Manuscript on paper of Ovid, Metamorphoses. With Lactantian tituli and narrationes in margins
Description:
In Latin., Watermarks: unidentified bull's head and mountain., Script: Written in a small neat gothic text hand with hybrida features., Plain red 5-line initial, in outline only, f. 3r; two smaller initials of similar style, ff. 3v-4r. First letter of each verse stroked with red, ff. 3r-4r. Spaces left for decorative initials remain unfilled elsewhere in codex., and Binding: Fifteenth century, Germany. Adhered vellum stays on the inside of the quires. Original wound sewing on three wide, tawed skin, slit straps laced through tunnels in the edges of beech boards to channels on the outside and pegged. Natural color endbands, caught up on the spine, are sewn to tawed cores laced into grooves on the outside of the boards. Front pastedown: reused paper manuscript with text side pasted face down. Quarter bound in blue, tawed skin with a strip, now wanting, nailed along the edge. Two leaf-shaped catches with three five-petalled flowers on them on the lower board and the upper one cut in for kermes pink straps attached with metal plates; damage from a chain fastening at the head of this board, and the board broken; outer edge wanting. Title, in same (?) hand as on f. 1r, on upper and lower boards: "Ouidius methamorphoseos."