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Detailed record for Harley 2614
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| Author |
Petrarch ; Terence |
| Title |
Vita Terentii (ff. 1-3v); Comoediae (ff. 3v-169) |
| Origin |
Italy, N. (Venice?) |
| Date |
2nd or 3rd quarter of the 15th century |
| Language |
Latin |
| Script |
Humanistic cursive |
| Scribe |
Angelus Frassinensis |
| Decoration |
7 white vine initials in colours and gold (ff. 1, 5, 32v, 61v, 89, 116v, 141). Alternating red or blue initials. Rubrics and abbreviations of protagonists' names in red. |
| Dimensions in mm |
220 x 140 (140 x 90) |
| Official foliation |
ff. 170 (+ 3 unfoliated paper flyleaves at the beginning + 2 at the end + 2 after f. 169). f. 170 is a paper leaf with various inscriptions. |
| Form |
Paper codex |
| Binding |
Post-1600. Brown leather with gold tooling; marbled endpapers. |
| Provenance |
Written by Angelus Frassinensis: colophon, 'Terentium hunc ego dominus Angelus Frassinensis manu propria notavi' (with the words, 'i. scripsi' written above) (f. 169).
Notes and glosses in various fifteenth-century and later hands.
Effaced ownership inscription (barely visible): 'Hic liber est Galeatii (?) de Boloniis de Nov...(?)' (f. 170v).
Giovanni Francesco Vaca, late-sixteenth century: inscribed: 'Loci s. Francisci a Vinea Venetis ex testamento Io. Francisci Vaca' (f. 1).
The Library of San Francesco della Vigna at Venice: given by Giovanni Francesco Vaca (see above).
A monastic library founded or endowed by the Guicciardini (see Wright 1972).
John Gibson (fl. 1720-1726), dealer; sold to Harley on 13 February 1723/4 (Diary 1966; 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 ‘13 die Februarij, A.D. 1723/4’ (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. |
| Select bibliography |
A Catalogue of the Harleian Manuscripts in the British Museum, 4 vols (London: Eyre and Strahan, 1808-12), II (1808), no. 2614.
The Diary of Humfrey Wanley 1715-1726, ed. by Cyril Ernest Wright and Ruth C. Wright, 2 vols (London: Bibliographical Society, 1966), II: 1723-1726, p. 217 n. 16.
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. 157, 162, 174, 335, 337.
Nicholas Mann, Petrarch Manuscripts in the British Isles, Censimento dei Codici Petrarcheschi, 6 (Padova: Editrice Antenore, 1975), no. 102.
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 (p. 467). |
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