Manuscript on paper (thick, coarse) of Lives of the Saints, preceded by accounts of events in the Bible from both the Old and New Testaments. Folios 51 and 61 interchanged in rebinding.
Description:
Binding: Nineteenth century, Italy. Rigid vellum case with two red labels on spine: "Trattati di storia sacra" and "Manuscritto 1360"., Crudely executed title page, f. 1r, consisting of floral and foliage motifs in upper margin, scroll around column in inner margin, and, in outer margin, scroll around column terminating in elongated arm with text on the scroll (much rubbed and stained). In lower margin a coat of arms (damaged; probably: or, two columns gules); the letters B and C on either side in the bases of columns in inner and outer margins. The decoration of title page in bright red and green. Plain initials (some with simple foliage designs), headings, paragraph marks, pointing hands, and hands holding crosses or symbols of passions of martyrs (e. g., gridiron for Laurence), all in bright red, green, and/or black., Folio 1 damaged; no loss of text., Script: Written by several scribes in unruly mercantesca script, above top line. Script becomes smaller and tighter toward end of codex., and Watermarks: similar in design to Briquet Ciseaux 3708 dated Genoa, 1465.
Subject (Topic):
Christian hagiography, Illumination of books and manuscripts, Medieval, Italian literature--15th century, Manuscripts, Medieval--Connecticut--New Haven, and Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts in Beinecke Library
Manuscript on parchment of a collection of anonymous sermons, mostly drawn from the Italian Homiliary.
Description:
Attractive pen-and-ink drawings throughout the manuscript, in red, though much of manuscript now stained. Folio 1r with a partial border formed of fantastic beasts, dragons and grotesques. Other drawings in margins include a fantastic bird, f. 9r; a dragon with a human head issuing forth stylized scrolls, f. 40v; a scroll inhabited by a fantastic bird, f. 49r; a lizard-like creature, its tail forming a partial border, f. 53r; a grotesque, f. 73v. Several drawings in the lower margin have been trimmed. Plain initials in red, some with penwork scrolls or simple flourishing. Headings and underlining of Biblical passages in red., Binding: Nineteenth century (?), Italy (?). Brown leather case with title, in ink, on spine: "Homil. in Evangel". Fragment of an unidentified 13th-century Latin document (monastic register?) bound in as second front flyleaf., and Script: Written in a nice large early gothic script, above top line.
Subject (Topic):
Homiliaries, Illumination of books and manuscripts, Medieval, Manuscripts, Medieval--Connecticut--New Haven, Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts in Beinecke Library, Sermons, Latin, and Sermons--Early works to 1800
Manuscript on parchment of 1) Boniface VIII, Sextus liber decretalium. 2) Commentary of Joannes Andreae on art. 1. 3) Clemens V, Constitutiones, with preface of John XXII. 4) John XXII, "Quia nonnunquam".
Description:
Binding: Fifteenth century (?), Italy. Limp vellum case, restored., ff. 22 loose., Final leaf (now foliated 96) misbound between ff. 93-94., Script: Folios 1-96 written in littera bononiensis; ff. 1-22 written in a less formal Gothic bookhand. Numerous annotations in the margins by contemporary and later hands., and Two miniatures, f. 1r, an enthroned pope holding an open book and symmetrically flanked by ecclesiastical and secular parties, and f. 96r, a Franciscan monk presenting a book to an enthroned pope with clerical and lay attendants. Full border for text on f. 1r, constructed of solid panels, gold and red with white filigree, filled with two karyatid figures, a cleric, and a man in a blue robe. Partial border in lower margin, 3 medallions in blue, pink and red, with a papal portrait in half length, an angel, and a third subject now effaced. The medallions are connected by lozenges, green, blue and red with scrolling vines in blue, red, and green with white filigree and gold dots. 32 marginal figures in various costumes, among them several clerics, knights and an angel, often in animated poses. Numerous illuminated initials, 6- to 3-line in pink, blue or grey on blue, red, pink and gold grounds with white filigree. Foliage serifs in pink, red, grey and blue with white highlights. 39 initials with bust-length figures. Remaining initials in pink and red with white filigree. Calligraphic initials, alternating in red and blue with blue and red penwork scrolls. Plain initials and paragraph marks alternate in red and blue.
Subject (Name):
Boniface VIII, Pope, d. 1303, Boniface VIII, Pope, d. 1303|Clement V, Pope, ca. 1260-1314|Giovanni d’Andrea, ca. 1270-1348|John XXII, Pope, d. 1334, Clement V, Pope, ca. 1260-1314, and Giovanni d’Andrea, ca. 1270-1348
Subject (Topic):
Canon law, Illumination of books and manuscripts, Medieval, and Papal documents
Manuscript on parchment of Gottofredo da Trani, Summa super titulis Decretalium. With medicinal recipes and a list of Roman emperors.
Description:
5 fine illuminated initials, 30- to 7-line, in blue or pink with white filigree on blue and red grounds framed in blue or red accentuated at the corners by gold dots. Infilled with intertwining or angular vines, some with biting head terminals, mauve or blue with white highlights and gold dots. Ascenders and descenders, red, mauve and blue terminating in spiralling serifs with biting animal heads or grotesques against cusped grounds. Two initials with vines issuing from upper and left corners, blue with white highlights ending in grotesques. 3- and 2-line calligraphic initials, red and blue with blue and red penwork. Plain initials alternating in red and blue. Headings in red; running titles (chapter numbers) alternating red and blue. Instructions to rubricator in lower margins., Binding: Nineteenth century, France. Early sewing on five supports with 19th-century boards covered in parchment. Title on spine: "Gofredo de Trano/ Manuscrit"., and Script: Written in a rounded gothic bookhand, below top line; marginal annotations and finding aids by a contemporary hand in less formal script.
Subject (Topic):
Canon law--Early works to 1800, Illumination of books and manuscripts, Medieval, Manuscripts, Medieval--Connecticut--New Haven, Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts in Beinecke Library, and Scholasticism
Manuscript on paper of Summulae naturalium, composed in 1408 by Paulus Nicolettus Venetus O.E.S.A. (1369/72-1429).
Description:
Binding: Nineteenth century, England. Blind-tooled brown goatskin with the same gold-tooled title on the spine and both covers: "Summule Naturalium/ Paulus de Venetiis/ M. S. 1373". Bound by Riviere (London) before 1881. Red edges., Brittle. Acidic ink damage with some loss of text., Decorated title page, f. 1r, with border, in black and red ink composed of various decorative devices: in the upper margin a bar border with a central semicircle flanked by stylized scrolls in black and red. In the outer margin, a roundel, black with red and black frame, filled with a flower of 6 petals in red; the roundel flanked by stylized scrolls. In center of lower margin a medallion framed in narrow black and red bands containing a flaming heart pierced by an arrow and an open book, also flanked by stylized scrolls. Numerous decorated initials, 30- to 4-line, black and red with interior designs of lozenges, small flowers, and wavy lines of paper ground. Plain initials and paragraph marks in red. Guide letters for rubricator throughout., Purchased from C. A. Stonehill in 1953 by Thomas E. Marston., Script: Written by several scribes in humanistic cursive script with gothic features, below top line; inital words of each section in gothic bookhand., Watermarks, obscured by text: similar to Harlfinger Chapeau 17 and unidentified ladder., and Worm-eaten; some minor loss of text.
Subject (Name):
Aristotle, Augustinians, and Venetus, Paulus
Subject (Topic):
Illumination of books and manuscripts, Medieval, Latin literature, Medieval and modern, Manuscripts, Medieval--Connecticut--New Haven, Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts in Beinecke Library, Physics--Early works to 1800, and Scholia
Manuscript on parchment (poor quality), composed of two distinct parts. Part I: Thomas Aquinas, Super Metaphysicam. Part II: Thomas Aquinas, Super de causis.
Description:
Binding: 14th-15th centuries, Spain. Original sewing on five tawed skin, double supports laced into beech boards. Plain, wound natural color endbands. Single parchment leaf (front) and bifolium (rear), from what appear to be two different Hebrew Bible manuscripts, serve as pastedowns and spine-lining; they have been cut out around the sewing supports. Yellow edges. Covered in what was originally blue tawed skin (now faded) with two fastenings, the catches on the lower board and the straps attached with star-headed nails. Traces of title (?) scratched onto skin of upper board., Part I: One illuminated initial, rubbed, f. 1r: blue with white highlights on dark red ground with white highlights; terminals of ground extend up and down as modest border in blue, dark red and gold. Flourished initials of various sizes, styles and quality: blue with red penwork designs, red with blue, red with purple (ff. 75r-119r) and red and blue divided with penwork in purple (e.g., f. 88v); some flourished initials with border extensions (e.g., f. 110v). Running headlines in red and blue; paragraph marks alternate red and blue. Traces of guide letters for decorator. Part II: Spaces for decorative initials remain unfilled., and Script: Part I (ff. 1-120): Written by a single scribe in small gothic book hand. Part II (ff. 121-132): Written in a less accomplished gothic script than that in Part I.
Subject (Name):
Aristotle and Thomas,--Aquinas, Saint,--1225?-1274
Subject (Topic):
Illumination of books and manuscripts, Medieval, Manuscripts, Medieval--Connecticut--New Haven, Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts in Beinecke Library, Philosophy, Ancient, Scholasticism, and Scholia
Manuscript on paper of Iohannes de Sacrobosco (1000-1210), Tractatus de sphaera.
Description:
2-line plain initials alternately in red and blue at the beginning of the subdivisions of the text. They are placed almost entirely in the margin and are missing ff. 17v, 28r and 33r. Guide letters, written in the space reserved for the initials, are equally often missing. On f. 1r the Prologue opens with a 4-line foliate initial in red, green and blue with two flowers on a gold background and floral extensions in the inner margin, in Lombard style; in the lower margin of the same page a painted double-headed imperial eagle in black, its two heads with a golden crown and on its chest an oval shield with the coat of arms or, three bends azure., Binding: Original Italian, undecorated blue-stained leather over beech boards. Sewn on three double leather thongs. Remnants of three clasps attached to the front board (one at the upper, one at the lower and one at the right-hand side); thin brass engraved catches on the rear cover, decorated with a floweret and the Gothic majuscule “S”. The parchment pastedowns are now detached from the boards., Collection of Bernard M. Rosenthal, Berkeley (MS 149). Purchased from Rosenthal on the Edwin J. Beinecke Fund., Parchment end leaves., Script: Copied by one hand in Humanistica Cursiva Libraria/Currens, widely spaced. The first letter after an initial is in Capitalis., and Watermark: two crossed arrows, similar to Briquet 6269-6275, especially to Briquet 6271 (attested 1462). The whole group and its variants are attested in Northeastern Italy 1448-1495.
Subject (Name):
Sacro Bosco, Joannes de,--fl. 1230
Subject (Topic):
Astronomy, Medieval, Geometry, Illumination of books and manuscripts, Medieval, Manuscripts, Medieval--Connecticut--New Haven, and Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts in Beinecke Library
Manuscript on parchment of Diogenes Laertius, Vitae et sententiae philosophorum, translated into Latin by Ambrogio Traversari and preceded by his dedicatory letter to Cosimo de' Medici.
Description:
Binding: Fifteenth century, Italy. A hybrid Italo-Greek binding. Sewn or resewn (the sewing is too tight to determine with certainty) on five tawed skin, slit straps. Wooden boards which are not flush at head and tail are grooved on the edges. Beaded Western endbands added. Covered in dark brown calf, blind-tooled with a triple cross made up of gilt annular dots and rope interlace in a central panel within concentric frames alternately made up of a beaded zigzag ribbon and feathered rinceau. Similar tools are used on Marston MSS 39 and 68. Spine: bands outlined and panels diapered with triple fillets. Traces of four braid-and-pin fastenings, the pins in the edges of the lower board instead of the upper board as is usual in Greek bindings. "Diogenes ***" is added on the fore edge; "diogenes laergi" is written in batarde on a label under horn at the head of the upper board, possibly added in northern Europe., Script: Main text written in round humanistic bookhand by a single scribe., Some worming at beginning of text., and The decoration consists of a 3/4 border, f. 1r, of intricate white vine-stem ornament curling around thin gold bars (doubled in inner and lower margins) on a blue, green and pale pink ground dotted with white, yellow and blue, and gold balls. Incorporated into the lower border are a medallion (blank) framed by a laurel wreath and two narrow gold bands, a stag, and a putto with multi-colored wings in blue, green and dark red. In the inner margin are two birds in brown, orange and white. Ten illuminated initials, 9- to 4-line, gold on blue, green and pale pink background with white vine-stem ornament. Numerous smaller initials, 3- to 2-line, gold on blue and pink or green and pink grounds with white and gold filigree. Headings in black majuscules. Running headlines, in red, on ff. 1-4 only.
Subject (Name):
Diogenes Laertius and Medici, Cosimo de',--1389-1464
Subject (Topic):
Illumination of books and manuscripts, Medieval, Literature, Medieval--Translations, Manuscripts, Medieval--Connecticut--New Haven, Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts in Beinecke Library, and Philosophy, Ancient