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Detailed record for Harley 4373
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| Part 1 |
f. 1r-v |
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| Author |
Valerius Maximus, translated by Simon de Hesdin and Nicolas de Gonesse |
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| Title |
Les Fais et les Dis des Romains et de autres gens , replacement folio |
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| Origin |
France |
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| Date |
17th century |
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| Language |
French |
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| Script |
Gothic (copying the original 15th-century script) |
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| Decoration |
Large miniature with full border with acanthus leaves, flowers, fruits and gold leaves on unpainted ground, decorated initial 'U'(nde) in gold and blue, an original 15th-century initial 'D'(ux) was cut-out from the original folio and pasted onto the present folio. |
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| Dimensions in mm |
480 x 355 (330 x 210), in 2 columns |
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| Part 2 |
ff. 2-153v |
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| Author |
Valerius Maximus, translated by Simon de Hesdin and Nicolas de Gonesse |
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| Title |
Les Fais et les Dis des Romains et de autres gens , vol. 2 |
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| Origin |
France, N. W., Normandy (Rouen) |
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| Date |
c. 1460-1487 |
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| Language |
French |
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| Script |
Gothic cursive (Bâtarde) |
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| Artists |
Most miniatures in the style of the Master of the Echevinage de Rouen (except f. 47v) |
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| Decoration |
Large miniature in gold and colours at the beginning of each book surrounded by a full border with acanthus leaves, flowers, fruits and gold leaves on unpainted ground (ff. 14, 47v, 88v). The decoration includes fleur-de-lys on f. 14 (a reference to Louis de Bourbon?). The borders contain a hybrid creature and a shepherd playing music to a dog (f. 14), a wolf running with a sheep in its mouth and a crippled hybrid creature (f. 47v), a man climbing a vine and a hybrid creature wrestling a bear (f. 88v). Numerous initials in gold and colours, some with with tendrils of gold leaves and flowers extending into the margin. Large initials in red ink with elaborate cadels including foliate decoration used for important rubrics (ff. 13v, 47, 153v). Smaller initials in red with brown penwork decoration and a yellow wash. Paraphs in colours and gold. Capitals marked with yellow. Some ascenders, descenders and catchwords decorated with cadels in brown ink with a yellow wash (e. g., f. 151v). Line-fillers in gold, blue and red. |
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| Dimensions in mm |
480 x 355 (330 x 205), in 2 columns |
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| Official foliation |
ff. 153 (+ 2 modern unfoliated parchment and 1 paper flyleaves at the beginning + 2 modern unfoliated parchment flyleaves at the end) |
| Form |
Parchment codex |
| Binding |
Post-1600. Gold-stamped red leather, gilt edges. |
| Provenance |
Probably made for Louis, bâtard de Bourbon, count of Roussillon, Admiral of France (d. 19 January 1487): his arms (in vol. 1: Harley 4372, f. 12).
Charles Davis (bap. 1693, d. 1755), bookseller, an apprentice to the London bookseller Nathaniel Noel: sold to the Harleys on 24 January 1722/3 (see Diary 1966; Wright 1972 where a mistake is made in the date).
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 ‘24 die Januarii, A.D. 1722/3’ (f. [iii]).
Edward Harley bequeathed the library to his widow, Henrietta Cavendish, née 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 |
Full digital coverage available for this manuscript: see Digitised Manuscripts at http://www.bl.uk/manuscripts.
This text was originally bound as one single volume. A folio was discarded when the manuscript was divided into two volumes probably in the 17th century. It was replaced by two folios written in a 17th-century hand, retaining the original initials by pasting them in the appropriate locations (the recto of the lost folio containing the end of book 5 was copied on f. 215 of Harley 4372, and the verso containing the beginning of book 6. on f. 1v of the present manuscript). This folio was probably discarded intentionally so that volume 1 could neatly end with book 5 and volume 2 start with book 6.
Leaf signatures. Catchwords.
Vol. 1 is now Harley 4372. |
| Select bibliography |
A Catalogue of the Harleian Manuscripts in the British Museum, 4 vols (London: Eyre and Strahan, 1808-12), III (1808), no. 4373.
Walter de Gray Birch and Henry Jenner, Early Drawings and Illuminations: An Introduction to the Study of Ilustrated Manuscripts (London: Bagster and Sons, 1879), p. 18.
F. Saxl and H. Meier, Catalogue of Astrological and Mythological Illuminated Manuscripts of the Latin middle Ages, III : Manuscripts in English Libraries, (London: British Museum, 1953), pp. 168-69.
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. 186 n. 1.
Robert H. Lucas, 'Mediaeval French Translations of the Latin Classics to 1500', Speculum: A Journal of Medieval Studies, 45-2 (1970), 225-53 (p. 247).
Cyril Ernest Wright, Fontes Harleiani: A Study of the Sources of the Harleian Collection of Manuscripts in the British Museum (London: British Museum, 1972), p. 125.
Edmund A. Bowles, 'A Checklist of Musical Instruments in Fifteenth Century Illuminated Manuscripts at the British Museum', Notes, 29-4 (1973), 694-703 (pp. 697, 701, 702).
Dorothy M. Schullian, ‘A Revised List of Manuscripts of Valerius Maximus’, Miscellanea Augusto Campana. Medioevo e Umanesimo 45 (1981), 695-728 (p. 708).
Claudia Rabel, 'Artiste et clientèle à la fin du Moyen Age : les manuscrits profanes du Maître de l’échevinage de Rouen', Revue de l'art, 84 (1989), 48-60 (p. 56).
Yoshiaki Todoroki, 'A List of Miniatures of Goddess Fortune in Medieval Manuscripts', Cultural and Social Sciences 41 (1990), pp. 71-114 (p. 89).
'M. Valerius Maximus. Factorum et dictorum memorabilium libri novem: Traduction de Simon de Hesdin et Nicolas de Gonesse (1375-1401)', in Frédéric Duval and Jeanne Viellard, Miroir des classiques 17 (Éditions en ligne de l'École des chartes) [http://elec.enc.sorbonne.fr/miroir/valeremaxime/traduction/?para=Hesdin_Gonesse'] [accessed 07 November 2007]. |
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Part 1
f. 1r-v |
| Valerius Maximus, translated by Simon de Hesdin and Nicolas de Gonesse Les Fais et les Dis des Romains et de autres gens , replacement folio |
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f. 1v
Tarquin and Lucrecia |
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Part 2
ff. 2-153v |
| Valerius Maximus, translated by Simon de Hesdin and Nicolas de Gonesse Les Fais et les Dis des Romains et de autres gens , vol. 2 |
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f. 14
Fortune |
f. 14
Fortune |
f. 47v
Battle |
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f. 88v
Miniature |
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