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Detailed record for Harley 334
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| Author |
Gautier de Metz (attributed to) |
| Title |
Image du Monde (Le livre de clergie en roumans) |
| Origin |
France, Central (Paris) and England |
| Date |
2nd quarter of the 15th century |
| Language |
French |
| Script |
Gothic cursive |
| Decoration |
1 large miniature in colours, gold, and silver (f. 1). 11 miniatures in colours (ff. 2v, 3, 5, 6, 7, 21, 25, 25v, 26v, 29, 33v). 45 tinted drawings in colours (ff. 11, 37, 39, 40v, 44, 45, 45v, 47, 52v, 53, 55v, 57, 58, 58v, 59, 61, 62v, 63v, 64v, 65v, 68, 68v, 69v, 71v, 72v, 73v, 75, 75v, 76, 76v, 77, 78, 83v, 86v, 91, 94v, 95v, 99, 100, 102, 104, 104v, 105, 106, 107v). 16 diagrams in colours (ff. 35v, 37v, 38, 41v, 42v, 43, 43v, 79v, 81, 83 , 84, 85v, 86, 87v, 88v, 89v). |
| Dimensions in mm |
240 x 175 (165 x 70/85) |
| Official foliation |
ff. 1* + 2* + 3* + 108 (+ 3 unfoliated paper flyleaves + 2 parchment leaves after f. 2* + at the beginning and at the end) |
| Form |
Parchment codex |
| Binding |
BM/BL in-house. Green leather with gold tooling; marbled endpapers. |
| Provenance |
Johannes Martyn: his name inscribed in the early 16th century (f. 108v).
Thomas Jordin (Jorden): his name inscribed, in the 16th or 17th century (on a piece of paper pasted onto f. 1*).
Sir Thomas Twysden (Twisden), (b. 1602, d. 1683), 1st baronet, judge, and politician: an inscription in his hand, according to a note in the manuscript by Sir Frederic Madden (pasted onto f. 3*).
Sir Simonds D'Ewes (b.1602, d. 1650), 1st baronet, diarist, antiquary, and friend of Sir Robert Cotton (see Wright 1972).
Sir Simonds D’Ewes (d. 1722), 3rd baronet and grandson of the former: inherited and later sold the D’Ewes library to Robert Harley on 4 October 1705 for £450 (see Watson 1966).
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 |
Full digital coverage available for this manuscript: see Digitised Manuscripts at http://www.bl.uk/manuscripts.
Horizontal catchwords.
Ff. 1*, 2*, 3* are flyleaves.
F. 2* is a reused leaf from another manuscript with English text in a cursive hand.
F. 108 is a flyleaf with various inscriptions on the recto and verso.
The images of God have been deliberately defaced (e.g. f. 6).
The text is in verse and is in three parts.
For the library of Sir Simonds D'Ewes, a large part of which was purchased by Harley, see Andrew George Watson, The Library of Sir Simonds D'Ewes (London: British Library, 1966).
The flourished initials are Parisian, c. 1430-1440, however some miniatures seem to have been executed by English artists, according to François Avril. |
| Select bibliography |
A Catalogue of the Harleian Manuscripts in the British Museum, 4 vols (London: Eyre and Strahan, 1808-12), I (1808), no. 334.
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. 18.
Andrew G. Watson, The Library of Sir Simonds D'Ewes (London: British Museum, 1966), no. A238.
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. 127, 131, 207, 235, 333.
Peter Whitfield, The Mapping of the Heavens (London: British Library, 1995), pl. on p. 49.
Sophie Page, Astrology in Medieval Manuscripts (London: British Library, 2002), p. 10, pl. 4. |
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f. 1
Creation |
f. 1
Creation |
f. 1
Creation |
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f. 25
Geometry |
f. 25v
Music |
f. 29
Diagram |
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f. 34v
Creation |
f. 57
Mermaid and fish |
f. 71v
A city divided by a crevice |
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f. 84
Diagrams |
f. 94v
Man with a pen and circle |
f. 95v
Ptolemy |
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f. 100
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f. 106
Astronomer |
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