Burney MS 259

An elegant humanistcopy of Suetonius’s Lives of the Caesars.

Contents:

ff. Ir-IIIv: blank

ff. 1r-149v: CaiusSuetonius Tranquillus, Lives of theTwelve Caesars.

f. 149ar-v: blank

f. 150r: Burney's table of contents

f. 150v: blank

ff. Ir-IIIv: blank

Decoration: 1 large white vine initial with partial borderincorporating two butterflies and a grasshopper, in colours and gold (f. 1).Large initials unfinished (e.g. ff. 19r, 44v), with spaces left. Guide letters. 1added partial border, with heraldic arms of Mario Maffei (b. 1463, d. 1537). Titles are red. The firstline of each book is in capitals.Binding: Brown Morocco with gild stamping and “Codex Burneianus” on both boards. The frontboard has broken off.Provenance: Written for Celso Maffei ofVerona (1425-1508), a canon of St. John Lateran,whose coat of arms appears at the bottom offol. 1r. The manuscript may have belonged toAnthony Askew, since it corresponds to “527” in his catalog of 1785. Purchased by the BritishMuseum with other Charles Burney manuscripts. An ownership mark has been erased at the topon fol. 1r. Former British Museum shelfmarks “B.o, CXXXIX.G” and “161.c.5”.Second folio: est nam ab AncoTEXTAlternate sigla: Kaster, De vita, QqPreud'homme class: ZDivided into twelve books. The text indicates that the exemplar had the standard set of capitula,not always copied correctly. Space remains for the Greek passages. Marginalia are limited tocorrections written by the scribes and others.Catalogues: Catalogue of the Manuscripts in the British Museum, new series, vol. 1 (London:1840), p. 67; British Library website:http://www.bl.uk/catalogues/illuminatedmanuscripts/record.asp?MSID=1453&CollID=18&NStart=259.Bibliography: Preud’homme; Jose Ruysschaert, “Recherche des deux bibliotheques romainesMaffei des XVe et XVIe siecle,” Bibliofilm 60 (1958), 306-355 at p. 323 no. 28; B. L. Ullman,“Codices Maffei,” Studies in the Italian Renaissance (Rome: 1955), p. 374; Kaster, Studies, p.271.Manuscript seen.Written in 25 long lines by several hands with changes at fol. 49r-v, 80v. All are forms ofhumanistic littera textualis with varying tendencies, most toward cursive but one toward round.Marginalia in the hands of the scribes and two other 15th-century hands.Fol. 1r has a one-half border, incorporating the book letter, in a late version of white vinedecoration in which the red is rust colored. The vining, shaded to yellow-brown, is inhabited byinsects. The book letter is gold. The coat of arms in the lower margin is surrounded by a floraldecoration with an open background in which the center of each flower is a gold car with rays.The other eleven book letters have been sketched in but not completed. Titles in red. The firstline of each book is in capitals.