|
|
|
|
|
|
Detailed record for Harley 2501
|
|
|
|
| Author |
Virgil |
| Title |
Aeneis |
| Origin |
Italy, N. (Asola, Mantua?) |
| Date |
1466 |
| Language |
Latin |
| Script |
Humanistic |
| Scribe |
Gabrielle Gnuardus de Asula (colophon on f. 160) |
| Decoration |
Large initial in red with brown penwork decoration (f. 1). Spaces for initials left blank. |
| Dimensions in mm |
310 x 225 (210 x 100) |
| Official foliation |
ff. 162 (+ 5 unfoliated paper flyleaves at the beginning and 4 at the end) |
| Collation |
Mostly in quires of 10. |
| Form |
Paper codex |
| Binding |
BM/BL in-house. Rebound in 1996. |
| Provenance |
Written by Gabrielle Gnuardus de Asula on 10 July 1466: inscribed with his colophon 'Finis per me Gabrielle[m] gnuardu[m] de Asula die Juij 1466' (f. 160).
Some initials added in various hands.
Simon di San Vito, late 15th century: inscribed 'Mi Symon filius petri simonys xochati' (f. 156), and 'Iste liber est ?simonis filii petri xocati de s[an]cto vito' (partly erased, f. 160).
Some parts heavily annotated in a cursive 15th -century hand and later hands.
Added later pen-trials and annotations in the margins and on f. 160v.
Nathaniel Noel (fl. 1681, d. c. 1753), bookseller, employed by Edward Harley for buying books and manuscripts chiefly on the Continent, where his agent was George Suttie: sold to the Harleys on 20 January 1721/22 (see Wright 1972).
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, inscribed as usual by their librarian, Humfrey Wanley ‘20 die Januarij, A.D. 1721/22’ (f. 1).
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 |
Catchwords written horizontally.
Torn folios (ff. 161 and 162). |
| Select bibliography |
A Catalogue of the Harleian Manuscripts in the British Museum, 4 vols (London: Eyre and Strahan, 1808-12), II (1808), no. 2501.
The Diary of Humfrey Wanley 1715-1726, ed. by C. E. Wright and Ruth C. Wright, 2 vols (London: Bibliographical Society, 1966), I: 1715-1723, p. 138 n. 8.
C. E. Wright, Fontes Harleiani: A Study of the Sources of the Harleian Collection of Manuscripts in the British Museum (London: British Museum, 1972), pp. 253-54.
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. 658.
R. D. Williams, T. S. Pattie, Virgil. His Poetry through the Ages (London: The British Library, 1982), p. 131.
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), IV (1989), p. 160. |
|
|
