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Detailed record for Harley 5699
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| Author |
Maimonides (Rabbi Moses ben Maimon, aka the Rambam) |
| Title |
Lisbon Mishneh Torah, volume 2 |
| Origin |
Portugal (Lisbon) |
| Date |
1471-1472 |
| Language |
Hebrew |
| Script |
Sephardi square script, unpunctuated |
| Scribe |
Solomon ben Alzuq |
| Decoration |
9 embellished frontispieces in colours and gold at the beginning of the books with initial-word panels with gold letters and penwork decoration and surrounded by full-border with foliate motifs and gold, inhabited by birds and animals (ff. 2v, 34v, 94v, 161v, 189v, 277v, 313v, 355v, 397v). 1 carpet page including a colophon with gold letters and penwork decoration, surrounded by full foliate border inhabited by birds and animals (f. 434v). |
| Dimensions in mm |
330 x 245 (205-150) |
| Official foliation |
ff. 436 (+ 3 unfoliated modern paper flyleaves and 1 unfoliated and 1 foliated older paper flyleaves at the beginning, and 1 unfoliated older flyleaf and 3 unfoliated modern paper flyleaves). Hebrew foliation is the continuation of that of the first volume (f. 2 is identical with Hebrew foliation 293). Unfoliated leaf [f. 160*] after f. 160 (but it has the Hebrew foliation: 452) and one unfoliated leaf [f. 436] after f. 435. The unfoliated older paper flyleaves have watermarks similar to Heawood, nos. 447 and 2745, the foliated paper flyleaf has a watermark similar to Heawood no.750, see Edward Heawood, Watermarks (Monumenta Chartae Papyraceae Historiam Illustrantia, I) Hilversum: Paper Publication Society, 1950. |
| Collation |
53 quires: i8 (ff. 2-9), ii8 (ff. 10-17), iii8 (ff. 18-25), iv8 (ff. 26-33), v8 (ff. 34-41), vi8 (ff. 42-49), vii8 (ff. 50-57), viii8 (ff. 58-65), ix8 (ff. 66-73), x8 (ff. 74-81), xi10 (ff. 82-93), xii8 (ff. 94-101), xiii8 (ff. 102-109), xiv8 (ff.110-117), xv8 (ff. 118-125), xvi8 (ff. 126-133), xvii8 (ff. 134-141), xviii8 (ff. 142-149), xix12 (ff. 150-[161*]), xx8 (ff. 161-168), xxi8 (ff. 169-176), xxii6 (ff. 177-182), xxiii6 (ff. 183-188), xxiv8 (ff. 189-196), xxv8 (ff. 197-204), xxvi8 (ff. 205-212), xxvii8 (ff. 213-220), xxviii8 (ff. 221-228), xxix8 (ff. 229-236), xxx8 (ff. 237-244), xxxi8 (ff. 245-252), xxxii8 (ff. 253-260), xxxiii8 (ff. 261-268), xxxiv8 (ff. 269-276), xxxv8 (ff. 277-284), xxxvi8 (ff. 285-292), xxxvii10 (ff. 293-302), xxxviii10 (ff. 303-312), xxxix8 (ff. 313-320), xl8 (ff. 321-328), xli8 (ff. 329-336), xlii8 (ff. 337-344), xliii10 (ff. 345-354), xliv8 (ff. 355-362), xlv8 (ff. 363-370), xlvi8 (ff. 371-378), xlvii8 (ff. 379-386), xlviii10 (ff. 387-396), xlix8 (ff. 397-404), l8 (ff. 405-412), li8 (ff. 413-420), lii8 (ff. 421-428), liii8 (ff. 429-[436]). |
| Form |
Parchment codex |
| Binding |
BM/BL in-house. |
| Provenance |
Written by Solomon ben Azluq for Joseph ben David ben Solomon ben R. David ben Gedaliah the elder: inscription (f. 434v).
Laurentius Franguellus, censor: inscribed with his name: 'Revistu[s] p[er] me Laurentiu[s] Franguellu[s] die 26 novembris 1574' (f. 434), see William Popper, The Censorship of Hebrew Books (New York: KTAV Publishing House, 1969), appendix § 105-110.
Luigi de Bologna, censor: inscribed 'Revisto et corretto per me f. Luigi da Bologna del 1601' (f. 433v). A converted Jew working for the Inquisition as censor (active at the end of the sixteenth, beginning of seventeenth century), see William Popper, The Censorship of Hebrew Books (New York: KTAV Publishing House, 1969), p. 104, and appendix § 112-117.
Camillo Jaghel, censor: inscribed with his name, 1613 (f. 433v), see William Popper, The Censorship of Hebrew Books (New York: KTAV Publishing House, 1969), appendix § 50-56.
Renato de Modena, censor: inscription 'Visto p[er] me fr. Renato de Mod[ena] 1626' (f. 434); see William Popper, The Censorship of Hebrew Books (New York: KTAV Publishing House, 1969), appendix § 132-133.
Erasures (e.g., ff. 224v, 283, 294v, 297, 375, 422).
Bernard Mould (b. c. 1683; d. 1744), chaplain at Smyrna: inscribed with his name, Smyrna, 1724 (f. 435b); sold to Edward Harley on 28 July 1725 (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.
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.
See also the first volume of the work: Harley 5698. |
| Notes |
The Lisbon Mishneh Torah has two volumes, Harley 5698 and Harley 5699.
Hair-side can be distinguished from flesh-side.
Fore edge, lower and upper edges are colored with red strips.
Manicula in the margin (f. 17). |
| Select bibliography |
A Catalogue of the Harleian Collection of Manuscripts, in the British Museum, III, (London, 1808), no. 5698-9.
George Margoliouth, Catalogue of the Hebrew and Samaritan Manuscripts in the British Museum, 4 vols (London: British Museum, 1899-1935; vols I-III repr. 1965); IV, Introduction, Indexes, ed. by Jacob Leveen (London: British Museum, 1977), II, no. 487.
The Diary of Humfrey Wanley 1715-1726, ed. by Cyril Ernest Wright and Ruth C. Wright, 2 vols (London: Bibliographical Society, 1966), II: 1723-1726, p. 370 n. 1.
Bezalel Narkiss, Hebrew Illuminated Manuscripts (New York: Macmillan 1969), p. 78.
Gabrielle Sed-Rajna, Manuscrits hebreux de Lisbonne (Paris 1970), pp. 20-22.
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. 246, 459.
Bezalel Narkiss, Hebrew Illuminated Manuscripts in the British Isles: a Catalogue Raisonne. The Spanish and Portuguese Manuscripts, 2 vols (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1982), I, no. 41; II, figs 394-403.
Evelyn M. Cohen, 'The Decoration of Medieval Hebrew Manuscripts', in A Sign and a Witness: 2,000 Years of Hebrew Books and Illuminated Manuscripts, ed. By Leonard Singer Gold (New York: New York Public Library, 1988), p. 57.
Lisbon Bible: 1482. British Library Or. 2626, introduction by Gabrielle Sed-Rajna (Tel Aviv: Nahar Miskal, 1988), pp. 12-13 [facsimile edition].
Ilana Tahan, Hebrew Manuscripts: The Power of Script and Image (London, British Library, 2007), pp. 114-15. |
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f. 189v
The Book of Ritual Purity |
f. 189v
Inhabited border |
f. 355v
The Book of Civil Law |
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f. 434v
Colophon |
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