Riccobaldo da Ferrara, Chronica Summorum Pontificum Imperatorumque, and Bartolomeo Platina, Vita Pii II Papae, in Latin, manuscript on paper

Estimate

5,000 - 7,000 GBP

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Description

60 leaves (2 blank), 300mm. by 205mm., probably complete, collation: i-ii^{10, iii^{8 [misbound, probably complete, the order should probably be fols.21, 24, 22-23, 27-28, with an added bifolium (fols.25-26) which at least partly duplicates fol.22 and may be a piece of another version bound in or a suggested reworking of the text], iv^{10, v^{8, vi^{10, vii^{4, with horizontal catchwords, 41-45 lines, written by several scribes in regular gothic bookhands, large initial on first page with penwork in dark blue, a few blank spaces left for other initials elsewhere, many sidenotes in hands of the fifteenth century up until c.1600, dampstaining in last part moving up from lower margin until covering about half the page by the end, other wear including frayed edges and dust marks,}}}}}} contemporary binding sewn on 3 double thongs threaded into thin pasteboards covered on the outside with vellum, vellum pastedown inside lower cover from a manuscript of the Talmud, in Hebrew (Tractate Bava Kamma, 59:6), Italy, eleventh or twelfth century, traces of another pastedown lifted from inside upper cover with twelfth-century music, old paper title on spine, binding very worn and partly defective

Provenance

provenance

The watermark of a crown is a close variant of Briquet 4760 (Mantua, 1476). There is an old name on fol.1r, “Alphonsi Tricasalis”.

Catalogue Note

text

There are two very interesting texts here. The first is the brief chronicle of world history, focussing especially on the popes and the Roman (later Holy Roman) emperors, attributed to Riccobaldo da Ferrara (c.1245-c.1318). The present manuscript, however, has the continuation up to approximately 1473, sometimes erroneously ascribed to the Dominican inquisitor, Filippo de Barberiis, d.1487 (T. Kaeppeli, Scriptores Ordinis Praedicatorum Medii Aevi, III, 1980, pp.272-3, no.3373). The continuator may, in fact, be the incunable printer, Giovanni Filippo de Lignamine, the first native Italian printer, whose first press in Rome was established in 1471 “in via Papae prope S. Marcum in Pinea regione” and operated until 1476, producing humanistic texts including an edition of the present chronicle on 14 July 1474 (Hain 10857). He was clearly a member of the papal household, and later acted as ambassador to the Holy See. The present manuscript ends with a long preface in Lignamine’s own name (fol.46r) and, consistent with the interests of a typographer, the continuation includes an account of the invention of printing, on fols.43r-43v, “Iacobus cognomento Gutembergo, patria Argentinus et quidam alter cui nomen Fustus imprimendarum litterarum in membranis cum metallicis formis … apud Maguntiam Germanie”, printing 300 sheets in the time it previously took to write one, and recounting that Johann Mentelin brought the art to Strassburg. Later, on fol.45r here, he tells of the arrival of printing in Italy in 1464, “Conradus Suueyhem ac Arnoldus Panarez Udalricus Gallus parte ex alia Teuthones librarii insignes Romam venientes primi imprimendorum librorum artem in Italiam introduxere”, printing 300 sheets a day.

The text with its continuation appears to be extremely rare in manuscript form. The only copy recorded by Kaeppeli is Troyes ms.1613. Kristeller, Iter Italicum, 1965-1997, adds only one more, the former MS 462 at Holkham Hall, now Bodleian MS. Holkham misc.27.

It opens here on fol.1r, “Incipit Cronica summorum Pontificum Imperatorumque, ac de septem statibus mundi …Prima etas incipit ab adam et durat usque ad diluvium …”, ending on fol.46v, “… terminum teneat, finis”. The preface begins on fol. 56r, “[I]ohannes philippus de lignamine Messanensis Sixto quarto summe Pontifici, etc. Varium mihi semper ingenium…”, ending on 58r, “… vale Sixte Pont.Max. Foelixque diu sis et servuli tui Johannis Philippi memor”.

The second text is apparently even rarer. It is the life of the greatest humanist pope, Pius II, Enea Sylvio Piccolomini (1405-1464, pope 1458-64), by his intimate friend, Bartolomeo Platina (1421-1481, also called Bartolomeo de’ Sacchi), humanist, scholar, manuscript collector and prefect of the Vatican library under Sixtus IV. The text is earlier than Platina’s controversial and provocative lives of the popes (1479) and appears to have been known hitherto in a single manuscript, Vatican, Bibl.Apost. cod. Ottob.lat. 2056, fols.147-62, from which it was edited by G.C. Zimolo, ‘La Vita Pii II P.M. del Platina nel cod. Vat. Ottoboniano latino 2056’, Studi in onore di Carlo Castiglioni, Milan, 1957, pp.877-904. No other manuscript is listed by Kristeller.

It opens here on fol. 47r, [P]icholomineam gentem a Romanis originem traxisse, multa sunt indicia …”, and ends on fol.55v, “… quae posteris emolumento essent, praetermisis nunque, finis”.