Petrarca, Francesco, 1304-1374, associated name Thacher, John Boyd, 1847-1909, former owner Henry E. Huntington Library and Art Gallery. Manuscript. HM 1083
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Description
Part 1. ff. 1-354 verso. [Bible]. ff. 1-257: Old Testament; ff. 257-324: New Testament; ff. 325-352: Interpretations of Hebrew Names; ff. 352v-354v: list of readings for the Mass; f. 354v: list of the books of the Bible, with the number of chapters in each, added in another hand. Bible in the usual order with 66 prologues (of which approx. 2/3 correspond to those listed in Ker, MMBL 1:96-97 regarding London, Lambeth Palace MS 1364); of the frequent apocryphal additions to Bibles, only the prayer of Solomon is present, but marked "va-cat.". Part 2. ff. i - iv verso. [Pastedowns and flyleaves]: Contains parts of the commentary on chapters 2 and 3 of the Gospels of John; text is washed off. Manuscript of the Latin Bible written in Italy in the first half of the thirteenth century. Also includes pastedowns and flyleaves from a 14th century Italian manuscript with a commentary of chapters 2 and 3 of the Gospels of John. Part 1. ff. 1-354 verso. Parchment. Layout: 1-12¹² 13¹⁴(through f. 158v, the end of Psalms) 14-26¹² 27¹⁰(through f. 324) 28¹² 29¹⁶ 30². Catchwords variously in inside lower margin or in center of lower margin. 2 columns of 57 lines; 3 columns of 55-60 lines in the Interpretationes; 2 columns of 60 lines on ff. 352v-354v. Written in a small gothic book hand using brown ink. Ruled in lead, single horizontal bounding lines, double vertical bounding lines, and triple rules between the columns; ff. 352v-354v ruled in ink. Round prick marks visible in the lower margins of a few leaves (e.g. ff. 121-144). Part 1. Decoration: 12- to 15-line parted red and blue initials with red and blue flourishing; 2-line initials outside the written space in red with blue flourishing or in blue with red. Part 2. ff. i-iv verso [Pastedowns and flyleaves]. Parchment. 197 x 265 mm. 2 columns of 48 (?) lines. Gothic script. Lemmata underlined in red, initials within the text touched in red. On the front flyleaf recto, a 19th century inscription in red capitals, "Sacra Biblia," and on the verso of the same leaf, "Sacra Biblia ad usum Petrarchae" (see below); a scrap of paper, also 19th century, inserted between ff. 160-161 reads "Postilla di mano del Petrarca," apparently in reference to the otherwise missing verse supplied in the margin of f. 161 for Prov. 13, 13. Input into Digital Scriptorium by: C. W. Dutschke, 2/11/2012. Cataloged from existing description: C. W. Dutschke with the assistance of R. H. Rouse et al., Guide to Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts in the Huntington Library (San Marino, 1989). Bound in 1972 in brown leather over bevelled wooden boards, with a single fore edge clasp. Pastedowns and flyleaves of washed parchment from the previous manuscript (a 14th century Italian manuscript of the Gospels of John), reused in the previous binding, and retained with the present binding. HM 1083. Huntington Library, San Marino, CA.
A 13th century note on f. 2v, "Hic eusebius fuit de cremona ut narat Cirillus in epistola ad augustinum" suggests, through its orthography and interest in Cremona, early ownership, if not origin in northern Italy. Wrongly said to have belonged to Petrarch and to have been among the books from his house near Milan, and to have been left by him to the Carthusians of Garegnano. In certain copies of Giacomo Filippo Tomasini, Petrarcha redivivus (2nd ed., Padua 1650) 281-86, a list of 114 codices, which, ostensibly having belonged to Petrarch, are said to have been bought in Padua by a "Marchese Linterno"; HM 1083 is n. 3 in that list (for the thorough study of the provenance of the Linterno codices, see G. Billanovich, "Nuovi autografi (autentici) e vecchi autografi (falsi) del Petrarca," IMU 22 (1979), 223-38, especially pp. 236-38 for the present location of 14 of the codices, and pp. 237-38 for HM 1083). Of these presumed 114 codices, 26 later belonged to the Visconti di Modrone; ceded in 1834 by Duke Carlo Visconti di Modrone (d. 1836) to the Milanese engineer Giuseppe Bruschetti (1793-1871), who sold them to the bookdealer Gaetano Schiepatti; his sale catalogue of the Linterno codices issued in 1865. Offered to, but refused by the Italian government, because of their false attribution of ownership to Petrarch. Bought by another Milanese bookdealer, Luigi Arrigoni; HM 1083 is n. 2 in his sale catalogue (1883). At Arrigoni's death (1886), the remaining Linterno codices acquired by J. Rosenthal; placed by him at auction. Sotheby's, 12 April 1899; HM 1083 as lot 538 to Quaritch. Belonged to John Boyd Thacher of New York; his sale, Anderson, New York, 8 January 1914, pt. II, n. 254 to G. D. Smith.
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