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...

Burney MS 230

Record Id:

040-002237111

Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:

032-002236305

MDARK:

ark:/81055/vdc_100000001311.0x000116

LARK:

SLARK:

Format:

ISAD(G)

Reference (shelfmark):

Burney MS 230

Title:

Pliny the Younger, Letters

Scope & Content:

Contents:

ff. 1r-111v. Epistolae, 1-7 and 9. Imperfect, lacking 2.3.3–6.5 (from ‘manus ha[bui]’ to ‘si gulae’) due to the loss of a leaf after f. 16.

This is one of the manuscripts that has the note about Poggio Braccolini's discovery of Silius Italicus (f. 32r; cf. Mynors, Pliny the Younger (1963), p. xii.).

Decoration:

7 large and small white vine initials, in colours and gold, at the beginning of each book except book 3 (ff. 1r, 14v, 42v, 56v, 69r, 83v, 97v). Small initials alternately plain red or blue. Headings in purplish red.

Collection Area:

Western Manuscripts

Project / Collection:

Burney Manuscripts

Hierarchy Record Ids:

032-002236305
040-002237111

Is part of:

Burney MS : Burney Manuscripts

Burney MS 230 : Pliny the Younger, Letters

Hierarchy:

032-002236305[0225]/040-002237111

Container:

View / search within Archive / Collection: Burney MS

Record Type (Level):

File

Extent:

One volume

Digitised Content:

Languages:

Latin

Scripts:

Latin

Start Date:

1445

End Date:

1469

Date Range:

c 1450-1469

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:

Letter of introduction required to view this manuscript

Physical Characteristics:

Material: Parchment.

Dimensions: 250 x 165 mm (text space170 x 95 mm), in 32 lines. Ruled in pale ink, the vertical bounding lines in blind.

Foliation: ff. ii + 114 + 111* (ff. i-ii and 113-114 are flyleaves). Burney pagination 1-222.

Collation: i¹⁰ (ff. 1-10), ii^10-1 (7th leaf missing; ff. 11-19), iii-xi¹⁰ (ff. 20-109), xii⁴ (ff. 110-112).

Script: Humanistic cursive, written 'below top line'; by the same scribe as Bodleian, MS. Canon. Lat. Class. 194 (see Pächt and Alexander (1970), no. 401), and the first part of Escorial, MS. E. III. 20, according to unpublished notes of A. C. de la Mare at the Bodleian Library.

Binding: Post-1600. Burney binding of diced polished brown leather; edges gilt; c.1817? Flyleaves with watermark 'W Turner & Son'.

Custodial History:

Origin: Northerm Italy, (perhaps Ferrara).

Provenance:

Colophon(?), erased (f. 111v), in pink ink like that of the headings.

Palla Strozzi (b. c.1373, d. 1462), Florentine politician and humanist: many of whose manuscripts went to Sta. Giustina, Padua, after his death; with numerous marginal annotations by more than one humanistic hand.

Sta. Giustina, Padua: inscribed 'Visto p(er) mi Franc(esc)o da Lucha 1469' (f. 112v); similar inscriptions occur in at least twenty-two manuscripts, including Burney MS 204 (see Mercati Claudii Ptolomaei (1932), pp. 196-200; cf. Alexander and De la Mare The Italian Manuscripts (1969), p. 98 n. 4).

Perhaps in the anonymous sale, 'Importation from Sicily', 19 April, 1817, lot 53, bought by Burney for 10s.

Charles Burney (b. 1757, d. 1817), D. D., classical scholar.

Acquired by the British Museum as part of Burney's library from his son Charles Parr Burney in 1818.

Information About Copies:

Select digital coverage available for this manuscript; see the Catalogue of Illuminated Manuscripts, [http://www.bl.uk/catalogues/illuminatedmanuscripts/record.asp?MSID=1572&CollID=18&NStart=230].

Publications:

Catalogue of Manuscripts in The British Museum, New Series, 1 vol. in 2 parts (London: British Museum, 1834-1840), I, part II: The Burney Manuscripts (1840), p. 61.

G. Mercati, excursus in J. Fischer, ed., Claudii Ptolomaei Geographiae (4 Vols): Codex Urbinas Graecus 82: phototypice Depictus Consilio et Opera Curatorum Bibliothecae Vaticanae, Codices e Vaticanis selecti, 19, pars I (Leiden: Brill; Leipzig: Harrassowitz, 1932), pp. 196-200.

Pliny the Younger, Epistularum Libri Decem, ed. by Sir Roger A. B. Mynors (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1963).

J. J. G. Alexander and A.C. de la Mare, The Italian Manuscripts in the Library of Major J. R. Abbey (London: Faber, 1969), p. 98 n. 4.

Otto Pächt and and Jonathan J.G. Alexander, Illuminated Manuscripts in the Bodleian Library, 3 vols (Oxford, 1966-73), II, no. 401.

Paul Oskar Kristeller, Iter Italicum. A finding list of uncatalogued or incompletely catalogued humanistic manuscripts of the Renaissance in Italian and other libraries, 7 vols (London: The Warburg Institute, 1963; repr. 1977-1997) IV (Alia Itinera II): Great Britain to Spain (1989), p. 132.

Material Type:

Archives and Manuscripts

Legal Status:

Not Public Record(s)

Names:

Plinius Caecilius Secundus, Caius, also known as Pliny the Younger, 61-c 113
Strozzi, Palla, Florentine politician and humanist, c 1373-1462
The Abbey of Sta. Giustina, Padua, 10th century-
W Turner and Son, 19th century