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

Title

Biography of Petrarch; Glosse de libris meteororum (Gloss on the Book of Meteors); Glosse de libris meteororum IV (Gloss on the Book of Meteors IV)

Authors

• Breton, John le, -1275 (http://viaf.org/viaf/312646159)
• Adam, of Buckfield, approximately 1220-approximately 1294 (http://viaf.org/viaf/1444148997586159870006)
• Aristotle (http://viaf.org/viaf/7524651)
• John, de Seccheville, active 13th century (http://viaf.org/viaf/230874916)

Other related names

• Linterno, Marchese, former owner
• Certosa di Garegnano (Milan, Italy), former owner (http://viaf.org/viaf/134142755)
• Visconti di Modrone, C., Duke, former owner
• Bruschetti, Giuseppe, former owner
• Schiepati, Gaetano, former owner
• Arrigoni, Luigi, former owner (http://viaf.org/viaf/17211787)
• Rosenthal, Jacques, former owner (http://viaf.org/viaf/17394594)
• Dawson, former owner
• Leighton, former owner
• Maggs Bros., former owner (http://viaf.org/viaf/135205711)
• 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 53
(Philadelphia, United States, Free Library of Philadelphia, John Frederick Lewis Collection of European Manuscripts)

Alternate identifiers

• deRicci: 167

Publisher

Free Library of Philadelphia

Language

Latin; Italian

Origin

Place

Italy

Summary

This mid-thirteenth-century manuscript, produced in Italy, contains a collection of commentaries on works by Aristotle (384 BC-322 BC), most of which are anonymous. However, the commentaries on a pseudo-Aristotelian work on plants, on Aristotle's On Sense and the Sensible, and on the On Generation and Corruption, which are included in the manuscript, have been identified as works by Adam of Buckfield, a professor at Oxford during the thirteenth century. Sewn into the back of the manuscript is a printed bifolium on parchment of 1576 that contains an abbreviated Italian biography of Francis Petrarch (1304-1374). This post-medieval addition to the book is partly responsible for the book being misidentified as having once been part of Petrarch's library. Catalog entries and a note written in the hand of John Frederick Lewis further identify this book as stemming from Petrarch's library, which had been gifted to the Venetian Republic in 1362. In 1635, an unknown person added bookplates to books falsely believed to be from Petrarch's library as evidence of their provenance. It is not clear how this manuscript acquired the bookplate, but it now certain that it was not among Petrarch's library collection. The print that was pasted into the inside of the cover is an engraving by Hans Vredeman de Vries (1527-ca. 1607), a Dutch Renaissance architect and engineer.

Notes

• Texts were identified by J. R. Long in 1990; see his article for an explanation of the authorship of the texts and his reattribution and for an explanation of how Britton was wrongly identified as the author by De Ricci
   
• Date of manuscript established by James P. Reilly, Jr.
   
• False Petrarchian bookplate contains the motto "Neutro sed ad interna Linterni ornamenta" and the inscription "Fragmentum Bibliothecae Petrarchae"
   

Extent

I+85+ii; 340 x 240 mm bound to 336 x 244 mm

Foliation

Modern pencil foliation, upper-right recto

Collation

1-8 (8), 9 (6), 10 (8), 11 (8, -8), 12 (2, +1 +2)

Signatures

Alphabetical signatures and possible pecia markings at center of lower margin at folios, starting with letter "D": 9r, 17r, 25r, 33r, 41r, 49r, 57r, 65r, 71r, 79r

Support

Parchment

Catchwords

Regular catchwords at center or lower right corner of lower margin at folios: 8v, 16v, 24v, 32v, 40v, 48v, 56v

Binding

Re-used parchment over wooden boards; the material is reused from an older, two-columned manuscript and still shows traces of writing; turn ins and front flyleaf also from recycled material; "PHILOSOPHICAE DISCUSSIONES" written in ink on spine

Layout

Two columns of sixty-five to seventy-nine lines, lead point ruling; corrections and later notes in margins; written area: 260 x 157 mm

Decoration

Blank spaces for illuminated initials at chapter headings

Script

Gothic--textualis; single-compartment a

Provenance

• Linterno collection, Milan (bought at Padua, 1640); Carthusians of Garegnano, near Milan (ca. 1700); Duca V. Visconti Modrone, Milan (1779); Giuseppe Bruschetti, Milan (1834); Gaetano Schiepati, Milan (1865); Luigi Arrigoni, Milan (1883); sold by J. Rosenthal at Sotheby (April 12, 1889, no. 550) to Dawson; sale by Sotheby (November 23, 1908, no. 539) to Leighton; Maggs (Cat. 246, 1909, no. 978); John Frederick Lewis, Philadelphia; given by his widow, Anne Baker Lewis, to the Free Library of Philadelphia in 1936; catalog entries pasted onto inside front cover; architectural prints pasted onto the inside front and back cover; written in pencil on inside front cover, "from the library of Petrarch"; intaglio armorial bookplate printed on front end leaf; at the bottom of the print is the inscription, "Fragmentun Bibliotheca Petrarchae," which probably explains the mistaken provenance for this manuscript as having belonged to Petrarch; in the center of the shield is written "Philosophicae Discussiones" in red; bookplate of John Frederick Lewis on inside back cover; "Iste liber e Cremona" written in a humanistic hand in the margins of fol. 1r
   

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. 2056, no. 167.
• 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), pp. 59-60. no. 53.
• Ullman, Berthold L., "Petrarch Manuscripts in the United States," Italia medioevale e umanistica 5 (1962), p. 462, no. 73 (article pp. 443-475).
• Dutschke, Dennis, Census of Petrarch Manuscripts in the United States (Padova: Antenore, 1986).
• Long, R. James, "Adam of Buckfield and John Sackville: Some Notes on Philadelphia Free Library MS Lewis European 53," Traditio 45 (1989-1990): 364-367.
• Long, R. James, Adam of Bockenfield, Glossae super De vegetabilibus et plantis: A Critical Edition with Introduction (Leiden, Boston: Brill, 2013).

Keywords

• 13th century
• Italian
• Italy
• Gothic
• Philosophy
• Gloss
• Science
• Biography

Licenses

• Text

  These images and the content of Free Library of Philadelphia, Lewis E 53: Biography of Petrarch; Glosse de libris meteororum (Gloss on the Book of Meteors); Glosse de libris meteororum IV (Gloss on the Book of Meteors IV) 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 53: Biography of Petrarch; Glosse de libris meteororum (Gloss on the Book of Meteors); Glosse de libris meteororum IV (Gloss on the Book of Meteors IV). 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

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Table of contents

• fol. 1r — Glosse de libris meteororum; incipit: Postquamm processit etcetera quoniam suppremum est ab omnibus et necessarium est supracelestium corporum... [fol. 1r]; explicit: …naturam que sola nouit mixtionum preportiones. [fol. 29v]
• fol. 29v — Glosse de libris meteororum IV; incipit: Quoniam quartuor cause determinate sunt primo dicitur de modo procedendi hac parte… [fol. 29v]; explicit: …non est possibilis transmutation in metallis. Deo gratias. [fol. 34r]
• fol. 34r — Glosse de memoria et reminiscentia; incipit: Reliquorum uero cum omnis scentia sit in anima et ab anima a rebus accepta per apprehensionem... [fol. 34r]; explicit: …et informat intellectiuam et cetera. [fol. 36r]
• fol. 36r — Liber de memoria et reminiscentia; incipit: Reliquorum autem primum considerandum de memoria et cetera quoniam ut complete habeartur scientia… [fol. 36r]; explicit: …licet differunt secundum esse. Explicit. [fol. 38r]
• fol. 38r — Glosse de sompno et vigilia; incipit: De sompno autem et uigilia ista scientia que est de sompno et uigilia principaliter scientie tradite in libro … [fol. 38r]; explicit: …imprudentibus et insapientibus quam prudentibus et sapientibus. [fol. 41v]
• fol. 42r — Adam of Buckfield, Glosse de vegetabilibus et plantis; incipit: Tria ut ait Empedocles quoniam in principio metheororum promisit aristoteles se actorum… [fol. 42r]; explicit: … unde fit fructus in complexione frigide digestiones et maturationis perfectio amarus. Explicit de plantis et uegetabilibus. [fol. 49r]
• fol. 49v — Glosse de differentia spiritus et anime; incipit: Interrogastis me de differentia spiritus at anime et cetera iste liber qui est de differentia spiritus et anime que necessitate scientia naturalis est… [fol. 49v]; explicit: ...consequenter uero finem dictis imponit ibi et sufficiat tibi super hoc quod quesisti. [fol. 51r]
• fol. 51r — Glosse de longitate et brevitate uite; incipit: De eo autem quod est esse longe uite animalium habetur sufficientur ab aristotele in libro de anima quod anima est cause uite… [Fol. 51r]; explicit: …et breuioris facile est dictas rationes soluetur que nituntur ad contraria. [fol. 52r]
• fol. 52r — Adam of Buckfield, Glosse de sensu et sensatu; incipit: Quoniam de anima secundum seipsam et cetera cum intention phisici secundum… [fol. 52r]; explicit: …de memoria et reminiscentia et sic terminator totaliter ister liber. [fol. 57v]
• fol. 57v — Adam of Buckfield, Glosse de generatione et corruptione; incipit: De generatione autem et corruptione in isto libro intendit aristoteles de corpore generabili… [fol. 57v]; explicit: …secundum speciem ut quorum substantia et est corruptibilis. [fol. 64r]
• fol. 65r — John Sackville (?) Glosse de generatione et corruptione; incipit: de generatione et corruptione et cetera ista scientia diuditur in… [fol. 65r]; explicit: …est enim alimentum substantia et est quantum et iterum in alimento est superfluitas. [fol. 70v]
• fol. 71r — Glosse de II. III. IV libris physicorum; incipit: Ad illud igitur quod queris de diffinitionibus nature dicendum quod boethius ponit quartuor… [fol. 71r]; explicit: …et ideo tempus est unum et numerus unus ut uisum est et sic patet solutio ad ista. [fol. 85r]

Decorations

• Inside front cover — Engraving
• Flyleaf 1 recto — Bookplate
• Insert i recto — Five line decorated initial P
• Insert i recto — Eight line initial P
• Inside back cover — Engraving
• Inside back cover — Bookplate, John Frederick Lewis