Manuscript on parchment of Leonardo Bruni, De bello italico adversus gothos, in the Italian version by Ludovico Petroni made in 1456. Preceded by the letter of Leonardo Bruni to Giuliano Cardinal Cesarini (1398-1444).
Description:
Binding: 18th-19th centuries, Italy. "Alla rustica" with grey-green paper added over the spine and part of the boards. Edges yellow., Partial border in inner margin of white vine-stem ornament, f. 1r, on blue, green and pink ground with white and blue dots. In lower border terminals extending in ink hair spray with green, pink and blue flowers and gold balls frame central medallion with a crude outline drawing of a head in profile (later addition?). Two decorated initials, 4- to 3-line, gold on blue, pink and green grounds with white vine-stem ornament. On f. 1r initial joined to partial border. Heading on f. 1r in red., and Script: Written by a single scribe in fere-gothic script, above top line.
Subject (Geographic):
Rome--History
Subject (Topic):
Illumination of books and manuscripts, Medieval, Italian literature--15th century, Literature, Medieval--Translations, Manuscripts, Medieval--Connecticut--New Haven, and Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts in Beinecke Library
Manuscript on parchment of 1) Curtius Rufus, Historia Alexandri Magni, translated into Italian and supplemented with material from Plutarch by Pier Candido Decembrio. 2) Pier Candido Decembrio, Comparazione di Cesare e d'Alessandro Magno.
Description:
Binding: 15th-16th centuries, Italy. Sewn on four tawed skin, slit straps laid in channels on the outside of wooden boards and pegged. Gilt edges. Covered in brown goatskin with corner tongues, and blind-tooled with a ropework star inside painted (red) and blind-tooled circles inside a floral border, all with metallic annular dots. There are traces of four leaf-shaped fastenings, the catches on the lower board, the upper one cut in for fabric straps attached with star-headed nails. Rebacked twice., One illuminated intial, 6-line, gold against blue, green and pink ground with white vine-stem ornament, extending into inner margin to form a partial border; terminating at top and bottom in pen inkspray with buds in green and pink and gold balls with hair-line extensions. Plain initials, 3- to 2-line, in blue, mark text divisions; headings in pale red., Purchased from Lathrop C. Harper in 1949 by Thomas E. Marston., and Script: Written by a single scribe in a slightly rounded humanistic bookhand with many cursive elements, below top line.
Subject (Name):
Caesar, Julius, Decembrio, Pier Candido,--1399-1477, Plutarch, and Rufus, Curtius
Subject (Topic):
Illumination of books and manuscripts, Medieval, Italian literature--15th century, Literature, Medieval--Translations, Manuscripts, Medieval--Connecticut--New Haven, and Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts in Beinecke Library
Manuscript on paper containing letters by or related to Lapo da Castiglionchio (d. 1381), and his family: 1) Lapo da Castiglionchio, Letter, written in 1377, to his son Bernardo, canon of the cathedral of Florence, then 14 years old, containing an elaborate treatise in three parts dealing with political and historical questions. 2) Bernardo da Castiglionchio (1363-1383), Letter to his father Lapo, in which he thanks him for the education and protection his father has provided and in particular for the extensive letter he has written in reply to his questions. 3) Bernardo da Castiglionchio, Second letter to his father Lapo, of about the same time, in which he resumes the theme of the nobility of the Castiglionchio family and provides a panegyric of his father with details about his career. 4) Francesco da Castiglionchio (second half of the fourteenth century), Letter to his father Alberto, brother of Lapo, written 8 June 1381 or slightly later. Describes the coronation of Charles III, King of Naples and Sicily (1381-1386) by Pope Urban VI in the church of St. Peter in Rome on 2 June 1381, an event in the preparation of which Lapo had an important role. 5) Francesco da Castiglionchio, Second letter to his father Alberto staying at Verona, dated 17 July 1381 and relating the death of Alberto's brother Lapo, which happened in Rome on 27 June of the same year after a short illness, a couple of weeks after the coronation of Charles III, which had been so important for the improvement of the Castiglionchio family. 6) Niccolò Acciaiuoli (1310-1365), Extracts from a letter, dated 26 Dec. 1364, to the Florentine merchant Angelo Soderini (d. 1377) established in Avignon.
Description:
Binding: Seventeenth century (?). Brown leather with artificial cross grain over cardboard. Blind-tooled spine with four raised bands and gold-tooled inscription in the second compartment: “CASTIGLIONCHIO / EPISTOLE”. Below a small oval paper label with the number “7” in red ink. Yellow spine., Headings and explicit formulas in pale red ink; marginal captions and notes in the same colour or in black; paragraph marks in pale red ink. 4-line initials (Capitalis) in blue (missing f. 2v), at the opening of each art. and of the subdivisions of art. 1. On f. 1r 7-line white vinestem initial integrated into left margin border of the same style. In the lower margin, in a wreath, the Volognano-Castiglionchio coat of arms: silver, with four chains azure in saltire and castle azure. Running headlines in pale red Capitalis in art. 1 only., On the author, a Florentine poet, friend of Petrarch, professor of Canon Law, lawyer, diplomat, politician, see Dizionario biografico degli Italiani, v. 22 (1979), pp. 40-44., and Script: Copied by one hand in careful Humanistica Semitextualis Libraria. The first line of each text and some headings are in Capitalis.
Subject (Geographic):
Florence (Italy)--History
Subject (Name):
Castiglionchio, Lapo da,--d. 1381
Subject (Topic):
Illumination of books and manuscripts, Medieval, Italian letters, Manuscripts, Medieval--Connecticut--New Haven, Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts in Beinecke Library, and Nobility--Italy
Manuscript on paper and parchment containing 1) Ownership inscription and note on the scribe, followed by a variant form of a Biblical quotation (Lamentations 3:27-28). 2) Legend of St. Jerome in Italian, with special attention for miraculous events, as an introduction to artt. 4-6. Quotes Iohannes Belet (12th century), St. Augustine, Prosper of Aquitaine, Isidore of Seville, Sulpicius Severus. 3) Ps.-Eusebius, Epistula de morte Hieronymi (BHL 3866), Italian translation. 4) Ps. -Augustinus Hipponensis, Epistola de magnificentiis Hieronymi (BHL 3867), Italian translation. 5) Ps.-Cyrillus, Epistola de miraculis Hieronymi (BHL 3868), in Italian translation. 6) History of abbot Daniel living in Thebais and his disobedient servant, to whom he tells the life of a virtuous man they have met, called Eulogius, who eventually became patricius and praefectus praetorio in Constantinople at the time of emperor Justinus I (518-527); due to the loss of one or more quires the major part of the text, containing the intervention of the Virgin, is missing.
Description:
Binding: Quarter binding of bevelled wooden boards (worm-eaten) and brown leather; spine with three raised bands and paper title label with handwritten 17th-century inscription: “Vita / di S. / Girola.” On the boards marks of one clasp attached to the front board and on the front board the ca. 1800 inscription “JO.” written in black ink. Possibly the binding once belonged to another manuscript., Collection of Bernard M. Rosenthal (MS 38). Purchased from him on the Edwin J. Beinecke Fund., Description follow modern foliation which includes two preliminary leaves.., Headings in pale red, often difficult to read. Yellow heightening of the majuscules. Initials, with guide letters written in the space reserved for the initial: (1) flourished initials (3-4 lines) in red with pale red (or brown) penwork or in blue with red penwork, sometimes with marginal penwork extensions; (2) at the beginning of each text a larger initial; the letters following this type of initial are majuscules. F. 3r: 12-line blue initial of the littera duplex type with extensive penwork in red and some blue, with decorative border in the same colours in the inner and lower margin and tendrils in the other margins containing flowers and acorns; the border of the lower margin terminates in a medallion containing a coat of arms; ff. 8r, 41r: 9-line initial of the same type and in the same colours; f. 47v: 6-line, idem; f. 77v: 7-line black initial., Script: Copied by one hand in a peculiar form of Southern Gothica Textualis Libraria under Humanistic influence as visible in the total lack of compression; special features are: the sloping hairline at the top of the second stroke of e, parallelled by the sloping stroke on i; h with exceptionally long curved extension under the baseline; the forked lower ending of f and straight s on or under the baseline and the forked descender of p; and the very fancy majuscules., and The lower margin of f. 62 torn off.
Subject (Name):
Jerome,--Saint,--d. 419 or 20
Subject (Topic):
Christian hagiography, Illumination of books and manuscripts, Medieval, Latin letters, Manuscripts, Medieval--Connecticut--New Haven, and Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts in Beinecke Library