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Detailed record for Harley 2493
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| Part 1 |
ff. 93-212v, 214-219v |
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| Author |
Titus Livius |
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| Title |
Ab Urbe condita |
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| Origin |
France, S. or Italy |
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| Date |
Last quarter of the 12th century or 1st quarter of the 13th century |
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| Language |
Latin |
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| Script |
Gothic, written above top line |
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| Scribe |
Written by more than one scribe |
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| Decoration |
1 large initial in red and blue (f. 93). Smaller plain initials in red, some with simple penwork decoration. Roman numerals in red for running headers. Rubrics in red. Capitals marked in red. |
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| Dimensions in mm |
320 x 250 (260 x 175) in two columns |
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| Part 2 |
ff. 1-92, 213, 219v-312v |
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| Author |
Livy |
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| Title |
Ab Urbe condita, imperfect |
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| Origin |
France, S. (Avignon) |
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| Date |
c. 1325 - c. 1329 |
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| Language |
Latin |
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| Script |
Gothic |
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| Scribe |
Francesco Petrarca and other 14th century hands |
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| Decoration |
7 large initials in red and blue with red and blue pen-flourishing, some with additional purple penwork decoration (ff. 223, 235v, 247, 263, 276v, 288v, 305v). 1 large initial in red and brown (f. 20). Blue initials with red pen-flourishing or red penwork decoration. Plain initials in red, some with red penwork decoration. Plain initials in blue. Rubrics in red and capitals marked in red (ff. 1-92). |
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| Dimensions in mm |
320 x 250 (260 x 175) in two columns |
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| Official foliation |
ff. 313 (+ 5 unfoliated paper flyleaves at the beginning and at the end) |
| Collation |
112, 216, 3-712, 84, 9-248, 252, 26-3410 |
| Form |
Parchment codex |
| Binding |
BM/BL in-house; rebound in 1976 (19th-century covers retained separately) |
| Provenance |
Petrarch (b. 1304, d. 1374): written by him in part (ff. 65v-92, 213, part of 219v, 220), and with his annotations.
Lorenzo Valla (b. 1406, d. 1457), Italian humanist; apostolic secretary to Pope Nicholas V; professor of rhetoric in Rome (1450): annotated (ff. 143, 145), and inscribed, 'La. v.' (f. 113), 'L. V. (ff. 57, 143), and 'LAV. VAL' (ff. 167v, 172).
The Jesuit College in Agen (Lot-et-Garonne, France), maintained by the Jesuits from 1591 to 1762: inscribed, 17th century, 'Colle Ageni. Socie. Jesu Cata. Insc.' (f. 1).
The Harley Collection, formed by Robert Harley (b. 1661, d. 1724), 1st earl of Oxford and Mortimer, politician, and Edward Harley (b. 1689, d. 1741), 2nd earl of Oxford and Mortimer, book collector and patron of the arts.
Edward Harley bequeathed the library to his widow, Henrietta, née Cavendish Holles (b. 1694, d. 1755) during her lifetime and thereafter to their daughter, Margaret Cavendish Bentinck (b. 1715, d. 1785), duchess of Portland; the manuscripts were sold by the Countess and the Duchess in 1753 to the nation for £10,000 (a fraction of their contemporary value) under the Act of Parliament that also established the British Museum; the Harley manuscripts form one of the foundation collections of the British Library. |
| Notes |
The manuscript is known to editors of Livy as 'Aginnensis' or 'Agenensis' because of the ownership inscription of the Jesuit College in Agen (f. 1).
Annotated by Petrarch and Lorenzo Valla.
Billanovich dates Decade III to the late twelfth or early thirteenth century (ff. 93-121v, 214-219v (col 1). The final section of Decade I (about 50 pages: ff. 65v-92r), and the end of Decade III (ff. 213, part of 219v, and 220) were written by Petrarch. The manuscript contains the rare fourth Decade as well as unusual textual variants. It is missing its initial and final quires; 'instead of the whole of the first, third and fourth Decade, it only gives the text of the Ab Urbe condita from III lv 6 (ipsius quoque tribunis) to XXXVIII xxiv 11 (facinoris decus ad ultimum)' (Billanovich 1951, p. 142).
f. 222 is a ruled parchment leaf with 6 lines of text on the verso, at the top of the second column. An index in a 17th- or 18th-century hand, written on a ruled paper leaf, is pasted onto f. 313.
Horizontal catchwords. |
| Select bibliography |
A Catalogue of the Harleian Manuscripts in the British Museum, 4 vols (London: Eyre and Strahan, 1808-12), II (1808), no. 2493.
William Charles Flamstead Walters, 'Notes on an unregarded manuscript of Livy', The Classical Review, 18 (1904), 392-93 (p. 392).
New Palaeographical Society: Facsimiles of Ancient Manuscripts, etc., First Series, 2 vols, ed. by Edward Maunde Thompson and others (London: [n. pub.], 1903-1912), 2, pls. 104, 105, 130.
William Charles Flamstead Walters, 'The Codex Aginensis and Laurentius Valla', Classical Quarterly, 11 (1917), 154-58 (p. 154).
Giuseppe Billanovich, 'Petrarch and the textual tradition of Livy', Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, 14 (1951), 137-208 (pp. 138-151, pl. 30b, 31a-b, 32).
Eduard Fraenkel, 'Petrarch and the Textual Tradition of Livy by G. Billanovich', The Journal of Roman Studies, 42 (1952), 130-40.
Giuseppe Billanovich, I Primi umanisti e le tradizioni dei classici latini, (Fribourg, Switzerland: Edizioni Universitarie ,1953), pp. 28-29, pl. 2.
Giuseppe Billanovich, 'Dal Livio di Raterio (Laur. 63, 19) al Livio del Petrarca (B.M., Harl. 2493)' , Italia medioevale e umanistica, 2 (1959), 103-78.
Armando Petrucci, La scrittura di Francesco Petrarca, Studi e Testi, 248, (Vatican City: Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, 1967), pp. 22-27, 119 no. 9, pl. iv.
Cyril Ernest Wright, Fontes Harleiani: A Study of the Sources of the Harleian Collection of Manuscripts in the British Museum (London: British Museum, 1972), pp. 47, 274, 336.
Albinia C. de la Mare, The Handwriting of Italian Humanists (Oxford: Oxford University Press for the Association Internationale de Bibliophilie, 1973), pp. xv, 1, 2, 6, 7, 8, 10, 11, pl. I c.
Leighton Durham Reynolds and Nigel Guy Wilson, Scribes and Scholars: A Guide to the Transmission of Greek and Latin Literature (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1974), pl. xv.
Nicholas Mann, Petrarch Manuscripts in the British Isles, Censimento dei Codici Petrarcheschi, 6 (Padova: Editrice Antenore, 1975), pp. 491-92.
Cyril Ernest Wright, 'Manuscripts of Italian Provenance in the Harleian Collection in the British Museum: Their Sources, Associations and Channels of Acquisition', in Cultural Aspects of the Italian Renaissance. Essays in Honour of Paul Oskar Kristeller, ed. by C. H. Clough (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1976), pp. 462-84 (pp. 468, 478).
Andrew G. Watson, Catalogue of Dated and Datable Manuscripts c. 700-1600 in The Department of Manuscripts: The British Library, 2 vols (London: British Library, 1979), I, no. 654.
Texts and Transmission: A Survey of the Latin Classics, ed. by L.D. Reynolds (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1983), pp. 206-13 (as 'A').
François Avril, Marie-Thérèse Gousset, and Claudia Rebel, Manuscrits enluminés d’origine italienne, (Paris: Bibliothèque nationale, 1980- ), II: XIIIe siècle (1984), p. 140.
La tradizione del testo di Livio e le origini dell' umanesimo. Vol. 2. Il Livio del Petrarca e del Valla: British Library, Harleian 2493, ed. by Giuseppe Billanovich (Padua: Antenore, 1981), [facsimile edition].
L. D. Reynolds, 'Livy' in Texts and Transmission: A Survey of the Latin Classics, ed. by L.D. Reynolds (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1983), pp. 205-14 (pp. 206-09, 211-13).
Paul Oskar Kristeller, Iter Italicum: Accedunt Alia Itinera: A Finding List of Uncatalogued or Incompletely Catalogued Humanistic Manuscripts of the Renaissance in Italian and other Libraries 7 vols (London: Warburg Institute; Leiden: Brill, 1963-1997), 4 (1989), p. 160.
Michael D. Reeve, 'The Place of P in the Stemma of Livy 1-10', in Medieval Manuscripts of the Latin Classics: Production and Use, ed. by Claudine A. Chavannes-Mazel and Margaret M. Smith (Leiden: Anderrson-Lovelace and the Red Gull Press, 1996) pp. 75-90 (p. 89).
Maurizio Fiorilla, Marginalia figurati nei codici di Petrarca, Biblioteca di “Lettere Italiane”: Studi e Testi 15 (Florence: Leo S. Olschki, 2005), pp. 28-29, n. 35. |
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Part 1
ff. 93-212v, 214-219v |
| Titus Livius Ab Urbe condita |
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f. 20
Decorated initial |
f. 25v
Initial |
f. 49
Initial |
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f. 54
Initials |
f. 93
Decorated initial |
ff. 101v-102
Centre section of the folios |
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f. 213v
Text page |
f. 214
Text page |
f. 219v
Text page |
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f. 221v
Text page |
f. 223
Pen-flourished initial |
f. 263
Pen-flourished initial |
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