|
|
|
|
|
|
Detailed record for Egerton 2889
|
|
|
|
| Title |
Lives of Saints, imperfect (6 December to 17 January) |
| Origin |
Italy, S. |
| Date |
last quarter of the 11th century |
| Language |
Latin |
| Script |
Beneventan minuscule (Bari type) |
| Decoration |
Numerous large initials in brown with penwork decoration in brown and sometimes red, including interlace patterns, animal or human heads, birds, and accompanying marginal figures (ff. 7v, 15v, 18, 20, 20v, 30, 32v, 35v, 37v, 45v, 54 (x2), 61v, 68, 72v, 75v, 78, 79v, 81 (x2), 81v, 123, 124v, 129, 134, 139, 146v, 150, 157v, 158, 161v, 163, 169v, 181, 181v, 184v). Large and small initials in brown, some with penwork decoration in brown and/or red, including a face (f. 66v). Rubrics in red. Marginal figures in brown ink (f. 23). |
| Dimensions in mm |
415 x 285 (335 x 230) in two columns |
| Official foliation |
ff. i +187 (+ 1 unfoliated paper flyleaf at the beginning and at the end); f. i is affixed to the inside upper cover |
| Form |
Parchment codex |
| Binding |
Post-1600. Brown leather with gold tooling. |
| Provenance |
Added text in a protogothic hand (ff. 99v-100).
A marginal inscription may suggest that the manuscript was at Monte Cassino in the 14th ? century: '[E]go Frater tal. de tali loco / [ ] mon. cas. mittam a te . . . [ ] ut veniat ad me . . . ' (f. 65v).
Cardinal Federigo Borromeo (d. 1631) in 1612: inscription 'Liber iste est monasterii Case Noue, D. Cardinalis Borromei 1612' (f. 1).
A 15th- or 16th-century inscription 'Ego frater Domicus ? de Planella manu propria scripsi' (f. 187v, margin).
19th-century inscription in Italian (f. i).
Bought by the British Museum from Jacques Rosenthal of Munich on 9 December 1910, using the Farnborough Fund (£3,000 bequeathed in 1838 by Charles Long, Baron Farnborough (b. 1761, d. 1838), a cousin of Francis Henry Egerton, 8th Earl of Bridgewater (b. 1756, d. 1829), founder of the collection. |
| Notes |
Musical notation (f. 52, added to the lower margin). |
| Select bibliography |
The British Museum Catalogue of Additions to the Manuscripts in the British Museum in the Years 1906-1910 (London: British Museum, 1912), no. Eg. 2889 [with detailed description].
E. A. Loew, The Beneventan Script: A History of the South Italian Minuscule (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1914), pp. 151, 340.
A Guide to the Exhibition of Some Part of the Egerton Collection of Manuscripts in the British Museum (London: British Museum, 1929), no. 136.
E. A. Loew, The Beneventan Script: A History of the South Italian Minuscule, 2nd ed. and enlarged by Virginia Brown, 2 vols (Rome: Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura, 1980), I: Text, Sussidi Eruditi, 33, pp. 151, 304 n. 2; II: Hand List of Beneventan MSS., Sussidi Eruditi, 34, p. 53.
Bibliografia dei manoscritti in scrittura beneventana, ed. by Francesco Bianchi and Antonio Magi Spinetti (Rome: Viella, 1993- ), I, 44. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
f. 15v
Decorated initial |
f. 72v
Decorated initial with bird and animal head. |
|
|
|
|
