Ovid, Heroides, two bifolia from a decorated manuscript in Latin, on vellum [Italy (perhaps central Italy or Umbria), last decades of the thirteenth century]

2 bifolia (the second bisected laterally), each leaf approximately 350mm. by 205mm., single column, 39 lines of fine and rounded Italian gothic bookhand, written space 235mm. by 135mm., capitals touched in red, rubrics in red, each section opening with a large initial and 3 lines of ornamental capitals touched in red, 2 large initials in red infilled and encased within tightly scrolling red and black penwork, one very large initial in green heightened with white penwork dots and circles on vivid red and orange grounds with blue acanthus leaf sprays, terminating in scrolls of acanthus in margin (finding close parallels in manuscripts of the late thirteenth century: see Dix Siècles d’Enluminure Italienne, 1984, no.36, illustrated p.48, and Palladino, Treasures of a Lost Art, 2003, nos.3d-f, pp.10-11), recovered from bindings with scuffing and flaking from initials, large loss of section of outer border of first bifolium (approximately 90mm. by 45mm.) with slight affect to some lines of text, stains, holes and with large areas of text still covered by paper, sixteenth- or seventeenth-century inscription “Cardinalii Gaberella” on first bifolium, overall fair condition

“The Heroides are the least well preserved of Ovid’s works” (Tarrant in Texts and Transmissions, 1983, p.268), with a single extant Carolingian witness and little evidence that they were read or copied much before the eleventh and twelfth centuries. This was not so during the author’s day and they were among the great Latin poet’s most influential works. They were written in his mature years, consensus placing them in the period of c.25-16 BC. (he died in either 17 or 18 AD.). They consist of fictional verse letters in Latin elegiac couplets written on behalf of aggrieved heroines whose lovers had mistreated, neglected, or abandoned them. The leaves here contain the openings of Penelope’s letter to her husband Odysseus, the hero of the Trojan War, supposedly written towards the end of his long absence narrated in Homer’s Odyssey; Hypsipyle, queen of Lemnos, to Jason after he abandoned her for Medea; and Deianira, daughter of Oeneus, king of Aetolia, to her husband Hercules after he had laid down his weapons to be with the daughter of Eurytus, king of Oechalia.

Some 200 manuscripts survive, mostly of the later Middle Ages, but the text is notably rare on the open market, and only two codices containing the work have appeared in our rooms in the last century: (i) one dated 1393, ex Phillipps collection (his MS.11865), sold in our rooms, 30 November 1976, lot 869 to Witten, reappearing in Christie’s, New York, 24 November 1993, lot 18, and now Yale; and (ii) another of 1400, sold in our rooms, 8 July 1970, lot 93, reappearing in Christie’s, 5 December 1973, lot 75. Kraus sold another copy, dated 1303, ex Bodmer collection, in 1970, to Yale.