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Detailed record for Harley 4411
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| Title |
A historical chronicle of the popes and emperors from the Incarnation to the year 1350 |
| Origin |
France |
| Date |
1st half of the 15th century |
| Language |
French |
| Script |
Gothic cursive, in two columns |
| Decoration |
28 partial borders with tinted drawings in colours and grisalle and large initials in colours and gold with rinceaux motifs (ff. 1, 7v, 14, 24, 29, 34, 39, 44, 48, 51, 56v, 60v, 71v, 75, 80v, 90, 93v, 98, 103, 115, 121, 126, 133v, 138, 144v, 150, 155, 166v). 2 tinted drawings in colours and grisalle without partial borders (ff. 172, 175). 5 partial borders with large initials in colours and gold with rinceaux motifs (ff. 67, 109v, 170, 172v, 175v). Blue initials with red penwork decoration or red initials with black penwork decoration. Rubrics in red. Capitals marked in red. Marginal annotations in red. Paraphs in red or blue. |
| Dimensions in mm |
310 x 250 (210 x 190) |
| Official foliation |
ff. 184 (+ 1 unfoliated paper and 2 parchment flyleaves at the beginning + 1 unfoliated paper flyleaf at the end) |
| Form |
Parchment codex |
| Binding |
Post-1600. Maroon leather with gold tooling; gilt edges. |
| Provenance |
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 covers of a previous binding are pasted inside the present ones.
Spaces left for miniatures on ff. 109v and 170.
For a summary of the miracle illustrated on f. 34 and other analogues of the miracle, see http://csm.mml.ox.ac.uk/index.php?p=poemdata_view&rec=255 (I wrote this summary at Oxford for the Cantigas database). |
| Select bibliography |
A Catalogue of the Harleian Manuscripts in the British Museum, 4 vols (London: Eyre and Strahan, 1808-12), II (1808), no. 4411.
Walter de Gray Birch and Henry Jenner, Early Drawings and Illuminations: An Introduction to the Study of Illustrated Manuscripts (London: Bagster and Sons, 1879), p. 13. |
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f. 34
Woman saved from burning by the Virgin Mary |
f. 34
Woman saved from burning by the Virgin Mary |
f. 56v
Hanged man |
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f. 56v
Hanged man |
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