Manuscript on paper of 1) Ambrosiaster, Commentarius in Epistolam S. Pauli ad Romanos, recensio. 2) Pseudo-Haimo of Halberstadt (here attributed to his pupil Remigius of Auxerre), Commentaries on Romans, 1 and 2 Corinthians, 1 and 2 Thessalonians, 1 and 2 Timothy, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, Hebrews, Philemon, and Titus
Description:
In Latin., Script: Copied by a group of scribes, all writing a more or less careful Italian Late Carolingian script. There are numerous and extensive alterations and corrections on erasure. Headings in a mixture of Capitals and Uncials., Headings in red. Initials of various styles: (1) plain Romanesque initials, sometimes with developed decoration, in red; (2) more or less large painted initials in various bright colours on coloured background and filled with white vinestem; the body of the letter often filled with various interlace and frets; the vinestem may be issuing from an animal's mouth. Special forms of these painted initials: ff. 88v (wheel-shape), 90r (a snake winding round the shafts of the letter), 126r (outline drawing of vinestem initial), 136v (zoomorphic: bird-shape), 186v (inhabited by two birds), 204v (zoomorphic: dragon-shape), 209r (idem, with head at both ends), 215v (zoomorphic: fish), 216r (zoomorphic: dragon with head at both ends), 222v (inhabited by two birds), 268v (partly zoomorphic: bird), 274v (historiated: head of St. Paul). Initials are lacking f. 197v, 201v., and Binding: Original doeskin over heavy unbevelled wooden boards. On each cover traces of five circular bosses; traces of two straps fixed to the rear cover and clutching over pins in the front cover. On the front cover an inscription largely worn off: "Remigius super epistolas sancti Pauli" (13th century?).
Subject (Geographic):
Connecticut and New Haven.
Subject (Name):
Ambrosiaster.
Subject (Topic):
Illumination of books and manuscripts, Medieval and Manuscripts, Medieval
Manuscript on parchment in two volumes of Jerome, Commentaries on the Minor Prophets. Written perhaps at the Cistercian abbey of Hautecombe.
Description:
Acquired from E. Rossignol of Paris in 1958 by L. C. Witten, who sold it the same year to Thomas E. Marston., Binding: 1800-1810, Italy. Half bound in brown calf with bright pink paper sides. Three green gold-tooled labels on the spine of each volume: "Vol. I", "Vol. II"; "Hieronimi in XII Prophetas Manuscrip"; "Saecul XII". Title on black gold-tooled labels: "Hieronimi in XII Prophetas Manuscrip". Edges spattered blue-green. The same distinctive bindings also found on Marston MSS 50, 125, 128, 135, 151, 153, 158, and 159, all of Hautecombe provenance., Fine painted initials, 19- to 5-line, for major text divisions, monochrome red or polychrome in red, bright green, olive green and/or brown, with pale yellow washes. Preliminary sketches in lead often visible underneath; some bows appear to be drawn with compass. Smaller initials of similar design throughout. Initials are characterized by lattice work, acanthus scrolls and decorative empty spaces within initials. The opening initial on f. 1r is executed in red and blue. Headings in red throughout., and Script: Written and neatly corrected in early gothic bookhand by several scribes.
Subject (Name):
Cistercians
Subject (Topic):
Bible. Prophets, Bible--Commentaries, Illumination of books and manuscripts, Medieval, Manuscripts, Medieval--Connecticut--New Haven, and Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts in Beinecke Library
Manuscript on paper (trimmed), with parchment bifolios interspersed, of Julius Caesar, Commentary on the Gallic Wars, translated into French by Jean Duchesne. Written for Jacques Donche, counselor of Charles the Bold of Burgundy
Description:
In French., Watermarks: similar to Briquet Armoires: Trois fleurs de lis 1741., Script: Written in neat batarde script by Hellin de Burchgrave., Ten half-page miniatures, each in an arched frame composed of two thin bands, gold and red highlighted with white, edged in black, the arch with tiny cusps; beneath, initials, 6-, 4-, or 3-line, blue or blue and red with white highlights on a gold ground of irregular shape conforming to the letter, edged in black, with serifs protruding into the left margin; filled with green and/or red and crimson trilobe leaves on curling stems with white and/or yellow highlights, or with a blue, green, crimson, and gold diapered ground with white highlights. Three smaller miniatures, 12- or 14-line, occasionally cut off at the upper edge so as to fill only part of a line of text; frames rectilinear, otherwise identical to those described above, Beneath, 2-line initials, blue, with white highlights, filled with trilobe leaves, as above, once (f. 25r) with one leaf of spiky acanthus added, and once (f. 256r) with a pink ground with gold filigree. There is a blank space on f. 27r for another miniature of this type. Other decoration consists of 2-line calligraphic initials, paragraph marks, line fillers (spirals and heraldic dragons), page and chapter headings, all executed in red. The first one or two lines of some books (as well as occasional lines within the text) are underlined in red., A few folios have tears in the margins., and Binding: Eighteenth century. Spattered and gilt edges. Red goatskin, gold-tooled, with the arms of Eugene of Savoy on cover and his monogram on spine.
Subject (Geographic):
Connecticut, New Haven., and Gaul
Subject (Name):
Caesar, Julius.
Subject (Topic):
French literature, Illumination of books and manuscripts, Medieval, Literature, Medieval, Manuscripts, Medieval, and History
Manuscript on paper (polished) of Gasparino Barzizza, Commentary on Epistolae morales ad Lucilium, 65-124 only.
Description:
Binding: Fifteenth century, Italy. Parchment stays are adhered to inner and outer conjugate leaves of quires. Original wound sewing on three tawed skin, slit straps laid in channels on the outside of beech boards. The endbands, which are wanting, were sewn on tawed skin cores laid in grooves and nailed or held in place by the bosses; they were tied down through a tawed skin spine lining. Covered in sheepskin, originally brick red, with the surface now badly rubbed and shedding. Corner tongues. Blind-tooled with an X in concentric frames. Four leaf-shaped catches with three flowers on each on the lower board, one wanting; the upper board cut in for two kermes pink straps attached with star-headed nails. Five flower-shaped bosses on each board and the trace of a chain attachment at the tail of the lower one., Illuminated initial, f. 1r, 8-line, blue with white highlights and burnished gold on gold ground with stylized foliage in green and dark red with yellow highlights. Terminals ending in foliage serifs, red, green with yellow highlights, and gold balls with hairline extensions. Numerous pen and ink initials, 3-line, alternate red and bright blue with penwork designs of the other color extending along margin., Purchased from Enzo Ferrajoli through Nicolas Rauch of Geneva in 1958 by L. C. Witten, who sold it the same year to Thomas E. Marston., Script: Written in gothic cursive with humanistic features by a single scribe, above top line., and Watermarks: similar to Briquet Tour 15909 and Piccard Turm II.617.
Subject (Name):
Seneca, Lucius Annaeus,--ca. 4 B.C.-65 A.D
Subject (Topic):
Illumination of books and manuscripts, Medieval, Latin literature, Manuscripts, Medieval--Connecticut--New Haven, Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts in Beinecke Library, and Scholia
Manuscript on parchment (warped) of Victorinus, Commentarius in Ciceronis De inventione (Explanationes in Ciceronis Rhetoricam). With an Anonymous commentary on Cicero, De inventione I.24-28.
Description:
Binding: Nineteenth century, Italy. Brick red goatskin, blind-tooled. Bound in the same bindery for the Guarnieri-Balleani family (Iesi) as MS 450 and Marston MSS 72, 181, 182, and 212., Contemporary accounts on f. 49v refer to one Jordanus de Walchelina, and to Rotbertus, Liulfus and Leofric. Partially effaced inscription on f. 49v indicates that Stefano Guarnieri (d. 1495) bought the manuscript in Rome in 1465 (see U. Nicolini, "Stefano Guarnieri da Osimo cancielliere a Perugia dal 1466 al 1488," L'umanesimo umbro: atti del XI convegno di studi umbri-Gubiio 22-23 settembre 1974 [Perugia, 1977] pp. 307-23)., On parchment., Purchased from Lathrop Harper in 1953 by Thomas E. Marston., Script: Written by multiple scribes in cramped early gothic bookhand, above top line. Marginalia by several contemporary and later hands., Seven illuminated initials are later addition (Italy, 1450-1500): 4- to 3-line, gold on blue, red and green ground with white filigree. Black inkspray with gold leaves and balls extending into margins; f. 1r with blue and red flowers. Guide letters for decorator in margins., and Written by multiple scribes in cramped early gothic bookhand.
Subject (Name):
Victorinus, Marius and Victorinus, Marius. Explanationes in Ciceronis rhetoricam
Subject (Topic):
Illumination of books and manuscripts, Medieval, Latin essays, Manuscripts, Medieval--Connecticut--New Haven, Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts in Beinecke Library, and Scholia
Manuscript on parchment (poor quality, yellow and speckled on hair side) of William of Melitona, Commentarius in Ecclesiasticum. Copied from a stationer's exemplum secundum pecias.
Description:
Binding: Fifteenth century, Spain. Early (?) resewing on four tawed skin, slit straps or double cords laced into grooves in wooden boards. Beaded, red, green and natural color secondary endbands are sewn on tawed skin cores laced into the boards. The spine is lined with vellum between supports. Front and back (mostly concealed by another parchment leaf) pastedowns from a liturgical manuscript with neumes (Spain, 12th century). Remains of contemporary rectangular label on lower board: "Holcot super eccl***/ cum". Covered in brown sheepskin, blind-tooled with a central panel and alternate concentric frames filled with rope interlace with red bordering fillets. Spine: supports defined with double fillets on the spine and an X with a central cross-bar in the panels. There are four fastenings, the catches on the lower board, the clasp straps fastened with star-headed nails., One historiated initial of fine quality on f. 11r, 9-line, reddish brown with white filigree against blue ground with white filigree, edged in gold, showing the author and three companions, presenting a book to a seated monarch dressed in a blue robe against a reddish ground with geometric designs in blue, black and red. Terminals of initial extend as a bar border into inner margin, blue and reddish brown against reddish-brown and blue grounds with white filigree and touches of gold. Border terminates in lower margin in a spray of spiky ivy, blue with gold leaves. Flourished initials, 6- to 3-line, blue or red with red and/or blue penwork designs, often extending the entire length of the text column. Running titles in red and blue. Paragraph marks alternate red and blue. Biblical passages underlined in red. Initials touched with red. Remains of instructions to rubricator., and Script: Written in neat gothic bookhand.
Subject (Name):
William,--of Melitona
Subject (Topic):
Bible.--O.T.--Apocrypha.--Ecclesiasticus, Bible--Commentaries, Illumination of books and manuscripts, Medieval, Manuscripts, Medieval--Connecticut--New Haven, Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts in Beinecke Library, and Pecia
Manuscript on parchment of St. Bonaventure's Commentary on Book IV of the Sentences of Peter Lombard.
Description:
Binding: Eighteenth century, Germany. Cream colored pigskin, blind-tooled. Gilt edges. Green and cream endbands. Title on spine: "De septem/ Sacrament. Tract. Mst."., One historiated initial, f. 1r, 6-line, beige with foliage serif, red, against blue ground with white filigree, containing an apothecary (unguentarius) mixing ingredients in a mortar with two pestles. Numerous flourished initials, 3- to 2-line, alternate in red with blue, and vice versa, or often plain initials in red or blue. Running headlines in red and blue. Paragraph marks, alternating red and blue, appear sporadically (ff. 1r-36v)., and Script: Written by several scribes in small gothic bookhand.
Subject (Name):
Peter Lombard, Bishop of Paris, ca. 1100-1160
Subject (Topic):
Illumination of books and manuscripts, Medieval, Manuscripts, Medieval--Connecticut--New Haven, Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts in Beinecke Library, Scholasticism, and Scholia
Manuscript on paper of 1) Donatus (4th century), Vita Vergilii. 2) Note on the three kinds of poetry, after the Venerable Bede, De arte metrica. 3) Ps.-Octavianus Augustus, Poem in praise of Virgil's Aeneis. 4) Ps.-Ovidius, Tetrasticha in cunctis libris Vergilii. 5) Poem in praise of Virgil. 6) Servius grammaticus, Commentum in Vergilii Bucolica, preface. 7) Poem. 8) Servius grammaticus, Commentum in Vergilii Bucolica. 9) Servius grammaticus, Commentum in Vergilii Georgica.
Description:
Binding: 17th-18th centuries. White parchment over pasteboard, the covers gold-tooled (but the gold almost entirely lost) with frames of fillets, four lozenge-shaped floral stamps in the corners and a large lozenge-shaped floral stamp in the center. The spine, with five raised bands, gold-tooled, with a red leather title label in the second compartment with the gold-tooled inscription: "SERVIUS / IN / VIRGILI / M.SS." Sprinkled edges., No headings. Unevenly spread alternately red and blue paragraph marks. 3- or 4-line plain initials in red or blue, with guide letters; art. 9 opens with a 7-line plain initial in red. On f. 1r art. 1 opens with a 7-line Gothic foliate initial in blue and red, with green tendrils, on a rectangular background. The page is decorated with a golden staff in inner, upper and outer margins, around which a green tendril carrying red and blue leaves and gold vine leaves is wound. In the lower margin a wild man in a lion's skin (Hercules?) is painted standing between two rocky hills and carrying two coats of arms., and Script: Copied by one hand in Gothico-Humanistica Semitextualis Libraria with numerous abbreviations. Incipits are written in a large and more calligraphic version of the same script.
Subject (Name):
Servius,--4th cent
Subject (Topic):
Illumination of books and manuscripts, Medieval, Latin poetry, Manuscripts, Medieval--Connecticut--New Haven, and Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts in Beinecke Library
Manuscript on paper of Jean Faucket (or Faucquet), Commonplace Book: Holograph. Completed 1497 or later
Description:
In French., Four distinct watermarks: one resembles Piccard, vol. 2, IX 96 (Xanten, 1452), one resembles Piccard vol. 2, IX 182 or 190 (Rhine valley, 1470-1480 or Flanders, 1463-70), one closely resembles Briquet 9196 (St. Omer, 1491), and a fourth closely resembles Briquet 8992 or 8993 (Vaudrevange, 1499 and 1493, respectively)., Script: written by the author in a gothic bastarda script., Numerous full color illuminations of coats of arms. Ornate initials in black and red throughout. Rubricated., and Binding: heavy black cloth over boards made of early printed material. Several parchment manuscript fragments which were used in binding are visible in the spine. One contains 12th-century Caroline minuscule and the other contains a gothic bookhand of the 13th-14th century. Damaged, front board detached.
Subject (Geographic):
Connecticut and New Haven.
Subject (Name):
Faucket, Jean, fl. 1488-1497.
Subject (Topic):
Commonplace-books, Heraldry, French literature, Illumination of books and manuscripts, Medieval, and Manuscripts, Medieval
Manuscript on parchment (goatskin) of John Waleys (John of Wales, Iohannes Gallensis), Communiloquium sive summa collationum ad omne genus hominum
Description:
In Latin., Script: Written by a single scribe in Southern Gothica Textualis Libraria which, however, differs from Rotunda by the absence of Textus Praescissus features. A few rubrics are added in Gothica Cursiva, e.g. ff. 63v and 64v. Instructions for the rubricator are written in thin Gothica Cursiva Currens in the lower margins, mostly lost due to trimming., Headings in red. Alternately red and blue paragraph marks. The decoration consists of (1) alternately red and blue flourished initials, 2 lines; (2) flourished litterae duplices, 3-5 lines, at the opening of the Distinctiones; they have marginal extensions ("J-staves") in pen and ink over the full height of the text area; (3) on f. 4r a damaged foliate initial on a gold, red and blue background, containing a hybrid, with floral extensions featuring a hybrid head and a hybrid. On f. 37r there is a coarse pen and ink drawing of a sword in the margin, probably related to a Hermogenes quotation in the text about murder., and Binding: Seventeenth century. Sprinkled brown leather over cardboard, the covers simply decorated with blind fillets. Spine with five raised bands and two gold-tooled red leather title-labels with the inscriptions "MS. VALLENS. COMMUNILOQ." and "TRACT. DE RE PUBLICA." Red edges. The spine was reinforced by means of two strips of parchment from an English archival document (ca. 1500) in which the names William Holborn, Robert Ball "nuper de Letheringham" and others appear.
Subject (Geographic):
Connecticut and New Haven.
Subject (Name):
John, of Wales, -approximately 1285. and Franciscans.
Subject (Topic):
Illumination of books and manuscripts, Medieval, Manuscripts, Medieval, Preaching, and Scholasticism