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Detailed record for Additional 12228
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| Author |
Hélie de Borron? |
| Title |
Guiron le Courtois |
| Origin |
Italy, S. (Naples?) |
| Date |
Between 1352 and 1362 |
| Language |
French |
| Script |
Gothic |
| Decoration |
363 bas-de-page miniatures, in colours with gold, some on diaper grounds, with some remaining as unfinished outline drawings (e.g., ff. 151v-152). 13 inhabited initials (e. g., f. 112v) and 6 decorated initials (e.g., f. 6v) with partial borders or pen-flourishing in colours with gold. Initials in blue with pen-flourishing in red at minor textural divisions. Spaces left for bas-de-page miniatures (e.g., ff. 169-170). |
| Dimensions in mm |
340 x 235 (245 x 165) in two columns |
| Official foliation |
ff. 352 (f. 1 is a paper flyleaf + 2 unfoliated paper flyleaves at the beginning and at the end) |
| Form |
Parchment codex |
| Binding |
Post-1600. Black leather with gold tooling. |
| Provenance |
Louis de Tarente, King of Naples (r. 1352, d. 1362): his arms in background of several miniatures.
T. de Metz, his ex libris in a hand of the 17th century (f. 2).
Chrétien-François de Lamoignon (b. 1644, d. 1709), magistrate and book-collector: in his family library (see note on f. 1).
John Ker, 3rd Duke of Roxburghe, book collector (b. 1740, d. 1804), his sale, 18 May 1812, lot 6096.
Sir Samuel Egerton Brydges, 1st Baronet (b. 1762, d. 1837), bibliographer and genealogist, purchased by him in the Roxburghe sale for £37.16.
Robert Lang Esq. of Moor Park, Surrey, friend of Sir Walter Scott (b. 1771, d. 1832), purchased by him and bequeathed to his son-in-law, Sir George Henry Freeling (see note on f. 1).
Sir George Henry Freeling, Baronet (b. 1789, d. 1841), commissioner of customs, son of the book collector, Sir Francis Freeling, married to Sir Robert Lang's daughter, Jane (b. 1798/9, d. 1868): his inscription and notes on f. 1; purchased by the British Museum from the family of Sir George Henry Freeling in December 1841 for £200. |
| Notes |
Contains the first part of the romance of Guiron le Courtois (also known as Meliadus or Palamedes). It ends with Meliadus' reluctance to support Arthur in his battle against Claudas (Lathuliere, p. 236), breaking off mid-sentence during a speech by the Chevalier sans peur to Meliadus. The attribution to Hélie de Borron in this manuscript (f. 1) is doubtful. The text was composed between 1235 and c.1240.
The miniatures, by several Neapolitan artists with French influence, were produced for Louis of Tarantino, King of Naples (reigned 1352-1362): his portrait, enthroned, on f. 4, with above him the knot, representing the Nodo, an Italian order of knighthood founded by him in 1352 (see Pietro Giannone, translated by James Ogilvie, The civil history of the Kingdom of Naples, 2 vols, (London, 1731), II, p. 89). Meliadus, the hero, bears the arms of Naples (e.g. f. 68). Further armorial devices represented are those of Jerusalem (e.g., f. 68) and France (e.g., f. 157). Some miniatures were added later (e.g. f. 313v). |
| Select bibliography |
H. L. D. Ward and J. A. Herbert, Catalogue of Romances in the Department of Manuscripts in the British Museum, 3 vols (London: British Museum, 1883-1910), I, H. L. D. Ward (1883), pp. 364-69.
E. von Furstenau, 'I pittura e miniatura a Napoli nel secolo XIV', L'arte, 8 (1905), 1-17.
Roger Sherman Loomis, Arthurian Legends in Medieval Art (London: Oxford University Press, 1938), pp. 114-15, pls. 305-311.
Roger Lathuillère, Guiron le Courtois: Etude de la tradition manuscrite et analyse critique, Publications Romans et Francaises, 86 (Geneva: Librairie Droz, 1966), pp. 47-48, 96-99, 236, n. 3 [contains an edition of the text with variants from this manuscript].
Allessandra Perriccioli Saggese, I romanzi cavallereschi miniati a Napoli (Napoli: Societa editrice napoletana, 1979), pp. 28, 59, 76, pls. L-LVI.
A. G. Watson, Catalogue of Dated and Datable Manuscripts c. 700-1600 in the Department of Manuscripts, The British Library (London, 1979), I, no. 94.
Bernhard Degenhart and Annegrit Schmitt, Corpus der Italienischen Zeichnungen 1300-1450, part 2 in two volumes (Berlin: Gerb. Mann, 1980), II, pl. 492a.
Lucy Freeman Sandler, Gothic Manuscripts 1285-1385, A Survey of Manuscripts Illuminated in the British Isles (London and Oxford: Harvey Miller and Oxford University Press, 1986), I, p. 54 n. 41.
Venceslas Bubenicek, ' A propos des textes français copiés en Italie: le cas du roman de Guiron le Courtois', Atti del XXI Congresso Internazionale di Linguistica e Filologia Romanza, 6 vols (1998), VI, 59-67.
Guiron le Courtois, Une anthologie, ed. by Richard Traschler (Alessandria: Edizioni dell'Orso, 2004), p. 21
Roger Middleton, 'The Manuscripts' in The Arthur of the French, ed. by Glyn S. Burgess and Karen Pratt , Arthurian Literature in the Middle Ages, 4 vols (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2006), IV, pp. 8-92 (p. 81).
Margaret Scott, Medieval Dress & Fashion (London: British Library, 2007), pl. 61.
Francesca Manzari, 'Un nuova foglio miniato della bottega Orimina, un Graduale smembrato e la figura di un anonimo miniatore napoletano del Trecento', in Storie I Artisti; Storie di Libri (Donzelli, 2008), pp. 293-312, pl. 265.
La légende du roi Arthur, ed. by Thierry Delcourt (Paris: Bibiothèque nationale de France, 2009), pl. on pp. 34-35 [exhibition catalogue]. |
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f. 23
Kings playing a game |
ff. 214v-215
Tournament with ladies watching |
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