Manuscript on paper (first leaf parchment) of a theological and moral treatise based on hundreds of quotations, mostly from texts of a scientific nature (medicine, natural history, astrology, alchemy, philosophy, etc.). Christian authors are relatively rarely quoted; excerpts from Aristotle and his commentators, a multitude of Greek and Roman authors, Arabic and more or less obscure medieval scientists are on the contrary extremely numerous .
Description:
Binding: Original undecorated red pigskin over wooden boards; spine with four raised bands. Two clasps attached to the rear cover, with quadrangular brass catches on the front cover; a hole about the center of the top of the rear cover indicates that the booklet once was a liber catenatus. On the front cover a rectangular parchment title label with handwritten inscription in Gothica Cursiva Libraria: “De confessione. De amore Dei. De beatitudine” (16th century?). The upper, outer and lower edges of the front cover have been repaired with red leather. F. 1 is a fragment of a 15th-century notarial act in Latin, the end of which only is preserved. The script is Gothica Cursiva. The rear pastedown is a leaf from a missal on parchment, containing the first half of the Gospel for the 13th Sunday after Pentecost (Luke 17:11-19), preceded by the end of the Gradual and the Versicle. Written in ca. 1400 Gothica Textualis Formata (Textus Semiquadratus). Red headings and stroking of majuscules; blue plain initial. Probably from Southeastern Germany or Austria., Headings, paragraph marks, stroking of majuscules and underlining of the references to the authorities and their works, all in red ink (the underlining was beforehand traced by the scribe in black ink). Plain red 1-line initials at the opening of each chapter, sometimes with marginal extensions (a 3-line initial at the beginning of the text, f. 9r). Instructions for the rubricator are found in the margins., MS 135 in the collection of Bernard M. Rosenthal, Booksellers, Berkeley, CA. Purchased from him on the Edwin J. Beinecke Fund., and Script: Two scribes: art. 1 is copied in Gothica Cursiva Formata close to Fractura; art. 2 in Gothica Semihybrida Currens with many abbreviations; in this art. the first line of each chapter is in clumsily executed large Gothica Textualis Formata.
Subject (Name):
Aristotle
Subject (Topic):
Classical literature, Ethics, Manuscripts, Medieval--Connecticut--New Haven, Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts in Beinecke Library, and Science, Medieval
Manuscript on parchment (thin, pliable) of Aristotle, 1) Priora analytica, Lat. tr. Boethius. 2) Posteriora analytica, Lat. tr. Jacobus Veneticus (ca. 1130-40). 3) Books I-III of the Ethica Nicomachea. 4) De anima, Lat. tr. Jacobus Veneticus. 5) De anima (from the Parva naturalia), Lat. tr. Jacobus Veneticus.
Description:
Attractive flourished initials, red and blue divided with penwork designs in the same colors, mark the beginning of arts. 1-4; first few words of each of these texts written in red and blue alternating majuscules. For minor text divisions 2-line initials red or blue with designs in the opposite color. Paragraph marks in red (or sometimes alternating red and blue). Headings and instructions to rubricator in red., Binding: Nineteenth century, Germany. Parchment case binding made from a bifolium of a missal (Germany, 15th century) containing text for the end of the Secret for the 11th Sunday after Pentecost through part of the Gospel reading for the 12th Sunday. Remains of title, in ink, on spine. Pink (faded red?) edges., and Script: Written in a small neat gothic text script, above top line and with uncrossed tironian et. Marginal and interlinear annotations, contemporary or slightly later, in a variety of scholarly hands; annotations written in ink, crayon and lead, some very faded and barely legible.
Subject (Name):
Aristotle
Subject (Topic):
Literature, Medieval--Translations, Manuscripts, Medieval--Connecticut--New Haven, Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts in Beinecke Library, and Philosophy, Ancient