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Detailed record for Burney 275
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| Author |
Priscian, Cicero, and Pseudo-Cicero, Boethius, Aristotle, Euclid, Adelard of Bath, Ptolemy, translated by Gerard of Cremona |
| Title |
Scholastic miscellany (see Notes for contents) |
| Origin |
France, Central (Paris) |
| Date |
between 1309 and 1316 |
| Language |
Latin |
| Script |
Gothic |
| Artists |
Attributed to the Meliacin Master |
| Decoration |
21 large historiated initials and partial or three-sided bar borders in gold and colours at the beginning of treatises or prefaces, many of the borders with animals, men, and/or grotesques (ff. 94, 120, 143, 166, 169v, 176v, 180v, 184, 205, 218v, 244v, 252v, 256v, 265, 278, 288v, 293, 336, 359v, 390v and 391). (Note that the beginning of the first text on f. 3v is a later replacement without a historiated initial). Other large and small foliate initials and numerous partial borders in gold and colours, some of the borders with zoomorphic elements. Large red and blue puzzle initials with penwork decoration and pen flourishing. Small red and blue iniitials with pen flourishing. Numerous diagrams (mathematical and astronomical). Heraldic shields hanging from the bar borders. Guide letters, and instructions for the artist, in French, e.g. ff.176v, 180v, 205r, 218v . |
| Dimensions in mm |
405 x 290 (260 x 165) in two columns |
| Official foliation |
ff. 561 (ff. 1-2 and 561 are parchment flyleaves) |
| Form |
Parchment codex |
| Binding |
BM/BL in-house. Gilt edges, painted with the arms of Jean, duc de Berry. |
| Provenance |
Probably made for Franciscus Caracciolo of Naples, chancellor of Paris (chancellor 1309, d. 1316) (arms of or a lion rampant azure of the Caracciolo family, and or on key gules of the chancellor of Paris, ff. 94r, 120, 166 (key only), 184, 336, and 359v; erased ownership inscriptions of Franciscus Caraccioli, ff. 2, 561v).
? Robert of Anjou, king of Naples (b. 1275, d. 1343) (erased inscriptions, ff. 2, 561v, see Camille, 2001, p. 343).
Pope Gregory XI (reigned 1370 to 1378) (inscription, f. 2v).
Anti-pope Clement VII (reigned 1378 to 1394) (inscription, f. 560v).
Jean, duc de Berry (b. 1340, d. 1416), a gift from Clement VII in 1387 (ownership inscription written by Jean's secretary, Jean Flamel, f. 2v; ownership inscription and signature 'Jehan', f. 560v; his arms, edges).
Louis, duc d'Orleans (b. 1372, d. 1407), brother of Jean, duc de Berry (1402 inventory of Jean, duc de Berry, see Delisle 1907 vol. II pp. 264-65; Guiffrey 1894 p. 252 n. 957) .
Jean, duc de Berry (his 1413 inventory notes that the manuscript was returned to him after the death of the duc d'Orleans in 1407, see Delisle, 1907 II pp. 264-65).
Jean Coignet, after 1416 (note of acquisition from the executors of the duc de Berry, f. 560v).
Cathedral chapter of Albi (see Camille 2001 p. 363 n. 2).
Count Justin de MacCarthy-Reagh (b. 1744, d. 1811): his catalogue by De Bure, Paris, 1815; sale by De Bure, Paris, January 1817, lot 3697 ('3697' in pencil, f. 1v, see also Camille 2001 p. 363 n. 2).
Charles Burney (b. 1757, d. 1817), D.D., classical scholar.
Acquired by the British Museum as part of Burney’s library from Charles Parr Burney in 1818 (his signature, f. 2v). |
| Notes |
Full digital coverage available for this manuscript: see Digitised Manuscripts at http://www.bl.uk/manuscripts.
Contents:
Priscian, Cicero, and Pseudo-Cicero, Institutiones, De inventione, Rhetorica ad Herennium; Boethius, Aristotle, Euclid, and others, Boethius's translation of Aristotle's Priora and Posteriora Analytica and other works; De musica; Elementa (in the translation attributed to Adelard of Bath), and other texts; Ptolemy, translated by Gerard of Cremona, Almagest (ff. 390v-560v)
Instructions to artists in French in pencil, e.g., ff. 176v, 180v, 205, 218v, many partially erased.
Ptolemy's Almagest is the classical star catalogue, with full coordinates and numerous geometric diagrams. This manuscript is one of 42 known surviving copies of Gerard of Cremona's translation of the text from Arabic (see Paul Kunitzsch, Stars and Numbers: Astronomy and Mathematics in the Medieval Arab and Western Worlds (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2004), p. 80. Gerald's translation was made c. 1150-1180 in Toledo, Spain. The Almagest itle was written in 138-161, and is an exposition of mathematical astronomy. |
| Select bibliography |
Catalogue of Manuscripts in The British Museum, New Series, (London: British Museum, 1834-1840), I, part II: The Burney Manuscripts (1840), pp. 69-70, pl. 3.
Léopold Delisle, Le Cabinet des Manuscrits de la Bibliothèque Impériale [Nationale]: Étude sur la formation de ce dépôt , 3 vols (Paris: Imprimerie Nationale, 1868-1881), I, 67.
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. 9,
Jules Guiffrey, Inventaires de Jean duc de Berry (1401-1416), 2 vols (Paris: [n. pub.], 1894-1896), I, pp. CLXXIV no. 57, 252 no. 957; II, 122 no. 954.
Léopold Delisle, Recherches sur la librairie de Charles V, 2 vols (Paris: Champion, 1907), II, 264-65, no. 257.
Georg Graf Vitzthum, Die Pariser Miniaturmalerei von der Zeit des hl. Ludwig bis zu Philipp von Valois und ihr Verhältnis zur Malerei in Nordwesteuropa (Leipzig: Quelle & Meyer, 1907), pp. 27-28.
J. A. Herbert, Illuminated Manuscripts (London: Methuen, 1911), p. 247.
Eric Millar, Souvenir de l’exposition de manuscrits français à peintures organisée à la Grenville Library (British Museum) en janvier-mars 1932 (Paris: Société française de reproductions de manuscrits à peintures, 1933), no. 41.
Günther Haseloff, Die Psalterillustration im 13. Jahrhundert : Studien zur Geschichte der Buchmalerei in England, Frankreich und den Niederlanden ([n. p.]: [n. pub.], 1938), p. 91.
Aristoteles Latinus: codices: supplementa altera, ed. by L. Minio-Paluello (Bruges: Desclée, De Brouwer: 1961), I, no. 298.
Augustus Hughes-Hughes, Catalogue of Manuscript Music in the British Museum, 3 vols (London: British Museum, 1906-1965), III, 296.
Millard Meiss, French Painting in the Time of Jean de Berry: The Late XIV Century and the Patronage of the Duke, 2 vols, National Gallery of Art Kress Foundation Studies in the History of European Art, 2 (London: Thames and Hudson, 1967), pp. 195, 310.
Millard Meiss and S. Off, ‘The Bookkeeping of Robinet d’Estampes and the Chronology of Jean de Berry’s Manuscripts', Art Bulletin, 53 (1971), 225-35 (p. 233).
Paul Kunitzsch, Der Almagest: Die Syntaxis Mathematica des Claudius Ptolemäus in arabisch-lateinischer mittelalterliche Überlieferung (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1974), p. 88.
Millard Meiss, French Painting in the Time of Jean de Berry: The Limbourgs and their Contemporaries, 2 vols (London: Thames and Hudson, 1974), I, 63, 416, 420.
Marina Passalacqua, I codici di Prisciano, Sussidi eruditi, 29 (Rome: Edizioni di storia e letteratura, 1978), no. 318.
T.S. Pattie, Astrology as Illustrated in the Collections of the British Library and the British Museum (London: British Library, 1980), pp. 22, 25.
Diane Bolton, ‘Illustrations in Manuscripts of Boethius’ Works’ in Boethius, His Life, Thought and Influence, ed. by Margaret Gibson (Oxford: Blackwell, 1981) 428-37 (pp. 428, 431-32, 434 n. 2).
Alison White, ‘Boethius in the Medieval Quadrivium’ in Boethius, His Life, Thought and Influence, ed. by Margaret Gibson (Oxford: Blackwell, 1981), 162-205 (p. 201 n. 113).
Gugliemo Ballaira, Per il catalogo dei codici di Prisciano (Turin: Giappichelli, 1982), no. 318.
The First Latin Translation of Euclid’s ‘Elements’ Commonly Ascribed to Adelard of Bath: Books I-VIII and Books X.36-XV.2, ed. by H. L. L. Busard, Studies and Texts (Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies), 64 (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1983), p. 25 (as 'L').
John Murdoch, Album of Science: Antiquity and the Middle Ages (New York: Scribner, 1984), nos. 44, 59, 60, 62, 104, 178, 241, and 252; see also p. 370.
Calvin M. Bower, ‘Boethius’ De Institutione Musica: A Handlist of Manuscripts’, Scriptorium: Review internationale des études relatives aux manuscrits, 42 (1988), 205-51 (p. 220 no. 41).
Bernhard Bischoff, Latin Palaeography: Antiquity and the Middle Ages, trans. by Dáibhí Ó Cróinín and David Ganz (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), p. 217 n. 3..
Patricia Basing, Trades and Crafts in Medieval Manuscripts (London: British Library, 1990), p. 98, pl. XII.
Claudius Ptolemäus: Der Sternkatalog des Almagest: Die arabisch-mittelalterliche Tradition, ed. by Paul Kunitzsch (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1986- ), II: Die lateinische Übersetzung Gerhards von Cremona (1990), p. 14 (‘lb’).
Christopher De Hamel, A History of Illuminated Manuscripts, 2nd edn (London: Phaidon, 1994), pl. 92.
Codices Boethiani: A Conspectus of Manuscripts of the Works of Boethius, ed. by M. T. Gibson, Lesley Smith and others, Warburg Institute Surveys and Texts, 25 (London: Warburg Institute, 1995- ), I: Great Britain and the Republic of Northern Ireland, no. 106.
Peter Whitfield, The Mapping of the Heavens (London: British Library, 1995), pl. on p. 46.
Janet Backhouse, The Illuminated Page: Ten Centuries of Manuscript Painting in the British Library (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1997), no. 79.
François Avril, catalogue entry in L'art au temps des rois maudits: Philippe le Bel et ses fils (1285-1328) (Paris: Réunion des Musées Nationaux, 1998), p. 268.
Michael Camille, ‘Bestiary or biology? Aristotle's animals in Oxford, Merton College, MS 271’, in Aristotle's Animals in the Middle Ages and Renaissance, ed. by Carlos Steel, Guy Guldentops, and Pieter Beullens, Mediaevalia Lovaniensia, Series 1: Studia, 27 (Leuven: University Press, 1999), pp. 355-96 (p. 364, n. 22).
Richard H. Rouse and Mary A. Rouse, Manuscripts and Their Makers: Commercial Book Producers in Medieval Paris 1200-1500, 2 vols (Turnhout: Harvey Miller, 2000), II, App. 4C.
H. L. L. Busard, Johannes De Tinemue’s Redaction of Euclid’s Elements, The So-Called Adelard III Version, 2 vols (Stuttgart: Steiner, 2001), I, 20, no. 3 (as ‘Lb).
Michael Camille, ‘Illuminating Thought: the Trivial Arts in British Library, Burney Ms. 275’, in New Offerings, Ancient Treasures: Studies in Medieval Art for George Henderson, ed. by Paul Binski and William Noel (Stroud: Sutton, 2001), pp. 343-66.
Margaret Scott, Medieval Dress & Fashion (London: British Library, 2007), pp. 84-85, pl. 45.
Joe Flatman, Ships and Shipping in Medieval Manuscripts (London: British Library, 2009), pls 46-47. |
| Last revised: 05 February 2005 |
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Fore edge
Detail |
f. 14
Initials |
f. 16
Initial |
| |
f. 47v
Detail |
f. 64v
Detail |
f. 82v
Detail |
| |
f. 94
Grammar |
f. 94
Detail |
f. 94
Detail |
| |
f. 94
Detail |
f. 120
Woman with a book |
f. 143
Hybird |
| |
f. 143
Woman teaching |
f. 144v
Detail |
f. 158v
Initial |
| |
f. 166
Border |
f. 180v
Monk |
f. 184
Teaching |
| |
f. 205
Monk |
f. 218v
Monk |
f. 233v
Initial |
| |
f. 256v
Teaching |
f. 256v
Teaching |
f. 288v
Teacher |
| |
f. 288v
Bird |
f. 293
Geometry |
f. 293
Geometry |
| |
f. 293
Geometry |
f. 293v
Marginal drawings |
f. 311
Decorated initial |
| |
f. 320v
Detail |
f. 336
Arithmetic |
f. 336
Detail |
| |
f. 336
Detail |
f. 336
Detail |
f. 336
Detail |
| |
f. 359v
Detail |
f. 359v
Musicians |
f. 359v
Detail |
| |
f. 359v
Detail |
f. 364v
Detail |
f. 377
Detail |
| |
f. 390v
Astronomy |
f. 390v
Detail |
f. 390v
Astronomy |
| |
f. 390v
Astronomy |
f. 390v
Detail |
f. 391
Detail |
| |
f. 391
Historiated initial |
f. 398
Detail |
f. 403
Detail |
| |
f. 404
Mermaid |
f. 404
Detail |
f. 419
Tables |
| |
f. 435v
Detail |
f. 438v
Detail |
f. 459v
Detail |
| |
f. 488
Detail |
f. 536
Detail |
f. 550
Detail |
| |
f. 550
Detail |
f. 560v
Detail |
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