Manuscript on paper (lightly burnished) of Poggio Bracciolini, Historia Florentina, translated into Italian by his son Jacopo. With Prefatory letter of Jacopo di Poggio to Federico da Montefeltro
Description:
In Italian., Watermarks: similar to Briquet Chapeau 3387., Script: Written in sloping humanistic bookhand with cursive elements., Illuminated initial in gold, f. 1r, 10-line, infilled and surrounded by flowers in rose and blue (yellow centers), rayed gold discs, winding green stems and leaves, and hair-line decoration. Gold initial, f. 3r, 6-line, on ground composed of blue, green, and rose panels, all decorated with gold scroll designs. Headings in red rustic capitals., and Binding: Nineteenth century. Diced brown calf spine, blind- and gold-tooled, with Strozzi arms and "Poggio istoria tradotta da Iacopo suo figlio" and "M. S. Cartaceo del S. XV". Blue and white decorated paper sides.
Subject (Geographic):
Connecticut, New Haven., and Florence (Italy)
Subject (Name):
Bracciolini, Poggio, 1380-1459.
Subject (Topic):
Illumination of books and manuscripts, Medieval, Italian literature, Manuscripts, Medieval, and History
Manuscript on parchment of Agogo Mago, Libro medesynal delli spariueri
Description:
In Italian., Script: Written by a single scribe in a neat humanistic bookhand., One gold initial (f. 1r), 7-line, filled and surrounded by white-vine ornament, on a dark blue, dark red, and dark green ground, with pale yellow dots; extends into inner and upper margins. In lower margin an unidentified coat of arms (or, on a chief azur a parrot vert beaked gules) in a laurel wreath; accompanied by gold balls, hair-sprays, and simple floral patterns. Four initials, 6- to 4-line, in blue with red penwork designs or red with purple; plain capitals alternating red and blue throughout., and Binding: Nineteenth century. Brown goatskin, gold-tooled.
Subject (Geographic):
Connecticut and New Haven.
Subject (Name):
Mago, Agogo.
Subject (Topic):
Game and game-birds, Illumination of books and manuscripts, Medieval, Italian literature, Manuscripts, Medieval, Medicine, and Medicine, Medieval
Manuscript on paper (thick) of Giordano Ruffo, Marescalcia equorum, translated into Italian
Description:
In Italian., Watermarks: unidentified basilisk in gutter., Script: Written in fere-humanistic script., Crudely executed border design, in red, on f. 1r. Plain initials, 3- to 2-line, in red; some embellished with simple foliate ornamentation or with human and animal grotesques (e.g., ff. 24v, 44v). Headings in red., Upper portion of f. 55 (chs. 146, 149) cut out; ff. 63v-64r (chs. 189-95) crossed out. Some staining and wear affecting text., and Binding: 19th-20th centuries. Tan, "pasta espanola" paper case.
Subject (Geographic):
Connecticut and New Haven.
Subject (Name):
Ruffo, Giordano.
Subject (Topic):
Horses, Italian literature, Literature, Medieval, and Manuscripts, Medieval
Manuscript on paper of Giordano Ruffo, Marescalcia equorum, in an anonymous Italian translation. With medicinal recipes and prayers
Description:
In Italian., Watermark: unidentified bull's head in gutter., Script: Written in a poorly formed Italian notarial script; notes in contemporary cursive hands., Plain initial, 5-line, in red and black, at beginning of art. 1; initial strokes and rubrics for ff. 1r-9v only., and Binding: Nineteenth century. Limp vellum case. Stamped on upper cover: "Medecine des chevaux/ manuscrit du XV siecle".
Subject (Geographic):
Connecticut and New Haven.
Subject (Name):
Ruffo, Giordano, fl. 1250-1260.
Subject (Topic):
Horses, Italian literature, Literature, Medieval, Manuscripts, Medieval, and Medicine, Medieval
Manuscript on paper of a Miscellany of vernacular humanistic prose texts, including works by Giovanni Boccaccio, Petrarch, Francesco Filelfo, and Leonardo Bruni
Description:
In Italian., Watermarks: Briquet Fleur 6655, Echelle 5908, 5910, and similar to Briquet Chapeau 3370., Script: Written in neat humanistic cursive by a single scribe, below top line., Three-quarter border, f. 5r, white vine-stem ornament on blue, red and green ground with grey and yellow dots. In lower border, vine-stem turning into a floral border and brown penwork scrolls with pink, blue and green flowers and gold dots. Illuminated initial, 6-line, gold on blue, green and red ground with white vine-stem ornament joined to inner border. Headings in red. Plain 3-line initials in blue mark text divisions. Guide letters in margins., and Binding: Fifteenth century, Italy. Vellum stays adhered inside the quires. Original sewing on four tawed skin, slit straps laid in channels on the outside of wooden boards and nailed. Edges yellow ochre. A green and natural color, beaded endband is sewn on five cores. The primary one laid in grooves on the outside of the boards. The spine is lined with tawed skin or vellum extending onto the edge of the boards between supports. Covered in tan leather blind-tooled with a potented cross in a central square with rope interlace panels above and below, and a border also filled with rope interlace. Spine: supports defined with double fillets and the panels diapered. Traces of five bosses on each board. Two ivy leaf fastenings, the catches on the lower board, the upper one cut in for green fabric straps attached with star-headed nails. Binding is heavily overoiled.
Subject (Geographic):
Italy., Connecticut, and New Haven.
Subject (Topic):
Humanism, Italian literature, and Manuscripts, Medieval
Manuscript on paper of an unidentified mystical treatise
Description:
In Italian., Script: Copied by one hand in Humanistica Cursiva Libraria under Gothic influence. The scribe often writes the last letters of the final word at the bottom line in vertical sense. Starting f. 40r the descenders at the bottom line frequently have enormous fanciful extensions (loop-shaped, in the shape of a bird [ff. 54v, 65r], etc.)., Alternately red and blue paragraph marks. Headings in red. Gothic plain initials in red or blue, normally 3 lines, sometimes 2 or 4 lines. The first page, now missing except for part of a stub, had a border decoration in ink., Numerous pages have been torn out after f. 84. The top inner section of f. 1 is missing. All pages water-stained, seriously affecting the lisibility of the text., and Binding: Original binding in bad condition, made at the time the manuscript had more than twice the thickness it has now: undecorated brown pigskin over wooden boards. Bound on three double cords. The binding was strengthened by means of strips of textile, now loose. These and the leather turn-ins show the offset of a page of a 12th-century Latin manuscript from Italy. Remnants of two clasps attached to the front cover, with two trapezoid brass catches on the rear cover. With the manuscript is kept a heart-shaped parchment bookmark of undetermined age, the sides respectively inscribed with “I” and “II”
Subject (Geographic):
Connecticut and New Haven.
Subject (Topic):
Italian literature, Manuscripts, Medieval, and Mysticism
Manuscript on paper of 1) Sonnet by the Franciscan Alessandro de Ritiis, or by his compatriot from L'Aquila, Buccio di Ranallo, lamenting the loss of a loaned book. 2) Polistorio, attributed to the Dominican Bartolomeo da Ferrara (1308-1444).
Description:
In Italian., Watermarks: Briquet Arbalete 746., Script: Written in fere-humanistic script by a single scribe, above top line., Fully illuminated title page, f. 6r. Floral border in inner and upper margin, black inkspray with blossoms, green, blue and purple with white highlights and gold balls. Bar border between text columns, gold and red, extends from buds (mauve, green and blue with white highlights) with stylized foliage, purple, blue and green and gold with white highlights; surmounted in upper margin by half-length figure of Virgin with Child. In outer margin, elaborate partial border of stylized foliage and flowers, green, blue and purple with white and yellow highlights and gold balls, framing central wreathed medallion with triton blowing a curved horn, on gold ground with penwork filigree. In center of lower border, arms of the Marcello family of Venice (azure, a bend wavy or) on deep red ground within wreathed medallion, both with yellow highlights. Arms symmetrically flanked by 2 putti plucking fruit from wreathed medallion and holding rods, green, blue, and purple with scrolls bearing the mottoes "sola virtus" and "dulcia poma" in red, and two triton-putti, one playing a flute, the other a stringed musical instrument. One historiated initial, 6-line, of stylized foliage in green, purple, and blue with white filigree on gold ground, with a half-length figure of a crowned and bearded man, perhaps the Emperor Augustus. The design of the upper and inner border and of the historiated initial is conservative in style and close to the work of Leonardo Bellini., and Binding: Fifteenth century, Italy. Parchment stays are adhered inside the quires. Rear pastedown (now lifted): parchment leaf from a lectionary, Italy (North?), 1050-1100; a parchment leaf, perhaps from the same manuscript, is concealed under front paper pastedown. Each leaf, with a stub, is folded around the front and back flyleaves, sewn, and glued down under the pastedowns. Original sewing on five tawed skin, slit straps laid in channels on the outside of beech boards and nailed. Yellow edges. Plain wound, natural color endbands are sewn on leather cores. Covered in brown calf with narrow corner tongues. There is a large, eight-petalled fitting in the central blind-tooled panel and four corner fittings have flower and agnus dei designs on them. The concentric outer frames are filled with rope interlace or small roses. The Marcello arms were stamped on each board on an inlaid leather shield which is wanting on the upper board. Spine: bands outlined with triple fillets, an X of three fillets in the panels. Four fastenings, the catches on the lower board, the upper one cut in for red fabric straps, attached with star-headed nails.
Subject (Geographic):
Connecticut and New Haven.
Subject (Name):
Bartolomeo, da Ferrara.
Subject (Topic):
Illumination of books and manuscripts, Medieval, Italian literature, and Manuscripts, Medieval
Manuscript on paper of a miscellany including texts by Leonardo Bruni, Petrarch, Stefano Porcari, Matteo Palmieri, and Giovanni Boccaccio
Description:
In Italian., Watermarks: similar to Briquet Fleur 6651, Briquet Echelle 5910, Briquet Etoile 6070 and one unidentified., Script: Written in a mercantile script (mercantesca) by one hand., Calligraphic initials, 4- to 2-line, in red with purple or blue with red. Rubrics in brownish-red., and Binding: Nineteenth century. Paper binding "alla rustica". On spine, "Miscella di belle lettere".
Subject (Geographic):
Connecticut and New Haven.
Subject (Topic):
Italian literature, Italian poetry, and Manuscripts, Medieval
Manuscript on paper (thick, coarse) of Lives of the Saints, preceded by accounts of events in the Bible from both the Old and New Testaments. Folios 51 and 61 interchanged in rebinding
Description:
In Italian., Watermarks: similar in design to Briquet Ciseaux 3708 dated Genoa, 1465., Script: Written by several scribes in unruly mercantesca script, above top line. Script becomes smaller and tighter toward end of codex., Crudely executed title page, f. 1r, consisting of floral and foliage motifs in upper margin, scroll around column in inner margin, and, in outer margin, scroll around column terminating in elongated arm with text on the scroll (much rubbed and stained). In lower margin a coat of arms (damaged; probably: or, two columns gules); the letters B and C on either side in the bases of columns in inner and outer margins. The decoration of title page in bright red and green. Plain initials (some with simple foliage designs), headings, paragraph marks, pointing hands, and hands holding crosses or symbols of passions of martyrs (e. g., gridiron for Laurence), all in bright red, green, and/or black., Folio 1 damaged; no loss of text., and Binding: Nineteenth century, Italy. Rigid vellum case with two red labels on spine: "Trattati di storia sacra" and "Manuscritto 1360".
Subject (Geographic):
Connecticut and New Haven.
Subject (Topic):
Christian hagiography, Illumination of books and manuscripts, Medieval, Italian literature, and Manuscripts, Medieval
Manuscript on paper of Jacopo Salimbeni's Viaggio de quatro chavalieri andarono cercando il mondo, an account of travel to the East
Description:
In Italian., Script: copied by one hand in Gothica Semihybrida Currens (Mercantesca)., Manuscript on paper of Jacopo Salimbeni's Viaggio de quatro chavalieri andarono cercando il mondo, an account of travel to the East undertaken 1416 May 1, starting from Venice. The language of this manuscript is influenced by the Venetian dialect. The first sixty folios are missing., and Binding: 20th century quarter binding.
Subject (Geographic):
Connecticut and New Haven.
Subject (Name):
Salimbeni, Jacopo, d. ca. 1427.
Subject (Topic):
Italian literature, Manuscripts, Medieval, and Voyages around the world
