Manuscript on parchment of M. Tullius Cicero (106-43 B.C.), Cato Maior de senectute, with a List of the Seven Wise Men of Greece.
Description:
Binding: original Italian, repaired: brown leather over thin wooden boards, the covers blind-tooled and decorated with numerous small gold dots. Marks of two clasps; on the spine, now detached and kept separately, a gold-tooled reddish brown title label (17th century?) with the inscription “STR // DE // SEN”. Gilded edges., Pink headings. The names of the interlocutors and the colophon on f. 48r are written in pink Capitals. The first line of the various sections following the dentelle initial is written in alternately pink and black Capitals, except on f. 2r, where it is written in gold Capitals. The illuminated opening folio before f. 1 has been cut out. The smaller sections open with a pink Capital placed between the double bounding lines. 2-line Renaissance dentelle initials in gold on a divided and indented red and blue background, decorated with silvery penwork, at the beginning of the major subdivisions of the text., R.G. Babcock, T.N. Thomas, D.M. Kibbey, E.P. Archibald, A Book of Her Own. An Exhibition of Manuscripts and Printed Books in the Yale University Library that were Owned by Women before 1700 (New Haven, 2005), p. 66., Record created by Beinecke staff from catalog description by Albert Derolez., Script: copied by Giovanmarco Cinico from Parma in Humanistica Textualis Formata. This famous scribe was active in Naples from ca. 1458 to ca. 1498., and Written for the young Beatrice of Aragon (1457-1508), daughter of Ferrand of Aragon, King of Naples and future Queen of Hungary. Purchased 1994 from Bernard Quaritch (?) on the Edwin J. Beinecke Fund.
Subject (Name):
Cicero, Marcus Tullius
Subject (Topic):
Dialogues, Latin, Illumination of books and manuscripts, Medieval, Manuscripts, Medieval--Connecticut--New Haven, and Old age
Manuscript on parchment (hairside yellow and speckled) of Cicero, Epistolae ad familiares. With Extract from Aulus Gellius, Noctes Atticae III.8.8: Epistula Fabricii et Aemilii consulum ad Pyrrhum regem. The text was copied ca. 1400 and the border decoration added between ca. 1415 and 1431.
Description:
14 elegant illuminated initials and partial borders at the beginning of each of the 16 books (the opening pages of Books XII and XV have been excised). Initials, 5- to 3-line, blue with white filigree or red with gold filigree on cusped grounds of gold. Most of the illuminated initials filled with bust-length portraits, presumably of Cicero's correspondents, on red, blue or diapered ground. Some initials filled with vine scrolls with trilobe leaves in red with white highlights against gold ground. Partial borders, scrolling vine with trilobe leaves or acanthus in blue, pink, red and gold with white highlights and green, red and blue with gold highlights. Small figures of angels, dressed in green with gold wings in borders or margins, some playing musical instruments, one holding an open book, one holding the cloth of Veronica. Other marginal figures include the "Agnus Dei" and a pelican piercing its breast. The figures are all characterized by white faces, small angled black eyes, and a preference for green and gold, the green with contour lines in gold. Plain initials alternate red and blue. Rubrics throughout., Binding: Nineteenth century, France (?). Red velvet case with a dark green gold-tooled label: "M. T. Ciceronis Epistolae Ad Familiares MS. in Membranis". Gilt edges., Imperfect: incomplete, some leaves wanting with loss of text., and Script: Written in a neat fere-humanistic hand by a single scribe, below top line.
Subject (Topic):
Illumination of books and manuscripts, Medieval, Manuscripts, Medieval--Connecticut--New Haven, and Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts in Beinecke Library