Florilegium from Jerome, Gregory, Galen, Aristotle, Cicero, and others, in Latin, with a few passages in Italian, manuscript on vellum and paper

Estimate

2,000 - 3,000 GBP

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Description

70 leaves, 183mm. by 130mm., collation: i^{10, ii^{4, iii^{10, iv^{6, v^{10, vi^{14, vii^{16, usually with outer and inner bifolia of each gathering of vellum and all other leaves of paper, written by several scribes in small cursive or informal bookhands, headings in red, some initials in red, one large initial (fol.40r), 8 lines high, in red with decorative penwork in red and brown, lower margin of fol.26 cut away, a few signs of use and marginal stains, nineteenth-century blind-stamped tan calf, paper endleaves}}}}}}}

Provenance

provenance

Almost certainly assembled for Franciscan use, as several texts refer to Saint Francis and Assisi (fols.47v, 61r and 64r). Two items are described as being copied from books in Messina in Sicily (fols.64r and 64v).

Catalogue Note

text

This is a characteristically Franciscan anthology, whereby a friar might carry the learning of an entire library in a single portable volume, to be a quarry for sermons or pastoral life. The selections of extracts are probably unique to the manuscript. Apart from the good range of classical sources, a notable piece is the proclamation of Frederic II against games of dice and requesting the destruction and burning of gaming tables (fol.62v), as was done, in fact, in Savonarola’s bonfire of the vanities. The principal divisions of text are:

Folio 1r, “Incipiunt auctoritates extracte ab epistolis eximii doctoris santissimi & devotissimi Jeronimi… Nulla necessitas maior est caritate …” (Jerome, Epistolae, VII:54), breaking off on fol.10v; continuing on fol.15r (with some gap in the text) with extracts of the letters of Jerome (the first is from Epistle 148), ending with other similar short quotations on fol.39r.

Inserted into this text is a gathering of 4 leaves, fols.11r-14v, “Incipiunt auctoritates Sancti bernardi de beata virgine … Non est quod me delectet magis …” (Stegmüller, Repertorium Biblicum, no.1731), followed by other short extracts from Saints Jerome, Gregory, Bernard, John Chrysostom, and others, including two poems in Italian, in the style of the poet Iacopone da Todi, “Va maledicta & scanoscente …” and “Anima benedicta / Da lalto creatore …” (fols.13v-14r).

Folio 40r, “Incipit proemium beati gregorii papae super epithalamium … id est canticum canticorum… Quia si ceco longe a deo posito …” (also attributed to Robertus de Tumbalena, Migne, Pat. Lat. CL:1361-70), with the commentary itself beginning on fol.40v, “Os sponsi inspiratio xpisti …”, breaking off unfinished (but not lacking leaves) on fol.43r.

Extracts from letters of Jerome (fol.44v), Origen (fol.46r), Galen (fol.46v), Gregory (fol.49r, source not given but it is from the Moralia on Job), on Saint Francis (fol.47v); extracts from the ten books of the Ethics of Aristotle, “Auctoriates primi ethicorum, [O]mnia bonum appetunt …” (fol.49r, as in Bodleian, Lyell MS 51, fols.49-52); “Primo igitur est incipiendum respectu presenti …” (fol.52r); a sermon on the Cross (fol.60r); a sermon on the Stigmatisation of Saint Francis (fol.61r); definitions of the word ‘cadaver’ taken from Papias Lombardus, Juvenal, Caesar, Sallust and others (fol.62r); “Federicus imperator in constitutionibus regni circa finem de ludo sic ait, Mores dissolute iuvencium ipso site …” (fol.62v), the ruling of the Emperor Frederic II against dice and those who sell gaming equipment; a quotation from Peter Damian (fol.63v); a poem on Saint Francis (“ex quibusdam libris apud massanos servatis”), beginning “Assisium felix quod tanto fulget alumpno …” (fol.64r, apparently unrecorded, not in Schaller and Könsgen, Initia Carminum, 1977) and other verses on Jerome, the Virgin, marriage, etc., including another “ex messanis codicibus”; and extracts from Cicero, De senectute (fol.68v), the Somnium Scipionis, In paradoxis, etc., and from Lactantius, ending on fol.70v, “… quidem gracias agunt”.