Manuscript on parchment and paper of the Alfonsine Tables, a scientific work on astronomy, executed on parchment and decorated, but unfinished, to which paper leaves have been added at a not much later date, and the text completed, probably by a scholar
Description:
In Latin., Watermarks: 1) ladder in a circle with star at top, two varieties, similar to Briquet 5920; 2) eagle displayed within a circle, similar to Briquet 203., Script: Four scribes have written the manuscript: (1) the professional, humanistic hand of the parchment section; (2) the rapid, partly illegible cursive hand of the paper leaves; (3) a late humanistic hand which has supplied "radices" in red and brown inks in the lower margins of ff. 33-38; (4) a hand that filled in the numerals on the whole of f. 63r and a part of f. 36v, distinguishable by his numeral "7"., In the parchment section, headlines and part of the writing in red (the sixth place in each table is outlined in yellow glair, except in the table on f. 57r, where the ninth, fifteenth, and twenty-first places are outlined in blues). Longitudinal spaces between columns of the tables in the parchment section, ff. 38v-42v, 53r, and 61r-70v, have been decorated with arabesque patterns of vines, leaves, and flowers in great variety and usually in differing combinations of glair and blue, but the work has been left unfinished toward the end of the section. No illustration., and Binding: Modern. Blue morocco, gilt, matching slipcase of straight-grained blue morocco, by R. Wallis, original gilt edges.
Manuscript on paper of The Life, Araignment, and Death, of the famous learned, Sir Thomas More Knight: Somtymes Lord Chauncellor of England. On f. iii verso, engraving of Sir Thomas More, half-length, to right, standing, pointing to scroll in right hand
Description:
In English., Watermarks: Heawood, Coat of Arms 481., Script: Written in neat chancery script., Illuminated title-page, f. iii recto: double blue frame with sprigs of berries and leaves on both sides and gilt designs above and below. Gold initial on f. 1r marks the beginning of text., and Binding: 17th-18th centuries. Part of a book rebound in limp vellum, gold-tooled, with holes for two ties.
Subject (Geographic):
Connecticut, New Haven., and Great Britain
Subject (Name):
More, Thomas, Saint, 1478-1535. and Roper, William, 1496-1578.
Subject (Topic):
Illumination of books and manuscripts, Medieval, Manuscripts, Medieval, and History
In Hebrew., Script: written in an unidentified script., and This fragment is contained in Zi +3487.3 (Pius II, Epistolae in cardinalatu editae), around which it is used as a covering.