Tasso, Torquato, 1544-1595, scribe Bixby, William K. (William Keeney), 1857-1931, former owner Henry E. Huntington Library and Art Gallery. Manuscript. HM 884
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Description
ff. 1-6v. [Torquato Tasso]. Discorso della virtù femminile. Incipit: Alla Serenissima Madama Mia Signora, Sogliono le belle donne con vaghezza rimirare o statua o pittura ove alcuna somiglianza loro si veda espressa, e le giovani particolarmente di vagheggiarsi ne lo specchio e di vedersi ritratte et effigiate hanno vaghezza. Explicit: con queste possono esser accompagnate, ne possono infami o dishonorate in alcun modo esser giudicate, perche l'in//. Italian. The text ends abruptly, on p. 212, line 12 of the Guasti edition. On f. 7r-v, the missing portion of the text is supplied from the 1738 Venice edition. C. Guasti, ed., Le Prose Diverse di Torquato Tasso (Florence 1875) 2:201-14, this manuscript cited on pp. 169-70 with some of its variant readings quoted from the plate in the Libri sale catalogue (see below), as Guasti did not know the location of the manuscript. Dennis Dutschke, "Il discorso tassiano 'De la virtù feminile e donnesca'," Studi tassiani, 32 (1984) pp. 5-28. Title from printed catalog. Support: Paper. Layout: 3 successive bifolia and 1 leaf added at a later date, bound backwards so that the verso precedes the recto. 26-28 long lines; text placed so as to leave margin only on the left. The first 6 leaves are autograph, in a hurried cursive; f. 7r-v, s. XVIII. Watermark(s): Angel not in Briquet. Assigned Date: s. XVIex. Input into Digital Scriptorium by: C. W. Dutschke, 7/30/2012. 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 by Riviere in red morocco; marbled endpapers. HM 884. Huntington Library, San Marino, CA.
Written in the hand of the author, Torquato Tasso. This manuscript was noticed in the 1856 Sotheby sale by A. Solerti, Appendice alle opere in prosa di Torquato Tasso (Florence 1892) 61-67, who implied that it might be the one mentioned in a letter from Ludovico Muratori to Apostolo Zeno, 28 March 1735 (that manuscript, however, now identified as Modena, Biblioteca Universitaria Estense, Raccolta Molza-Viti, Filza III, fasc. 9). A note attached to HM 884, f. vi identifies an early owner as the Abbate don Vincenzo Faustini of Ferrara, and states that from his hands the manuscript passed to a Signor Passini from whom a Captain Kühlen bought it in 1850. Another letter attached to f. v, dated 23 August 1855, signed L. Gruner and addressed to Leigh Sotheby, translates an authorization by Captain Kühlen for Gruner to sell the manuscript in London for 50 Pounds Sterling. Sotheby's, 23 February 1856, lot 41 (proprietor unnamed) to Guglielmo Libri (1803-69); his sale, Sotheby's, 28 March 1859, lot 981 with plate of f. 1 to Scalia (bought in); sale by Puttick, 4 February 1863, n. 924 to Abis. On f. ii, the ex libris of William K. Bixby (1857-1931) of St. Louis, Missouri, n. 1290. Acquired from him by Henry E. Huntington through G. D. Smith in August 1918.
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