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Detailed record for Harley 4834
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| Author |
Caius Julius Caesar |
| Title |
De bello gallico |
| Origin |
Italy, Central (Florence) |
| Date |
3rd quarter of the 15th century |
| Language |
Latin |
| Script |
Humanistic |
| Scribe |
Agnolo di Jacopo de' Dinuzi, of San Gimignano (see de la Mare 1985) |
| Decoration |
Three-sided white vine border in colours and gold with putti, butterflies, birds and the coat of arms of Porzio of Messina (f. 1). White vine initials in colours and gold (ff. 1, 11, 16, 21, 26v, 36v, 38, 43v, 58v (x2), 66, 66v, etc.). |
| Dimensions in mm |
280 x 210 (185 x 120) |
| Official foliation |
ff. 147 (+ 3 unfoliated paper flyleaves and 1 parchment flyleaf at the beginning + 1 unfoliated ruled leaf after f. 145 + 1 unfoliated parchment flyleaf and 3 paper flyleaves at the end) |
| Form |
Parchment codex |
| Binding |
BM/BL in-house. Rebound in 1966. |
| Provenance |
? The Porco (or Porzio) family of Messina, 15th century: their arms (f. 1). For the same arms, see Oxford, Bodleian Library, Canon. Pat. Lat. 138, dated 1458).
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 |
For another manuscript written by this scribe, see Oxford, Lincoln College, Lat. 39.
Catchwords written horizontally.
f. 146 is a ruled unwritten leaf. |
| Select bibliography |
A Catalogue of the Harleian Manuscripts in the British Museum, 4 vols (London: Eyre and Strahan, 1808-12), III (1808), no. 4834.
Albinia de la Mare, 'New Research on Humanistic Scribes in Florence', in Miniatura fiorentina del Rinascimento, 1440-1525: un primo censimento, ed. by Annarosa Garzelli, 2 vols, ([Florence]: Giunta regionale toscana, 1985), I, pp. 395-574 (p. 479). |
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f. 1
White vine border and initial |
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