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Detailed record for Harley 3716
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| Author |
Leonardo Bruni, Poggio Bracciolini, Augustine |
| Title |
A compilation of works and letters by Italian humanists (ff. 1-153v), including Bruni's 'Commentarium rerum grecarum' (ff. 1-22v), Bracciolini's 'De avaritia' (ff. 25-47) and 'De varietate Fortunae', book IV (ff. 124-133v), followed by a patristic compilation of sermons, letters and works by Augustine and others (ff. 154-198v) |
| Origin |
Germany, E. or Italy |
| Date |
3rd quarter of the 15th century |
| Language |
Latin |
| Script |
Semi-humanistic and Gothic hybrid |
| Scribe |
Jacobus Sthenke (ff. 1-22v) and other scribes |
| Decoration |
Initials in blue or red with penwork decoration in red. Large initial, rubrics, paraphs and marginal glosses in purple (ff. 1-22v). |
| Dimensions in mm |
240 x 165 (155/160 x 95/105) |
| Official foliation |
ff. 198 (+ 5 unfoliated original and early modern flyleaves at the beginning and 6 at the end). |
| Collation |
Gatherings of 10, with leaf signature in red in the lower margin of the rectos in the first half of the gatherings, and horizontal catchwords in the lower right corner of the last verso. |
| Form |
Paper codex. |
| Binding |
Post-1600. Harleian binding of gilt- and bling-tooled brown leather, possibly attributable to Thomas Elliott; marbled endleaves |
| Provenance |
ff. 1-22v copied by Jacobus Sthenke of Sydawe (Saxony): his inscription 'completum per me Jacobum Sthenke de Sydawe nacionis Saxonice' (f. 22v; see Kristeller 1989).
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 |
A full list of the contents for the humanistic compilation is provided in Kristeller 1989. |
| Select bibliography |
A Catalogue of the Harleian Manuscripts in the British Museum, 4 vols (London: Eyre and Strahan, 1808-12), III (1808), no. 3716.
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. 175. |
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