Manuscript on parchment (trimmed in a very irregular manner) of Boethius, De consolatione philosophiae. With Short notes (in Latin and English) on medical recipes, including "Medicyn for the Colyk".
Description:
In Latin., Script: Written by three scribes in informal gothic scripts. 1) ff. 1r-33v, with running titles, in red, on f. 4v and 28r; this is the only section of the text with rubrication. 2) ff. 34r-60v, 112v-169r, in a style of writing verging on Anglicana. 3) ff. 60v-112v, many erasures and corrections by 2. Marginal and interlinear glosses in several contemporary hands, one of which added the notes on ff. 170v-171r., First initial in red penwork, 4-line, with crude portrait of Boethius. Simple red initials to mark sections of text., and Binding: Fifteenth century. Possibly German or Dutch. "Girdle-book." Although early, it is not the original binding. Resewn on three narrow, tawed, double thongs. The endbands do not seem to have laced cores, but a primary sewing may have been sewn to the head and tail of the chemise, underneath the braided secondary endbands. The thongs are laced into grooves in beech boards, the pattern reversed; one horizontal above one V lacing on the upper board and a V above a horizontal on the lower. The thongs are pegged. The outer wrapper of tawed skin, now grey, is sewn to a tawed, pink, inner chemise around the outer edges of the boards. The wrapper extends about 130 mm. to a Turk's head knot at the tail, about 25 mm. at the head, and has an overlap of about 50 mm. on the upper board. The edges of the wrapper are turned in and hemmed. The book hung upside down when attached to the girdle by having the knot slipped under it, but was right side up when picked up (still attached to the girdle) to be read. A strap-and-pin fastening, the pin on the upper board, consists of a thick, brown leather strap nailed to the lower board and tacketed to the cover with a leather thong ending in an anthropomorphic brass clasp, the head of which catches on the pin. A glued repair was made before, a sewn one after 1973.
Subject (Geographic):
Connecticut and New Haven.
Subject (Name):
Boethius, -524.
Subject (Topic):
Consolation, Dialogues, Latin, Manuscripts, Medieval, and Medicine, Medieval
