Collection ID: 0023 | Metadata type: TEI | TEI XML | Data

Title

Epistolae ad familiares (Letters to friends)

Authors

• Cicero, Marcus Tullius (http://id.loc.gov/authorities/names/n79032166.html)

Other related names

• Lewis, John Frederick, 1860-1932, former owner (http://viaf.org/viaf/63874811/)
• Lewis, Anne Baker, former owner

Funders

• Council on Library and Information Resources

Call number

Lewis E 66
(Philadelphia, United States, Free Library of Philadelphia, John Frederick Lewis Collection of European Manuscripts)

Alternate identifiers

• https://know.freelibrary.org/Record/1547291
• deRicci: 171

Publisher

Free Library of Philadelphia

Language

Latin

Origin

Place

Ferrara, Italy

Summary

This manuscript is a complete copy (excluding the first four letters of Book XVI, not due to missing leaves) of Cicero's Epistolae ad Familiares, completed in Ferrara on 12 March 1468 by Gregorius de Martinellis de Buccassolo, as noted in the closing colophon (fol. 174v). The text is divided into sixteen books, with an illuminated initial of gold on colored ground at the beginning of each book. The text is written in humanistic cursive, with alternating red and blue Square Capitals at the beginning of each letter and the letters numbered in the opening initials.

Notes

• Paper flyleaves
   

Extent

Ii+175+ii; 256 x 176 mm bound to 260 x 186 mm

Foliation

Modern foliation in pencil, lower right recto, occasionally upper right recto

Collation

1-17 (10), 18 (5, +1)

Support

Parchment

Catchwords

Vertical catchwords, lower right last verso

Binding

Late seventeenth or early eighteenth-century, mottled calf, blind tooled and stamped concentric panel design, panels on spine tooled and stamped in gold, labeled TULLII EPIST: FAMIL: MSS

Layout

One column of thirty-one lines, ruled in hard-point; written area: 160 x 110 mm

Decoration

One large eight-line white vine-scroll initial with partial border and space for coat of arms decorated with white vine-scroll (fol. 1r); illuminated initials at beginning of each book (fols. 1r, 14r, 22v, 33r, 43r, 56r, 67v, 78r, 82v, 98v, 113v, 123r, 134v, 153v, 158r, 168r); alternating red and blue two-line initials throughout; rubrication, running book numbers in upper margin, and some marginal notes in faded red ink

Script

Humanistic cursive

Scribe: Gregorius de Martinellis de Buccassolo

Colophon

Marci Tulij Ciceronis Arpinatis Epistolarum familiarium liber ultimus explicit feliciter. M.cccc. lxviij. die xij. Martij Ferrariae hora ui quarta uigesima per me Gregorium de Martinellis de Buccassolo (fol. 174v)

Provenance

• Sold by Pickering & Chatto, London, to John Frederick Lewis, Philadelphia, 1923 (receipt inside back cover); given by his widow, Anne Baker Lewis, to the Free Library of Philadelphia in 1936
   

Related resources

• De Ricci, Seymour, with the assistance of W. J. Wilson, Census of Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts in the United States and Canada, vol. 2 (New York,: H. W. Wilson, 1935-40), p. 2057, no. 171.
• Free Library of Philadelphia, A Descriptive Catalogue of the John Frederick Lewis Collection of European Manuscripts in the Free Library of Philadelphia, compiled by Edwin Wolf, 2nd, with an introduction by Dr. A.S.W. Rosenbach (Philadelphia: The Free Library, 1937), p. 73, no. 66.
• Free Library of Philadelphia. Saints, Scribes, and Scholars: An Exhibition of Illuminated Manuscripts and Early Printed Books from the Collections of the Rare Book Department of the Free Library of Philadelphia. Compiled by Satoko I. Parker, Walter A. Frankel, and Marie E. Korey (Philadelphia: The Free Library of Philadelphia, 1988), p. 26.

Keywords

• Illumination
• 15th century
• Italian
• Italy
• Friendship
• White-vine lettering
• Humanistic
• Colophon
• Manicules

Licenses

• Text

  These images and the content of Free Library of Philadelphia, Lewis E 66: Epistolae ad familiares (Letters to friends) are free of known copyright restrictions and in the public domain. See the Creative Commons Public Domain Mark page for usage details, http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/.

  URL

  http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/

• Text

  To the extent possible under law, Free Library of Philadelphia, Special Collections has waived all copyright and related or neighboring rights to this metadata about Free Library of Philadelphia Lewis E 66: Epistolae ad familiares (Letters to friends). This work is published from: United States. For a summary of CC0, see https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/. Legal code: https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/legalcode.

  URL

  https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/legalcode

Table of contents

• fol. 1r — Book I
• fol. 14r — Book II
• fol. 22v — Book III
• fol. 33v — Book IV
• fol. 43r — Book V
• fol. 56r — Book VI
• fol. 67v — Book VII
• fol. 78r — Book VIII
• fol. 82v — Book IX
• fol. 98v — Book X
• fol. 113v — Book XI
• fol. 123r — Book XII
• fol. 134v — Book XIII
• fol. 153v — Book XIV
• fol. 158r — Book XV
• fol. 168r — Book XVI

Decorations

• fol. 1r — Illuminated initial E and partial white vine border
• fol. 1r — Effaced coat of arms with white vine scrollwork
• fol. 13v — Manicule
• fol. 14r — Illuminated initial Q
• fol. 22v — Illuminated initial S
• fol. 33v — Illuminated initial T
• fol. 43r — Illuminated initial E
• fol. 56r — Illuminated intial E
• fol. 67v — Illuminated initial S
• fol. 78r — Illuminated initial Q
• fol. 82v — Illuminated initial E
• fol. 98v — Illuminated initial E
• fol. 113v — Illuminated initial Q
• fol. 123r — Illuminated initial F
• fol. 134v — Illuminated initial E
• fol. 151r — Manicule
• fol. 153v — Illuminated initial E
• fol. 158r — Illuminated initial E
• fol. 168r — Illuminated initial V