Manuscript on parchment of 1) Curtius Rufus, Historia Alexandri Magni, translated into Italian and supplemented with material from Plutarch by Pier Candido Decembrio. 2) Pier Candido Decembrio, Comparazione di Cesare e d'Alessandro Magno.
Description:
Binding: 15th-16th centuries, Italy. Sewn on four tawed skin, slit straps laid in channels on the outside of wooden boards and pegged. Gilt edges. Covered in brown goatskin with corner tongues, and blind-tooled with a ropework star inside painted (red) and blind-tooled circles inside a floral border, all with metallic annular dots. There are traces of four leaf-shaped fastenings, the catches on the lower board, the upper one cut in for fabric straps attached with star-headed nails. Rebacked twice., One illuminated intial, 6-line, gold against blue, green and pink ground with white vine-stem ornament, extending into inner margin to form a partial border; terminating at top and bottom in pen inkspray with buds in green and pink and gold balls with hair-line extensions. Plain initials, 3- to 2-line, in blue, mark text divisions; headings in pale red., Purchased from Lathrop C. Harper in 1949 by Thomas E. Marston., and Script: Written by a single scribe in a slightly rounded humanistic bookhand with many cursive elements, below top line.
Subject (Name):
Caesar, Julius, Decembrio, Pier Candido,--1399-1477, Plutarch, and Rufus, Curtius
Subject (Topic):
Illumination of books and manuscripts, Medieval, Italian literature--15th century, Literature, Medieval--Translations, Manuscripts, Medieval--Connecticut--New Haven, and Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts in Beinecke Library
Manuscript on paper of 1) Prologue by the translator, addressed to Henry of Lusignan, Prince of Galilee (d. 1427). 2) Plutarchus (c. 46-120), Vita Luculli, Latin translation by Leonardus Iustinianus (Leonardo Giustiniani, 1388-1446). 3) Plutarchus, Comparatio vitarum Cimonis atque Luculli, Latin translation by Leonardus Iustinianus.
Description:
Binding: Nineteenth century. Quarter brown leather (with corners) and reddish brown marbled paper over cardboard. Gold-tooled flat spine with inscription: “PLUTARCHI VITA LUCULLI LATINE M.S.”., Headings in pale red. Art. 1 opens with a 6-line initial in red with the pen drawing for unexecuted white vinestem decoration. The 6-line initial at the head of art. 2 is purplish red on a blue background delicately heightened with silver arabesques, extended in the margin with red and green acanthus leaves. At the bottom of the same f. 387r there was a coat of arms flanked by two fleur-de-lys and four balls in purplish red and blue and red ribbons; the coat of arms has been cut out and the page has been repaired with a piece of paper; on it a modern coat of arms accompanied by the initials W and S (Walter Sneyd) is drawn in pencil., and Script: Copied by one scribe in a broad Humanistica Textualis Formata of "typographic" character and marked by unusual features such as the occasional use of round s in medial position and long i in final position, and inconsistencies in the use of ae/ẹ, the form of final s and m, etc. Majuscules at the beginning of lines protrude into the margin. Line fillers in the shape of expunged i.
Subject (Name):
Lucullus,--ca. 117 B.C.-ca. 56 B.C and Plutarch
Subject (Topic):
Biography--To 500, Illumination of books and manuscripts, Medieval, Literature, Medieval--Translations, Manuscripts, Medieval--Connecticut--New Haven, and Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts in Beinecke Library