1982, ed. by C. Questa and R. Raffaelli (Urbino: Università delgi studi di Urbino, 1984), 245-93 (p. 287).
M.L. Evans, Bartolommeo Sanvito and Antique Motif', The British Library Journal, 11 (1985), 123-30 (pp. 123, 129, n. 1).
Nella Giannetto, Bernardo Bembo umanista e politico veneziano (Florence: Olschki, 1985), pp. 103 n. 50, 283, 294, 352.
Ulrike Bauer-Eberhardt, 'Lauro Padovano und Leonardo Bellini als Maler, Miniatoren und Zeichner', Pantheon: Internationale Jahreszeitschrift für Kunst, 47 (1989), 49-82 (p. 51, no 43).
The Painted Page: Italian Renaissance Book Illumination, 1450-1550, ed. by Jonathan J.G. Alexander (London: Prestel, 1994), pp. 155-56, no. 73.
Janet Backhouse, The Illuminated Page: Ten Centuries of Manuscript Painting in the British Library (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1997), no. 183.
Michelle P. Brown and Patricia Lovett, The Historical Source Book for Scribes (London: British Library, 1999), p. 34.
Beatrice Bentivoglio-Ravasio, 'Gaspare da Padova o Padovano', in Dizionario biografico dei miniatori italiani: Secoli IX-XVI, ed. by Milvia Bollati (Milan: Sylvestre Bonnard, 2004), pp. 251-58 (p. 256).
Massimo Danzi, La Biblioteca del Cardinal Pietro Bembo (Geneva: Droz, 2005), pp. 212, 338.
Albina C. de la Mare and Laura Nuvoloni, Bartolomeo Sanvito: The Life and Work of a Renaissance Scribe, ed. by Anthony R.A. Hobson and Christopher de Hamel (Whitsbury: The Handwriting of Italian Humanists, 2009), no. 87 [with additional bibliography].
Antonio Iacobini and Gennaro Toscano, 'More fraeco, more latino: Gaspare da Padova e la miniatura all'antica', in Mantegna a Roma. L'artista davanti all'antico, ed. by T. Calvano, C. Cieri Via and L. Ventura (Rome: Bulzoni, 2010), pp. 125-90 (pp. 178-79).
- Material Type:
- Archives and Manuscripts
- Legal Status:
- Not Public Record(s)