Medieval Manuscripts in Cambridge Libraries

A catalogue of Western manuscripts and papyri at Cambridge University Library, the Fitzwilliam Museum and selected Cambridge colleges

Cambridge, University Library, MS Kk.5.6

Diktyon no.: Diktyon 12201

Contents

Introduction: MS Kk.5.6 contains a treatise on music dating to about the 3rd century CE, De musica, written by Aristides Quintilianus. This work occupies the main part of the manuscript (part I, ff. [i]-[iii], 1-64, 70-74), and it was copied in the 16th century by a well-known scribe active in Italy, Camillo Zanetti (first half of the 16th century-after 1587). He also transcribed this same text on other occasions: for instance, in Venice in 1562, which copy is now Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, MS gr. 2455 (see History, with refereneces). Another slightly later hand (hand B) added marginal annotations to Aristides Quintilianus' text, which are mostly collations from other manuscripts and critical notes. Furthermore, this hand traced a series of diagrams from another music treaty, Manuel Bryennius' Harmonica, on leaves that had been left blank by Zanetti. Hand B, moreover, wrote notes on Aristides Quintilianus' De musica in part II of the manuscript (ff. 65-69), which is a single quire of smaller paper leaves. These notes are written in Latin, and refer to passages in the text of MS Kk.5.6 (part I), using the pagination present on ff. 1r-55v (see Foliation). In his marginalia and in his notes in part II, hand B mentions the sources of his variant readings or observations as ‘ mi’, ‘ ma’ and ‘ p’ (or ‘ pi’). Hand B was probably a scholar of western European origin. It is possible to identify his hand in a manuscript now in Paris - Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, gr. 2534 - which contains extracts and notes on both Aristides Quintilianus' De musica and Manuel Bryennius' Harmonica. Further evidence proves the connection, beyond that afforded by the identification of the handwriting. For instance, on ff. 47v-48r of Par. gr. 2534, hand B comments, in Italian, on the word διαστηματικός in the work of Manuel Bryennius, which is, in his opinion, a corruption of the term διαστατικός or διασταλτικός. He then refers to the use of this last term in Aristides Quintilianus' work. In the margin, he added a note (f. 48r), in Italian, ‘ Del mio p. 29 v. penult. et ult.’, 'See page 29 of my (book), the last and penultimate (line)". This must be a reference to page 29 (= f. 15r) of Kk.5.6: in the last two lines of this page, which is in the part of the manuscript containing the work of Aristides Quintilianus, three terms have been underlined in red, among them διασταλτικός. In the right margin, hand B added a note, explaining that this term stands in the manuscript for διαστατικός. This identification enables us to identify Kk.5.6 as 'the book' to which hand B referred. Hand B was probably a scholar with a keen interest in ancient music theory, and was probably Italian, since he wrote his notes in Par.Par.gr. 2534 in this language. His hand can be found also in another manuscript - Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, gr. 2533 , ff. 19r-82v - which contains notes and transcriptions on mathematical, musical, and tactical texts. Manuscript Kk.5.6 is currently bound as the first part of a single volume with three other manuscripts, Kk.5.7, 8 and 9. Dr Erika Elia

Physical Description

Form: codex
Extent: Codex: 3 + 69 + 4 leaves. 275-328 × 210-230 mm.
Foliation: Modern foliation in pencil, in Arabic numerals, in the top right hand corner recto from 1 to 73. At the beginning there are three unnumbered endleaves (ff. [i]-[iii]); four endleaves (in the same paper as ff. [i]-[iii]) are present also at the end of the manuscript, but they have been foliated (ff. 70-73). [i]-[iii] + 1-73.

Collation

14-1 | 2-610, 76, 88 | 96-1 | 104

Condition

The codex has been bound together with Cambridge, Univeristy Library, MSS Kk.5.7 , Kk.5.8 , and Kk.5.9 . The spine of the binding is broken, and the textblock is split into four parts corresponding to the four manuscripts. As for MS Kk.5.6 specifically, it is in good condition.

Binding

Modern western binding. Paper over couched-laminate boards. Leather spine tooled in gold with title ‘ Miscellanea Graece M.S.’ and shelfmark only partially legible ‘ Kk.5.6… ’.

342 × 240 × 53 mm.

The boards are loose. The textblock has split into four parts; the spine is broken.

History

Provenance and Acquisition

The manuscript was owned by a certain J.B. Hautin, probably to be identified with Jean Baptiste II Hautin, son of the French scholar and numismatist Jean-Baptiste Hautin (ca. 1580-1640) : on f. [iii] verso there is a small table of contents, written by the hand that occurs in almost all Hautin's manuscripts (see also Jackson (2006), p. 30).

John Moore (1646-1714) , bishop of Ely: no. 977 in the handwritten supplementary list of Moore's manuscripts, now MS Oo.7.50(2), compiled by Thomas Tanner (1674-1735) after the publication of C. Bernard, Catalogi librorum manuscriptorum Angliæ et Hiberniæ (1697).

Presented to the University Library in 1715 by George I (1660-1727) : donation bookplate engraved by John Pine (1690-1756) in 1736 on the left pastedown.

Part 1 [Cambridge, University Library, MS Kk.5.6, ff. [i]-[iii], 1-64, 70-74]

Contents

Language(s): Greek

1. ff. 1r-55v
Aristides Quintilianus, De musica
Incipit: f. 1r Ἀεὶ μὲν ἐμοὶ θαυμάζειν ἔπεισιν
Explicit: f. 55v κατὰ μουσικὴν μιᾷ καταθέσθαι πραγματείας[sic]
Final rubric: f. 55v Τέλος

TLG 2054.001

ff. 56r-56v are blank

1.1. ff. 1r-21r
Rubric: f. 1r Ἀριστείδου τοῦ Κοιντιλιανοῦ περὶ μουσικῆς α΄
Book 1
1.2. ff. 21r-38v
Rubric: f. 21r Ἀριστείδου τοῦ Κοιντιλιανοῦ περὶ μουσικῆς βιβλίον δεύτερον
Book 2
1.3. ff. 39r-55v
Rubric: f. 39r Ἀριστείδου τοῦ Κοιντιλιανοῦ περὶ μουσικῆς τρίτον
Book 3
2. ff. 57r-62r
Music diagrams
Rubric: f. 57r Diagraphae musicae

This is a series of diagrams from Manuel Bryennius , Harmonics (TLG 9029.001):

  • f. 58r from book 1, ch. 2 ( G.H. Jonker, The Harmonics of Manuel Bryennius, Groningen 1970, p. 72)
  • f. 59r from book 2, ch. 3 ( Jonker 1970, p. 156)
  • f. 60r from book 2, ch. 7 ( Jonker 1970, p. 184)
  • f. 60v from book 2, ch. 7 ( Jonker 1970, p. 186)
  • f. 61r from book 3, ch. 11 ( Jonker 1970, p. 366)

The scribe indicates the folios (probably from a manuscript) where the diagrams were to be found

The diagram on f. 62r is incomplete

ff. 59v, 61v and ff. 62v-64v are blank

Physical Description

Form: codex
Support: Western paper, folded in folio. Watermarks: ff. 1-64 Crown surmounted by a six-point star, with letters ‘ G B(?) ’ ( 50-60 × 32 mm. ), in the centre of the leaf, similar to M.L. Sosower, ‘Greek Manuscripts acquired by Henry and Thomas Savile in Padua’, in Bodleian Library Record 19 (2006), pp. 157-184: fig. 8, which is dated ca. 1581 (Padua), and to D. Woodward, Catalogue of watermarks in Italian printed maps ca 1540-1600, Firenze 1996, Crown 276 , which is dated in 1592. ff. [i]-[iii], 70-74 Lily with rectangular body ( 37 × 20 mm. ), in the centre of the leaf, comparable to Briquet Fleur de lis 7007 , which is dated to 1593, and to Heawood Fleur-de-lis 1386, 1389 , which are dated to 1589 and 1589-1590.
Extent: Codex: 3 + 64 + 4 leaves., 328 × 230 mm.
Foliation: Folios 1r-55v have been paginated in ink, in the upper part right (on the rectos) and left (on the verso) of the leaves, from 1 to 110. This pagination was written in the 16th century, probably by hand B: this scribe refers to it in his notes.

Collation

Part I is formed mainly by quinions. Quire 1 is a binion formed by endleaves which lost a leaf (no loss of text).

  • Quire 14-1 ff. [i]-[iii]
  • Quires 2-610 ff. 1-50(A-E)
  • Quire 76 ff. 51-56(F)
  • Quire 88 ff. 57-64
  • Quire 104 ff. 70-74

Signatures in ink, in majuscule Latin letters, on the first leaf of the quires, under the last line of the text, right, from A ( f. 1r) to F ( f. 51r). Vertical catchwords, written from the top down, by hand A, in the lower margin, verso, of the last leaf of the quires.

Layout

ff. 1r-55v A single column of 30 lines 215 × 115 mm.

Hand(s)

ff. 1r-55v Hand A: the texts have been written by Camillo Zanetti (16th c., first half-after 1587) (Camillus Zanettus, RGK I, 212; on him see also RGK II 299; RGK III, 351).

The text is written in black/grey ink; titles and initials in red.

ff. 57r-61r Hand B: another scribe, slightly later than hand A, traced the diagrams from the work by Manuel Bryennius with notes in Greek and Latin, as well as marginal annotations to the first text in Greek and Latin. The Greek script is a minuscule slanting to the right, regular, which appears more calligraphic within the diagrams, and more informal in the notes accompanying them. It can be dated to the 16th century, probably in the last part. This is the same scribe who copied MSS Paris, Bibliotèque Nationale de France, gr. 2534 , ff.19r-82v (Greek and Latin) and Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, gr. 2534 .

The text is written in a light brown ink.

Decoration

Undulating linear friezes with clover leaves at both ends on ff. 1r, 21r, 39r.

Initials in ekthesis in red ink are decorated with a simple vegetal motif, see e.g. f. 1r.

Diagrams have been traced by hand A passim in the margin of ff. 1r-55v, and by hand B on ff. 58r, 59r, 60r-61r.

Additions

On f. [iii] verso there is a small table of contents of the manuscript, incomplete, written by a hand which recurs in various manuscripts owned by J.B. Hautin (see Provenance); only the first two works are listed: ‘

  • 1. Aristides Quinctilianus de musica
  • 2. Diagraphe musices
  • 3.
’

In the upper margin of f. 1r is written the shelfmark ‘ Kk-5-6’.

History

Origin:

The main part of the manuscript, comprising the first text, was written by Camillo Zanetti probably in the second half of the 16th century: the scribe copied the same text by Aristides Quintilianus in MS Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, gr. 2455 in Venice in 1562 (see Archives et manuscrits, notice by A. Lapasset [2015]). The copy of MS Kk.5.6 could be dated therefore in the second half of the 16th c., probably between around 1562 and 1585 (the latest date of information recorded about the scribe). The diagrams and the marginal notes were added by hand B probably in a second moment, but still in the second half of the 16th century (see Part II), on leaves left blank by Zanetti.

Part 2 [Cambridge, University Library, MS Kk.5.6, ff. 65-69]

Contents

Language(s): Greek and Latin

3. ff. 65r-68r
Notes on Aristides Quintilianus' De musica

On these leaves are written a series of notes about the text written on ff. 1r-55v; the notes are referred to the correponding passages in the text of the manuscript using its pagination

Ff. 65v, 68v-69v are blank

Physical Description

Form: codex
Support: ff. 65-69 Western paper, folded in folio. Watermarks: Lily in a circle ( 35 × 35 mm. ) in the centre of the leaf comparable to Sosower Fleur de lis 8, which is dated to ca. 1569, and to Briquet Fleur de lis 7106, which is dated to 1583.
Extent: Codex: 5 leaves. 275 × 210 mm.

Collation

Part II is formed by a quire, a ternion which lacks a leaf, without loss of text.

  • Quire 96-1 ff. 65-69

Layout

A single column; there is not a regular and set number of lines (at most 28). 240-260 ca. × 150-180 ca. mm.

Hand(s)

ff. 65r, 66r-68r Hand B: the note on these leaves have been written by Hand B (see part I for details).

The text is written in a light brown ink.

History

Origin: The quire forming part II of the manuscript was copied by hand B, who intervened also in part I, in the second half of the 16th c., as the script and the watermark suggest. Since in his notes the scribe give reference to the text copied by hand A, his work must have been done afterwards. The watermark confirms a dating in the second half of the century, specifically around the 1570s-1590s.

Additional Information

Record Sources

Description (2020) draws partly on A catalogue of the Manuscripts preserved in the Library of the University of Cambridge, vol. 3: Gg-Kk, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1858, p. 676.

Availability

Entry to read in the Library is permitted only on presentation of a valid reader's card. For information on eligibility and admissions procedures, see Joining the Library). For further enquiries, and to confirm the availability of the manuscript, please contact the Special Collections Reading Room.

Bibliography

    A catalogue of the manuscripts preserved in the library of the University of Cambridge, (Cambridge, 3: Gg-Kk, Cambridge University Press, 1858) Musici scriptores graeci, Jan, Karl von (Lipsiae, Teubner, 1899) Aristidis Quintiliani De musica libri tres Bibliotheca scriptorum Graecorum et Romanorum Teubneriana, (Lipsiae, Teubner, 1963) Repertorium der griechischen Kopisten, 800-1600 Veröffentlichungen der Kommission für Byzantinistik, Gamillscheg, ErnstHarlfinger, Dieter (Wien, I. Grossbritannien, Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1981) Ancient Greek music theory: a catalogue raisonné of manuscripts International inventory of musical sources. B, Mathiesen, T. J. (München, Henle, 1988) The Greek Manuscripts of John Moore and Etienne Baluze Codices Manuscripti, Jackson, Donald F. (56/57, 29-42, 2006)

Funding of Cataloguing

The Polonsky Foundation

Digital Images

Cambridge Digital Library

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