Manuscript on parchment of Durand of Huesca (ca. 1160-1224?), Biblical Distinctiones, an early 13th-century revision of Peter of Capua's (d. 1214) Alphabetum in artem sermocinandi. Marston MS 266 is apparently the only known witness to Durand's revision. With Rhymed life of Peter of Capua , in quatrains, composed by Durand of Huesca.
Description:
Beginning and end of codex worm and rodent damaged., Binding: Date? Fragmentary binding. Resewn with a chain stitch and the spine lined with coarse cloth. Plain, wound endbands and paste boards (composed of paper and parchment fragments of manuscripts), that once were covered with brick red tawed skin. Traces of two ties. Outline of rectangular label, now missing, on upper cover., Nice penwork initials, 7- to 3-line, for each letter of the alphabet, blue with red or vice versa. Smaller initials, 2-line, in similar but less intricate designs for chapter divisions. Chapter numbers, some initials, plain line fillers, and text divisions in red. Ornamental border, in red, encloses common ending for verses on f. 1r-v. Spaces for rubrics left unfilled. Majuscules in text stroked with pale yellow., and Script: Written in a fine early gothic bookhand by several scribes, above top line.
Subject (Name):
Durand ,--of Huesca
Subject (Topic):
Bible--Commentaries, Biography--Middle Ages, 500-1500, Manuscripts, Medieval--Connecticut--New Haven, Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts in Beinecke Library, and Scholasticism
Manuscript on parchment of Diodorus Siculus, Bibliotheca Historica, Books I (parts 1 and 2)-II, in an unidentified and freely adapted Italian translation (e.g., the opening portion of Book II is greatly abbreviated).
Description:
Binding: Fifteenth century, Italy. Sewn on four tawed skin, slit straps nailed in channels on the outside of wooden boards. Yellow edges. Pink, green and cream endbands sewn on five cores. Covered in dark red goatskin with corner tongues, blind-tooled with a central ornament in a panel bordered with rope interlace in concentric frames. Two fastenings, leaf-shaped catches on the lower board and the upper board cut in for the clasp straps. Rebacked twice., Purchased from L. C. Witten in 1955 by Thomas E. Marston., Script: Written in an elegant, upright mercantesca script by a single scribe, below top line., and Spaces for headings and decorative initials remain unfilled. Initial on f. 1r later addition.
Subject (Geographic):
Egypt--History--To 640 A.D
Subject (Name):
Diodorus,--Siculus
Subject (Topic):
History, Ancient, Literature, Medieval--Translations, Manuscripts, Medieval--Connecticut--New Haven, and Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts in Beinecke Library
Manuscript on parchment containing 1) Bonaventura OFM (1221-1274), Breviloquium. 2) Bonaventura, Lignum vitae. 3) Four short texts, the last one by a different hand.
Description:
Binding: Contemporary parchment. On the flat spine and partly on the covers, a label with the handwritten 18th century inscription "Ancien / Manuscrit / sur **** / pr**** / Lo*****.", Headings, paragraph marks and heightening of the majuscules in red. Numerous 2-line (rarely 3-line) flourished initials in red with black penwork; in art. 4 the seven parts of the text in principle open with a similar initial with diagonal penwork spreads in the margin: ff. 23v (II), 49r (IV), 64v (V), 81v (VI), 103v (VII). The two principal texts open with a littera duplex in red and blue, with black penwork and marginal extension: ff. 4r (art. 2), 5 lines, and 120r (art. 5), 3 lines with diagonal penwork spreads., Running headlines in artt. 2-4 only: up to f.29r they consist of an indication of the page's content and, at right on the recto pages, also in the upper margin, the number of the part dealt with ("I", "II"); thereafter the number only is given., and Script: Copied by two hands: the main part (artt. 2-5) is by hand A (the Celestine monk Jean Gerson, colophon on f. 119v) , who writes a small Gothica Cursiva Libraria, the evolution of which during the copying of the present book and especially its second section (art. 5) has been studied by Ouy ("Le Célestin", pp. 287-288); hand B, who uses a small Gothica Semitextualis Libraria (rarely adopting Textualis "a"), copied art. 1, the note on f. 119v (see below), most of the headings in art. 5, and the final texts on ff. 140v-141v (artt 6-7); he also made a few corrections in the text copied by hand A. The very last text (art. 7.4) has been added by a third hand in tiny Gothica Cursiva Libraria.
Subject (Topic):
Manuscripts, Medieval--Connecticut--New Haven, Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts in Beinecke Library, and Scholasticism
Manuscript on parchment (thick, fuzzy on hair side) of a Book of Hours, followed by 3 short devotional texts in French.
Description:
Binding: 19th-20th centuries, England. Rigid vellum case with note on spine "MS. Circa 1400". Red edges. Bound by Birdsell and Son (Northampton, 1792 and later)., Manuscript has been heavily trimmed with loss of marginal decoration; staining, rubbing throughout affects illumination., Purchased from C. A. Stonehill in 1935 by Thomas E. Marston., Script: Written in two styles of script: large gothic bookhands, often with only 3-4 words per line, by three scribes for ff. 1r, 2r-91r, 93r-115v, respectively; Anglicana scripts for ff. 1v, 91v-92v (added prayers)., and The codex, now in fragmentary condition with no miniatures extant, contains a sequence of historiated initials, some badly rubbed. Large historiated initials, 3-line, pink or blue with white designs on blue square ground framed with gold; both initial and frame edged in black; figures on gold ground, often rubbed and flaked; elongated dragons extend into margins for ascenders, as in initial D. Small historiated initials, 2-line, of similar designs and colors, but on cusped gold grounds. Other text divisions marked by 2-line initials, pink, orange, blue with simple foliage motifs in the same colors and yellow, all with designs in white and on square or cusped gold grounds that often extend far into margins. Initials on ff. 93-115 are somewhat more delicate in appearance and presumably by a different hand than those on ff. 2-91. 1-line initials in red with blue penwork designs alternate with opposing color scheme. Elaborate line-fillers, including fish and heads of long-beaked beasts, for litany (art. 5). Headings in red, ff. 2-91 only.
Subject (Name):
Catholic Church--Prayers and devotions
Subject (Topic):
Books of hours, Devotional literature, French, Illumination of books and manuscripts, Medieval, Manuscripts, Medieval--Connecticut--New Haven, and Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts in Beinecke Library