Cambridge, University Library, MS Mm.2.3(1)
Dante Alighieri, Divina commedia
Contents
Language(s): Italian and Latin
Physical Description
19th-century foliation:
[i] + 1 + 2-30 ; 32-61 ; 62-90, 92-93 + [ii]
Written in pencil in the upper right-hand corner of the recto of each leaf, by Henry Bradshaw (1831-1886) , University Librarian 1867-1886.
Folio numbers 31, 91 and 93 assigned to leaves no longer present in the volume (as per historic foliation practice at Cambridge University Library). Offset from f. 92v is present on f. 93r, and there are traces of writing on f. 93v, and consequently this stub has been digitised.
Earlier 19th-century foliation:
Written in pencil in the lower right-hand corner of the recto of the first leaf of each quire. The sequence continues in Cambridge, University Library, MS Mm.2.3(2) , with which this was formerly bound.
Collation
Apparently formed of three codicological units, each containing a discrete section of the Divina commedia, evidently copied and decorated as part of a single campaign and intended to be bound together from the outset.
- Quires 1-38 (ff. 2-25)
- Quire 46-1 (ff. 26-30: 6th leaf, f. '31', cancelled) ;
- Quires 5-78 (ff. 32-55)
- Quire 86 (ff. 56-61) ;
- Quires 9-118 (ff. 62-85)
- Quire 128-2 (ff. 86-92: 6th and 8th leaves, ff. '91' and '93', excised)
1-38 46-1 (6th leaf cancelled) ; 5-78 86 ; 9-118 128-2 (6th and 8th leaves excised)
Catchwords, written by the scribe in simple ornamental boxes.Layout
235 × 165 mm. Ruled in leadpoint, frame and line. Two columns, 42 lines to the page, written below top line.
Hand(s)
Written in Italian hybrid script by a single hand.
Decoration
Eight-line historiated initial, containing a bust of Dante in brown hood and red cloak, holding a book, at the beginning of Inferno (f. 2r).
Seven-line puzzle initials in red and blue, with black, red and blue infill and marginal flourishing, at the beginning of Purgatorio (f. 32r) and Paradiso (f. 62r).
Four-line (most in Inferno) and three-line (elsewhere) initials, alternating in red or blue, with contrasting blue or red infill and marginal flourishing.
A sketch of columns and windows in a building (f. 92v), described in an accompanying inscription as '[?]a si vidro conti vallette in Sarzana [...] córo l'anulato in Sarzana' (i.e. Sarzana in La Spezia province, Liguria, Italy). Added by a 15th-century hand. Scribbles by this same hand are also found in Cambridge, University Library, MS Mm.2.3(2) (see Additions in that description).
Additions
Leaf signatures and '+' signs (thoughout), and notes on collation (ff. 28v, 31v, 58v, 90v, 92r, 92v), added in pencil by Henry Bradshaw (1831-1886) . Some sequences of leaf signatures have been filled in by a later, unidentified hand of the 20th century, also in pencil.
Binding
Full brown leather cover over wooden boards; classmark tooled in gold on the spine; rebound 1984 at Cambridge University Library (note by Arthur Owen , rear pastedown).
Formerly bound in one volume with Cambridge, University Library, MS Mm.2.3(2) (see note, above). Described in an unpublished description by M.R. James as 'paper boards, repaired' (see Source and binder's label preserved on f. 1v).
History
According to Moore, the text is of 'very high value and authority [...] slightly tinged with Venetian or Lombardo-Venetian orthography'.
Provenance and Acquisition
Jean-Baptiste Hautin (approximately 1580-1640) .
A date '10 [...] 1648]' (f. 1v), now partially lost due to damage (record of ?purchase).
'Brodeau' (f. 1v), i.e.
Julian Brodeau (d. 1653)
, whose library was dispersed in 1698 or 1699.
John Moore (1646-1714) , bishop of Ely: no. 1011 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 Bernard, Catalogi librorum manuscriptorum Angliæ et Hiberniæ (c. 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 front pastedown.
Additional Information
Record Sources
Availability
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Custodial History
Bibliography
-
Critical, historical, and philosophical contributions to the study of the <hi
rend="italics">Divina commedia</hi>, Barlow, Henry Clark (London, Williams and Norgate, 1864)
Contributions to the textual criticism of the <hi rend="italics">Divina
commedia</hi>: including the complete collation throughout the Inferno of all the
mss. at Oxford and
Cambridge, Moore, Edward (Cambridge, University Press, 1889)
Le opere di Dante Alighieri Società dantesca italiana, (Milan, Mondadori, 1966)
Dante Alighieri, <hi rend="italics">Die göttliche Komödie</hi>: vergleichende
Bestandsaufnahme der Commedia-Handschriften Hiersemanns bibliographische Handbücher, Roddewig, Marcella (Stuttgart, Hiersemann, 1984)
Cambridge University Library: a history, McKitterick, David (Cambridge, 2: The eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, Cambridge
University Press, 1986)
Western Illuminated Manuscripts: A Catalogue of the Collection in Cambridge University
Library, Binski, PaulZutshi, PatrickPanayotova, Stella (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press,
2011, https://doi-org.ezp.lib.cam.ac.uk/10.1017/CBO9780511780479)
Digital Images
Abbreviations
View list of abbreviations and editorial conventions.
