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Detailed record for Harley 3174
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| Author |
Pseudo-Bonaventure |
| Title |
Meditations on the Life of Christ |
| Origin |
Italy, N. (Bologna) |
| Date |
1454 |
| Language |
Latin |
| Script |
Semi-humanistic |
| Scribe |
Jacobus de Parma |
| Decoration |
Alternating initials in blue with red pen-flourishing or in red with violet pen-flourishing. Rubrics in red (now faded). |
| Dimensions in mm |
170 x 110 (110 x 70) |
| Official foliation |
ff. 129 (+ 2 unfoliated paper flyleaves and 3 unfoliated ruled paper leaves at the beginning + 2 unfoliated paper flyleaves and 3 unfoliated ruled paper leaves at the the end) |
| Form |
Paper codex |
| Binding |
Post-1600. Brown leather over wooden boards. |
| Provenance |
Written in 1454 by Jacobus de Parma in Bologna for Frater Gabriel, provincial vicar: colophon, 'Iste liber est ad usum fratris Iacobi de parma per Reverendum patrem gabrielem de Bononia eius provincie vicarium concessus quem ipse frater Iacobus Bononie scripsit Anno domini M.ccccliiij et est loci parme' (f. 3v). Frater Gabriel of Bologna then gave the manuscript to its scribe, Jacobus de Parma (see above).
John Gibson (fl. 1720-1726), dealer; sold to Harley on 28 August 1724 (see Diary 1966; Wright 1972).
The Harley Collection, formed by Robert Harley (b. 1661, d. 1724), 1st earl of Oxford and Mortimer, politician, and Edward Harley (b. 1689, d. 1741), 2nd earl of Oxford and Mortimer, book collector and patron of the arts, inscribed as usual by their librarian, Humfrey Wanley ‘28 die mensis Augusti, A.D. 1724’ (f. [iii]).
Edward Harley bequeathed the library to his widow, Henrietta, née Cavendish Holles (b. 1694, d. 1755) during her lifetime and thereafter to their daughter, Margaret Cavendish Bentinck (b. 1715, d. 1785), duchess of Portland; the manuscripts were sold by the Countess and the Duchess in 1753 to the nation for £10,000 (a fraction of their contemporary value) under the Act of Parliament that also established the British Museum; the Harley manuscripts form one of the foundation collections of the British Library. |
| Notes |
Vertical catchwords. |
| Select bibliography |
A Catalogue of the Harleian Manuscripts in the British Museum, 4 vols (London: Eyre and Strahan, 1808-12), III (1808), no. 3174.
The Diary of Humfrey Wanley 1715-1726, ed. by C. E. Wright and Ruth C. Wright, 2 vols (London: Bibliographical Society, 1966), II: 1723-1726, p. 312 n. 2.
Cyril Ernest Wright, Fontes Harleiani: A Study of the Sources of the Harleian Collection of Manuscripts in the British Museum (London: British Museum, 1972), pp. 158, 162, 269.
Cyril Ernest Wright, 'Manuscripts of Italian Provenance in the Harleian Collection in the British Museum: Their Sources, Associations and Channels of Acquisition', in Cultural Aspects of the Italian Renaissance. Essays in Honour of Paul Oskar Kristeller, ed. by C. H. Clough (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1976), pp. 462-84 (p. 467).
Andrew G. Watson, Catalogue of Dated and Datable Manuscripts c. 700-1600 in The Department of Manuscripts: The British Library, 2 vols (London: British Library, 1979), no. 736. |
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f. 34v
Pen-flourished initials |
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