Manuscript on paper of 1) Marcus Tullius Cicero (106-43 B.C.), Paradoxa. 2) Prophecy in 11 verses added by a slightly later hand on the blank lower half of the page. The text is corrupt. 3) Two rhetorical exercises by an unrecorded author addressed to an emperor, who is praised with all possible exaggeration. 4) Astronomical or computistical table, recording for each month 3 up to 7 days, of which two are superscribed with a cross and an hour, the remaining ones only with the letter "p". The crosses are crutched crosses up to September inclusive, afterwards simple crosses. 5) Notes added by slightly later hands on a blank page; notes on ancient Roman abbreviations; various Latin names applied to the Greeks. 6) Ps.-Cicero, Synonyma, printed from 1487 onward, with 17th century Italian annotations, in the same hand as in art. 1, found in the margins of ff. 23v-25r. 7) Ps.-Sallustius, Invectiva in Marcum Tullium Ciceronem.
Description:
Binding: Twentieth century. Yellow parchment over light cardboard, with turned edges., Collection of Bernard M. Rosenthal, Berkeley, California (MS 211). Purchased on the Edwin J. Beinecke Fund., In the original parts all initials are missing; at the opening of art. 6 the upper half of f. 17r is blank (in view of a picture which was not executed?) and a later hand has entered a large and coarse initial “C” (8 lines) containing a human face; in that art. there are guide letters for the small initials which were intended to open each entry; a few of these initials were added afterwards. The initial planned at the opening of art. 7 is 6 lines high. The opening lines of art. 1 are in a large fanciful display script overdecorated with flourishes and almost illegible. There is some pale red stroking of the majuscules on ff. 68v, 69r and 70v., Script: The original parts are copied by two scribes: A copied art. 1 in Gothica Semihybrida Libraria/Currens; B, writing a bold Gothica Cursiva Formata with “northern” features and marked by lengthened and decorated ascenders on the top line, copied artt. 4, 6 and 7. The additional texts, copied on blank spaces or pages, are in badly shaped Humanistica Cursiva (art. 2), slovenly executed Gothica Semihybrida Currens (art. 3), Humanistica Cursiva (art. 5, [1] and [2]) and Gothico-Humanistica Cursiva (art. 5, [3] and [4])., and There are remnants of an early foliation in arabic numerals (17th century?) in the upper outer corner of the recto pages, starting f. 16 ("1").
Subject (Topic):
Latin letters, Manuscripts, Medieval--Connecticut--New Haven, Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts in Beinecke Library, and Stoics