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Detailed record for Egerton 845

Part 1 ff. 1-8v 
Author Johannes de Sacro Bosco
Title Tractatus de sphaera
Origin England
Date last quarter of the 13th century or 1st half of the 14th century
Language Latin and English
Script Gothic cursive
Decoration Small initials in red or brown. Paraphs in red. Line-fillers in brown and red.
Dimensions in mm 200 x 140 (165 x 125 ( in two columns)
 
Part 2 ff. 9-13v 
Title Astronomical treatise, fragment
Origin England
Date first half of the 14th century
Language Latin
Script Gothic
Decoration Small initial in red with blue penwork decoration (f. 9). Small intials in red or blue. Highlighting of letters in red.
Dimensions in mm 180 x 130 (140 x 75)
 
Part 3 ff. 14-21v 
Title Alchemical treatise and diagrams, fragmentary, English verse on alchemy (f. 16v)
Origin England
Date 1st half of the 16th century
Language Latin and English
Script Gothic cursive
Decoration Drawings or diagrams in ink, some with a brown wash, one with a green, blue, and brown wash (f. 21v), some unfinished (ff. 14v-16, 17, 17v, 19v, 21v).
Dimensions in mm Various
 
Official foliation ff. 21 ( + 9 unfoliated paper flyleaves at the beginning + 8 unfoliated paper leaves after ff. 8 and 13)+
Form Parchment and paper codex
Binding BM/BL in-house.
Provenance Trinity College, Cambridge: ff. 9-13v part of its MS O.7.2 (see Winstanley and Hunt).
James Orchard Halliwell-[Phillipps] (b. 1820, d. 1889), antiquary and literary scholar: inscription 'No. 68 J. O. Halliwell 1838' (f. 1); 'No. 120' (f. 9); 'J. O. Halliwell 1838 No. 202' (f. 14); catalogued for sale, 27 June 1840, lot 134, but withdrawn, along with the other manuscripts, all but one of which were sold en bloc to Rodd in July 1840 for £50: see Arthur Freeman and Janet Ing Freeman, ‘Phillipps, James Orchard Halliwell- (1820-1889)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004) [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/12020, accessed 10 Feb 2006].
Thomas Rodd the younger (b. 1796, d. 1849), London bookseller; bought from him by the British Museum on 13 August 1840 for 10s, along with 32 other manuscripts formerly owned by Halliwell-Phillipps, using the Bridgewater fund (£12,000 bequeathed in 1829 by Francis Henry Egerton, 8th Earl of Bridgewater (b. 1756, d. 1829).
Notes f. 20 is the verso of f. 21, folded up.
Part 2 (ff. 9-13v) was originally part of the same volume as Egerton MS. 851 and Trinity College Cambridge MS. O.7.2.
Select bibliography List of Additions to the Manuscripts in the British Museum in the Years 1836-1840 (London: British Museum, 1843), 1840, p. 19.

D. A. Winstanley and R. W. Hunt, 'Halliwell Phillipps and Trinity College Library', The Library, 5th series, 2 (1947-48), 250-82 (pp. 258, 279-81).

W. L. Braekman, Studies on Alchemy, Diet, Medecine [sic] and Prognostication in Middle English, Scripta, Mediaeval and Renaissance Texts and Studies, 22 (Brussels: Scripta, 1986), p. 17.


Images

Part  1   ff. 1-8v
Johannes de Sacro Bosco Tractatus de sphaera
* * *
 
The world

f. 15
The world
The world

f. 15
The world
Diagram

f. 19v
Diagram
 
Diagram

f. 21
Diagram
Constellations

f. 21v
Constellations

Part  3   ff. 14-21v
Alchemical treatise and diagrams, fragmentary, English verse on alchemy (f. 16v)
* * *
 
Diagrams

ff. 15v-16
Diagrams

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