Manuscript on paper of Anonymous biography of Pope Alexander VI (Rodrigo Borgia, 1430-1503).
Description:
In Italian., Script: Copied by one hand in rapid Humanistica Cursiva., and Binding: Eighteenth century. Half parchment over pasteboard, covered with brown and blue marbled paper. On the spine brownish red leather label with the gold-tooled title "VITA D'ALESSAND. VI. / MS." and small paper label with the number of the Phillipps collection.
Subject (Geographic):
Connecticut and New Haven.
Subject (Name):
Alexander VI, Pope, 1431-1503.
Subject (Topic):
Biography, Italian literature, and Manuscripts, 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. Includes notes on arithmetic and accounting for merchandise; a romance of Tristan; list of spices; astronomical and astrological information; charms and prayers; recipes; extracts in Venetian; and poems
Description:
In Italian and Latin., Watermarks: similar to Briquet Fruit 7372-76, Briquet Cheval 3564, and Briquet Fruit 7341., Script: Written by a single scribe in a neat notarial hand, through f. 67v. Notes added by various hands of 14th-15th centuries., Drawings of ships, towers and merchants in ink, with added yellow, brown, green, red and blue; many diagrams. Crude 2- and 1-line initials in red, with guide-letters for rubricator showing beneath; headings in red., Repair of f. 1 with later paper; some loss of text. Repairs at outer edges on this and other folios do not affect text., and Binding: 18th-19th centuries. Rigid vellum case with paste paper back endleaf and pastedowns. Central fold of each bifolium has been reinforced with a strip of parchment.
Subject (Geographic):
Connecticut, New Haven., and Venice (Italy)
Subject (Topic):
Accounting, Arithmetic, Astrology, Astronomy, Medieval, Formulas, recipes, etc, Illumination of books and manuscripts, Medieval, Italian literature, Manuscripts, Medieval, Merchants, Prayers, Tristan (Legendary character), and Economic conditions
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 (trimmed) of Five Novelle. First novella about Valeria married against her will to Pietro Lombardo; Second: "Julia e Prunneo"; Third: "Lucretia e Hyeronimo"; Fourth: "Camilla e Estore"; Fifth: "Justa Victoria," by Felice Feliciano
Description:
In Italian., Watermarks: crossed arrows buried in gutter., Script: Written by one person in bold italic., Decorated with several miniatures and borders in water and body color: f. i verso, full-page miniature of tomb in a landscape, with an epigraphic inscription. Arms above inscription: azure, a fess or; an inescutcheon azure, a bend wavy or. On f. 1r, a full frame, outer, inner and upper margins with bucrania, trophies, swags, jewels, arms and armor (including two shields: azure, a fess or; and azure, a bend wavy [Marcello]), in blue, pink, green and gold, framed in gold; lower margin, a parapet with a cornice, enclosing a cartouche with bust, supported by putti and flanked by the letters "A. A.", background filled with spiral flowing vines, pink, blue, green and gold, with brown hair-spray. Cartouches bearing inscriptions on ff. 53v, 82v, 105v. On f. 145v a scroll, written in red and blue letters festooned on a tree in a landscape, the ends supported by two putti. At the beginning of each novel, a 3- or 2-line initial, gold, against a purple or crimson ground with gold floral filigree; followed by several words in text script, gold against a crimson or purple rectangular ground., and Binding: Eighteenth century. Gilt, gauffered edges. Brown sheepskin over wooden boards, blind-tooled. Floral woodblock paste paper pastedowns and endleaves. Two fastenings with shell-shaped clasps on the upper board and pins in the edge of the lower. Rebacked.
Subject (Geographic):
Connecticut and New Haven.
Subject (Name):
Feliciano, Felice, 15th cent.
Subject (Topic):
Illumination of books and manuscripts, Medieval, Italian literature, and Manuscripts, Medieval
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
