Collection ID: 0003 | Metadata type: TEI | TEI XML | Data

Title

Epistolae familiares

Authors

• Bruni, Leonardo, 1369-1444 (https://lccn.loc.gov/n50039889)

Other related names

• Gordon, Phyllis Walter Goodhart, former owner
• Gordan, John Dozier Jr., former owner
• Goodhart, Howard Lehman, 1884?-1951, former owner (https://lccn.loc.gov/nr99022084)
• di Luni, Pietro, former owner

Funders

• Council on Library and Information Resources

Call number

MS 44
(Bryn Mawr, United States, Bryn Mawr College, Bryn Mawr College Library)

Alternate identifiers

• http://www.brynmawr.edu/library/speccoll/guides/ms44.shtml

Publisher

Bryn Mawr College Library

Language

Latin

Origin

Place

Italy

Summary

This is a mid-fifteenth northern Italian manuscript, which contains nine books of letters by Leonardo Bruni.

Notes

• Previously Gordon MS 57
   
• The final leaves of the last quire have been cut out
   

Extent

Iii+144+ii; 279 x 186 mm bound to 289 x 205 mm

Foliation

Modern foliation in ink, upper right recto

Collation

1-14 (10), 15 (4)

Signatures

Remains of quire and leaf signatures in ink in bottom right corner throughout latter half of the text

Support

Parchment

Catchwords

Horizontal catchwords in lower far right margin, verso

Binding

Late eighteenth- or early nineteenth-century parchment, brown-stained panel on spine stamped in gold: ARETINI/ EPISTOLARI

Layout

Single column; twenty-eight lines; ruled with double vertical and horizontal bounding lines in hard point; pricking extant; written area: 172 x 107 mm

Decoration

Books 1-8 begin with four-line illuminated initials, gold with pen-lined branchwork twining around it, on a pink and green white-speckled ground outlined in blue; Book 9 begins with a two-line red initial; each individual letter of the book begins with a red initial outside the block of the text; marginalia throughout

Script

Humanistic bookhand

Florentine scribe Giovanni di Piero da Stia (c. 1406-1474)

Provenance

• Written in Florence in the mid-fifteenth century; early provenance unknown; according to James Hankins, who describes the text fully in "Bruni Manuscripts in North America: a Handlist," Nuovi Studi Storici 10 (1991) 55-90, the manuscript has been "attributed to the Florentine scribe Giovanni di Piero da Stia (c. 1406-1474)" by Albinia de la Mare (59); he adds that: Giovanni, who was probably a pupil of the better-known scribe Antonio di Mario, seems to have had a special connection with Bruni, as is evidenced by the extraordinarily high proportion of his identifiable MSS which are copies of Bruni's works; his teacher Antonio di Mario wrote the dedication copies of both the works of Bruni dedicated to Cosimo de' Medici; it seems likely, then, a priori that Giovanni da Stia's text should be close to the author's archetype (59-60); Hankins also notes that the text was "annotated and probably owned by the minor humanist Pietro di Luni who identifies himself in a marginal note" on fol. 45v: "Ita est. et testimonium perhibere possum ego P. Lunensis qui tunc temporis ad dictum concilium profectus vidi et miratus sum." (60); Hankins writes: Luni was a correspondent of Bruni and is known to have held a variety of posts in the papal curia and the papal states in the early and middle parts of the fifteenth century. . . It may well be. . . that Pietro's acquaintance with Bruni, documented from 1434, goes back as far as the Council of Constance; Petrus's other annotations in Gordan 57 and in another manuscript of his preserved in Viterbo show him to be conversant with some of the more esoteric facts of Florentine literary history (60-61); a two-line note in upper margin of fol. 1r: "Liber Aug[usti]ni [rest erased]; unidentified inventory number on inside cover may be Phillipps number: 10957. Bought by Howard L. Goodhart from an English dealer in the 1930's, and given by him to Phyllis Goodhart Gordan (bookplate) and John Dozier Gordan, Jr.; her bequest to Bryn Mawr College in 1995. Bookplate of Bryn Mawr College Library
   

Related resources

• Bond, W. H. Supplement to the census of medieval and renaissance manuscripts in the United States and Canada. New York: Bibliographical Society of America, 1962.
• Kristeller, P.O., Iter Italicum; a finding list of uncatalogued or incompletely catalogued humanistic manuscripts of the Renaissance in Italian and Other Libraries (London, 1963-97), vol. 5, p. 351, no. 149.
• Mehus, L. ed., Leonardi Bruni Arretini Epistolarum Libri VIII (Florence, 1741).
• Luiso, F. P. Studi su L'epistolario di Leonardo Bruni, Studi Storici 122-124 (Rome, 1980).
• Novati, F. ed. Epistolario di Coluccio Salutati, (Rome, 1904) vol. 4, pp. 105-109, ep. XIV.xv.
• Griggio, Claudio. "Due Lettere Inedite del Bruni Al Salutati e a Francesco Barbaro," Rinascimento 26 [1986] 27-50.
• Hankins, James. "Bruni Manuscripts in North America: a Handlist," Nuovi Studi Storici 10 (1991) 55-90.

Keywords

• 15th century
• Italy
• Italian
• Epistolary
• Illumination

Licenses

• Text

  These images and the content of Bryn Mawr College Library MS 44: Epistolae familiares 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, Bryn Mawr College, Special Collections has waived all copyright and related or neighboring rights to this metadata about Bryn Mawr College Library MS 44: Epistolae familiares. 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 — Leonardi arretini epistolarum liber primus; incipit: Leonardus Colucio salutem plurimam dicit
• fol. 13r — Leonardi arretini epistolarum liber secundus
• fol. 30r — Leonardi arretini epistolarum liber tertius
• fol. 44v — Leonardi arretini epistolarum liber quartus
• fol. 63v — Leonardi arretini epistolarum liber quintus
• fol. 81r — Leonardi arretini epistolarum liber sextus; incipit: Leonardus saluatem dicit marrasio siculo
• fol. 98r — Leonardi arretini epistolarum liber septimus; incipit: Leonardus cosmo salutem. in symposio platonis
• fol. 114r — Leonardi arretini epistolarum liber octavus
• fol. 127r — [Book Nine]; incipit: Iam pridem serenissime rex insignem

Decorations

• Inside front cover — Bookplate of Phyllis Walter Goodhart
• Inside front cover — Bryn Mawr College Library bookplate "From the library of Phyllis Goodhart Gordon '35"
• Flyleaf 3 recto — Note "1995 Gordon Library"
• fol. 1r — Four-line illuminated initial L
• fol. 1r — A two line possessor's note in upper margin: Liber Aug[usti]ni [rest erased]
• fol. 13r — Four-line illuminated initial L
• fol. 30r — Four-line illuminated initial L
• fol. 44v — Four-line illuminated initial L
• fol. 63v — Two-line illuminated initial L
• fol. 81r — Four-line illuminated initial L
• fol. 98r — Four-line illuminated initial L
• fol. 114r — Four-line illuminated initial L
• fol. 127r — Two line colored initial I
• Flyleaf 3 recto — Note "1995 Gordon Library"