Royal MS 19 C VI

XENOPHON'S Anabasis, translated into French by Claude de Seyssel [Bishop of Marseilles, 1509, d. 1520). In the prologue addressed to Louis XII the translator says that at the king's request he was visiting the royal library at Blois in March last with [Andreas] Joannes Lascaris, now ambassador at Venice, when he found the Greek work in manuscript there and induced Lascaris to make a Latin version, from which he translated it into French. The translation was therefore begun before and finished after 1503, when Lascaris went as ambassador to Venice. After the table of contents and prologue (f. 10) addressed to Louis, follows (f. 16 b) a quatrain and a second prologue (f. 17) addressed to Henry VI [sic, for VII] of England, in which Seyssel says that being sent on a mission by Louis to Henry he had admired the latter's library and heard of his taste for literature, and therefore presented him with this translation. The date of Seyssel's embassy was 1508, and as he became bishop in the following year, the MS. would appear to have been written in 1508-1509. The text follows at f. 20. Another copy similarly presented to Charles III of Savoy with a corresponding prologue (now Bibl. Nat., fonds fr. 701) is described by Paulin Paris, Les MSS. François, v, p. 382. It was printed at Paris in 1529. For a similar translation made by Seyssel for Francis I from a Latin version of Appian's History, bks. i, ii, see Harley MS. 4939. First prologue beg. 'Entre toutes chouses que les entendemens des hommes mortelz'; quatrain, 'Au plus saige prinpce qui soit sur terre'; second prologue, 'Combien que lentendement humain'; and text, 'Daire roy de Perse de Parisatis sa femme heut deux enfans'; ends 'du temps que dura ledict voyage cest ung an et troys moys'.

Vellum; ff. 182. 121/2 in. x 9 in. Written in France, A.D. 1508- 1509. Gatherings (beg. f. 20) of 8 leaves (xix⁶, xx⁵). Sec. fol. in table 'comment Clearcus'; in prologue 'len se peult'; in text 'quil auoit'. Large miniatures and borders in Franco-Flemish style (flowers, fruit, grotesques, &c., on gold ground) and illuminated initials. The subjects of the miniatures are:-

1. Louis XII enthroned on receives a book from the translator: a crowd of courtiers behind. f. 9 b.

2. Arms of France and England quarterly with supporters (red dragon and white greyhound), crest (a white lion), badges (portcullis), and scroll 'Dieu ets mon droit'. In the border the arms of Seyssel, gironny or and az. f. 16 b.

3. Henry VII enthroned in centre, with courtiers seated round (a cardinal on the king's r.), receives the book from the translator. On the canopy of the throne 'Dieu est mon droit'. f. 17.

4. On l., Artaxerxes enthroned, with courtiers, and Cyrus arrested by soldiers in front; on r., Darius ill in bed, physician with flask, &c. In border royal arms (as in no. 2) and badge. f. 20.

5. The Greek camp, messengers reporting Cyrus' death. f. 46.

6. Greeks by the sea-shore ascending a mountain path: Orientals looking on. f. 64 b.

7. The Greek army: Xenaphon in a sort of Greek helmet: piles of dead. f. 83.

8. Greeks in council on the shore. f. 106 b.

9. Greeks making merry: four seated at table, others dancing in front; musicians in a gallery on l.; cattle driven in on r. f. 131.

10. Fighting at the gates of Byzantium. f. 152.

Either this or 16 G. IX is no. 59 in cat. of MSS. at Richmond Palace in 1535 (see 15 D. I); cat. of 1666, f. 14 or 14b; not in CMA.