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Detailed record for Harley 3802
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| Part 1 |
ff. 1-140v |
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| Author |
Jacques Despars |
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| Title |
Commentary on the Canon Medicinae by Avicenna, Book I, Fen III |
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| Origin |
France, Central (Paris) |
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| Date |
1475 |
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| Language |
Latin |
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| Script |
Gothic hybrid |
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| Artists |
In the style of the Master of Jacques de Besançon |
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| Decoration |
Spray border in colours and gold with foliate tendrils, small leaves and flowers, with one large initial in blue with white tracery and foliate decoration (f. 1). Small miniature (f. 1, right margin). Diagrams (ff. 45, 92). Initials and paraphs in alternating blue and red. Sentence initials touched in yellow. Rubrics in red throughout. |
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| Dimensions in mm |
395 x 280 (285 x 180) in two columns |
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| Part 2 |
ff. 1*r-v, 141r-v |
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| Author |
Augustine, |
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| Title |
De civitate Dei, fragment |
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| Origin |
France |
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| Date |
9th century |
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| Language |
Latin |
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| Script |
Caroline minuscule |
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| Dimensions in mm |
395 x 280 (350 x 250) in two columns |
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| Official foliation |
ff. 1* + 2* + 141 (ff. 1* and 2* are the original upper pastedown and flyleaf, and f. 141 the original lower pastedown ; + 2 unfoliated early modern paper flyleaves at the beginning, a second unfoliated original parchment flyleaf after f. 2*, two unfoliated ruled parchment blanks after f. 140, and 2 unfoliated early modern paper flyleaves at the end). |
| Collation |
i-xi 12, xii 10 (ff. 1-140 and two following blanks). |
| Form |
Parchment codex |
| Binding |
Post-1600. Brown mottled calf with gold fillets, 18th century. |
| Provenance |
The manuscript belongs to a set of 11 volumes (Harley 3799-3809) dated 1475 (inscription Harley 3809, f. 284).
Gui II Arbaleste (d. 1570), counsellor in the Parliament of Paris and bibliophile: his arms and motto 'Ingenium superat vires' (f. 1, lower border).
Pierre Séguier (b. 1588, d. 1672), count of Gien, chancellor of France from 1635 (see Wright and Wright 1966, Wright 1972).
Andrew Hay (d. 1754?), dealer: sold to Edward Harley together with other manuscripts from the Séguier collection on 5 September 1720 (see Wright and Wright 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 ‘5 Septembris, 1720’ (f. 2*).
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 |
Despars compiled his commentary between 1432 and 1453 (see Harley 3808, f. 247): the present manuscript is part of the only surviving set of manuscripts (11 volumes) to contain a complete copy of this work (see Jacquart 1980).
Directions to the rubricator (f. 32, lower margin).
Original pastedowns from a 9th-century manuscript (ff. 1*r-v, 141r-v).
Title on leather label from the original binding glued onto f. 2*. |
| Select bibliography |
A Catalogue of the Harleian Manuscripts in the British Museum, 4 vols (London: Eyre and Strahan, 1808-12), III (1808), nos. 3799-3809.
The Diary of Humfrey Wanley 1715-1726, ed. by Cyril Ernest Wright and Ruth C. Wright, 2 vols (London: Bibliographical Society, 1966), I: 1715-1723, p. 51 and n. 6, 68 n. 1.
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. 183, 301, 435.
Danielle Jacquart, 'Le regard d'un médecin sur son temps: Jacques Despars (1380?-1458)', Bibliothèque de l'Ecole des Chartes, 138 (1980), 35-86 (pp. 40, 42).
Catalogued for the Harley Medical Manuscripts Project [http://www.bl.uk/catalogues/manuscripts/INDEX.asp], accessed 9 December 2008. |
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Part 1
ff. 1-140v |
| Jacques Despars Commentary on the Canon Medicinae by Avicenna, Book I, Fen III |
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f. 1
Lady with a flask and herbs |
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