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Detailed record for Harley 3308
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| Author |
Eusebius of Caesarea, translated by George of Trebizond |
| Title |
De evangelica praeparatione |
| Origin |
Italy, Central (Florence) |
| Date |
Last quarter of the 15th century (after 1476) |
| Language |
Latin |
| Script |
Humanistic |
| Scribe |
The scribe of Bologna University MS 1452 (scribe of the Vite of Vespasiano da Bisticci) |
| Artists |
Perhaps Antonio di Niccolò di Lorenzo |
| Decoration |
Historiated initial with a man reading (Georgius Trapezuntius?) combined with a full border with foliate decoration, flowers, besants, candelabras, birds, winged putti including 2 supporting a wreath enclosing heraldry (f. 5). 14 large initials in gold and colours with foliate decoration, flowers and besants (ff. 6, 20, 30, 45, 59v, 71, 90, 104, 121v, 132v, 147, 167, 179, 192v; on f. 6, the decoration extends into the border). Initial in gold on a blue and pink panel (f. 179). Coloured initials in red or blue. Rubrics in gold or blue. |
| Dimensions in mm |
345 x 240 (220 x 130) (capitula list in 2 columns) |
| Official foliation |
ff. 202 (+ 2 unfoliated paper flyleaves at the beginning and at the end) |
| Collation |
Mostly in quires of 10. |
| Form |
Parchment codex |
| Binding |
Post-1600. 'Harleian' binding of gold-tooled red leather, with green leather inside covers; marbled endpapers. Gilt fore-edge. |
| Provenance |
Made for Jorge Da Costa (b. 1406, d. 1508), Portuguese prelate, cardinal in 1476, in exile in Rome from 1483, original owner: his arms (f. 5).
John Wright, librarian to George Henry Hay, 7th Earl of Kinnoull and husband of Abigail, youngest daughter of Robert Harley: sold by him to Harley on 24 June 1723 (see Diary).
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. |
| Notes |
Contains a capitula list (ff. 1-4v).
Catchwords written vertically. Leaf signatures. |
| Select bibliography |
A Catalogue of the Harleian Manuscripts in the British Museum, 4 vols (London: Eyre and Strahan, 1808-12), III (1808), no. 3308.
The Diary of Humfrey Wanley 1715-1726, ed. by C. E. Wright and Ruth C. Wright, 2 vols (London: Bibliographical Society, 1966), II: 1723-1726, p. 417 n. 7.
Paolo D'Ancona, La Miniatura Fiorentina. Secoli XI-XVI, 2 vols (Florence: Olschki, 1914), II, p. 424.
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. 122, 363.
Cyril Ernest Wright, 'Manuscripts of Italian Provenance in the Harleian Collection in the British Museum: Their Sources, Associations and Channels of Acquisition', in Cultural Aspects of the Italian Renaissance. Essays in Honour of Paul Oskar Kristeller, ed. by C. H. Clough (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1976), pp. 462-84 (p. 472).
John Monfasani, Collectanea Trapezuntiana: Texts, Documents and Bibliographies of George Trebizond, Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies, 25 (Binghampton, N.Y.: Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies, 1984), pp. 24-27, 80-81, 124-27, 254-61 (p. 26).
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. 543).
Albinia de la Mare, ‘Notes on Portuguese patrons of the Florentine book trade in the fifteenth century’, Cultural links between Portugal and Italy in the Renaissance, ed. by K. J. P. Lowe (Oxford: University Press, 2000), pp. 167-181 (pp. 174-176, pl. 10.1). |
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