Scot, Michael, approximately 1175-approximately 1234, translator Pierleone, da Spoleto, -1492, former owner Henry E. Huntington Library and Art Gallery. Manuscript. HM 1035
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Description
ff. 1-98v. [Aristotle] [De animalibus]. Incipit: Quedam partes corporum animalium dicuntur non composite et sunt partes que. Explicit: que accidunt non ex necessitate sed propter aliquid et propter causam finalem et propter causam moventem. Explicit liber aristotilis de naturis animalium. Sed intitulatus est et distinctus secundum novam translationem et sunt in hoc volumine 18 lib[ri, x] de hystoriis animalium, 3 de partibus animalium et v de generatione animalium, vii de progressu animalium hic deficit cum quo essent xix. Rubric: Incipit liber primus aristotilis de naturis animalium quem transtulit magister michael scotus de greco in latinum et habet in se x libros. Rubrica. Latin. Aristotle, De naturis animalium, De partibus animalium, De generatione animalium, trans. Michael Scot, completed by 1220; text not printed in full. See AL 80-81 and 245 where this manuscript is described. The text here is complete: the scribe erroneously repeated the rubric of Book VII on f. 26, thus his calculations at the end of the manuscript were off by one. Marginalia and nota marks by various readers of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Title from printed catalog. Support: Parchment. Script: Gothic. Layout: 1-8¹² 9². Catchwords in inner right corner, decorated with 4 pattes-de-mouche; leaves signed in roman numerals, except on quire 8 where they are signed a-f. 2 columns of 52 lines, ruled in lead with single bounding lines and a set of double outer rules in all 4 margins; pricking for the various frame rules visible in all 4 margins (none noticed for the line rules). Decoration: Opening historiated initial, 8-line, in dull pink set on a gold ground, depicting a cleric showing a group of animals to monks and students; C-shaped border in dull pink, blue, green, ochre and orange with biting animal heads and vines as pinwheels sprouting rounded trilobe leaves, the points of which often terminate in gold dots, in a style somewhat similar to A. Daneu Lattanzi, Lineamenti di Storia della Miniatura in Sicilia (Florence 1966) fig. 43 and 44 of Vatican Library, Vat. lat. 36. Other Decoration: Major initials for the divisions of Books, 9- to 6-line (e.g. ff. 5v, 8, 9), parted red and blue with filigree and tendrils in both colors. Fifteenth century foliation, 131-229; on f. 98v (i.e. 229v), in a fifteenth century hand,"sono carte cc xxx." Assigned Date: s. XIII2. Input into Digital Scriptorium by: C. W. Dutschke, 7/31/2012. 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, s. XVI (?), in limp parchment with title on the spine in a decorative gothic hand, but considerably damaged:"509. Arist. L[ogi?]ca Decor__?___ __?___oli__?___ __?___s de animali-[bus] Manuscript"; fore edge ties missing. On the back flyleaf, offset of a strip print [Woodward del. Rowlandson f.] Borders for Rooms, Plate 2, London, March 25 1799 at Ackerman's Gallery, 101 Strand. HM 1035. Huntington Library, San Marino, CA.
Reproduction--Early works to 1800 Zoology--Early works to 1800 Translations (rbgenr) Marginalia. (aat) Historiated initials Italy 13th century. (aat) Manuscripts (documents) (aat)
Source
Manuscripts, Huntington Digital Library
Provenance
Written in southern Italy for a member of the family of Charles I of Anjou, King of Sicily and Naples, 1266-85; the remaining coat of arms on f. 1 is of Anjou: azure, semy of fleur-de-lys or, differenced with a label of 5 points gules (Rietstap, vol. 1, pl. 52); Mr. Van de Put, according to De Ricci, has suggested that the 2 erased coats of arms are Jerusalem (Charles I was crowned King of Jerusalem in 1278) and Hungary ancient (Charles II married Mary of Hungary in 1270); both erased coats of arms bear traces of tinctures in gules and or. Belonged to Pier Leoni (d. 1492), physician to Lorenzo de' Medici. The inventory of Leoni's books is published in L. Dorez,"Recherches sur la bibliothèque de Pier Leoni, médecin de Laurent de Médicis," Revue des Bibliothèques 7 (1987) 81-106, where this manuscript may be identified with item 8,"Aristoteles de natura animalium." The single title, corresponding to HM 1035 as it stands today, suggests that the book had been bound in its more complete state (cf. the multiple titles on the spine, which must have referred to the text[s] on the missing 130 folios at the beginning of the book) and had then been dismembered before 1582, when the inventory of Leoni's library was compiled. See J. Ruysschaert,"Nouvelles recherches au sujet de la bibliothèque de Pier Leoni, médecin de Laurent le Magnifique," Bulletin de la classe des lettres et des sciences morales et politiques de l'Académie royale de Belgique, ser. 5, 46 (1960) 37-65, and his introduction to Bibliothecae Apostolicae Vaticanae . . . Codices 11414-11709 (Vatican 1959) p. vii, mentioning HM 1034 (evidently as typographical error for HM 1035): a number of Leoni books were in the library of the Jesuit College in Rome until ca. 1912, when approximately 27 of their manuscripts were sold to the bookdealer W. Voynich, possibly including HM 1035. On the front pastedown in modern pencil: J991, J992; on f. 1, in modern pencil: 992, a8665a. Acquired by Henry E. Huntington in 1918 from G. D. Smith.
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