Collection ID: 0028 | Metadata type: TEI | TEI XML | Data

Title

Fall of princes

Authors

• Lydgate, John, 1370?-1451? (https://lccn.loc.gov/n79117143)

Other related names

• Farlond, John, former owner
• Hawes, Egame, former owner
• Phillipps, Thomas, Sir, 1792-1872, former owner (http://viaf.org/viaf/73979081)

Funders

• Council on Library and Information Resources

Call number

MS 439/16
(Philadelphia, Rosenbach Museum & Library)

Alternate identifiers

• Leaves-of-Gold: 72

Publisher

Rosenbach Museum & Library

Language

Middle English (1100-1500)

Origin

Place

England

Summary

This manuscript is a copy of John Lydgate's Middle English version in seven-line stanzas of Laurence Premierfait's French translation of Boccaccio's De casibus virorum illustrium. It was written in bâtarde script in two columns of forty-six lines on folio-size parchment leaves, circa 1465-1475. The poem is divided into nine books, with seven of the book divisions marked with miniatures copied from Burgundian models. Other visual elements include large illuminated initials in gold on colored grounds at the beginning of each story and one-line initials with contrasting flourishing at the beginning of each stanza. The manuscript is incomplete, ending in book 9 with approximately 3200 lines (eighteen additional leaves) missing at the end.

Notes

• Front flyleaves are one paper flyleaf and the original parchment pastedown; back flyleaf is paper
   

Extent

Ii+212+i; 426 x 310 mm bound to 435 x 340 mm

Foliation

Modern foliation in pencil, upper right and lower right recto; foliation in the upper right begins on the first leaf of the text; foliation in the lower right begins on the original pastedown immediately before the first leaf of the text; references in this record are to the foliation in the upper right

Collation

Model created; quires 10-11 and 16-17 uncertain

Signatures

Signatures sporadically visible in lower right rectos, beginning in the sixth quire, F-Z, &, and illegibly trimmed ones for quires 26 and 27

Support

Parchment

Catchwords

Horizontal catchwords, some with ornamental borders in ink in the form of scrolls, lower right last verso

Binding

Late seventeenth-century morocco; gilt spine with title Lidgate's Tragedies of Princes; remnants of clasps

Layout

Two columns of forty-six lines; frame-ruled in faint red ink with double horizontal bounding lines; headings written in red ink in the margins; pricking visible on many leaves; written area: 282 x 200 mm

Decoration

Seven miniatures copied from Burgundian models, each the width of one column, several with an arched top (fols. 4r, 74r, 105r, 126r, 146v, 169v, 198r), one at the beginning of each book except the second, where a space is left blank (fol. 44v), and the eighth, where the heading for the book after the prologue is omitted (fol. 181r); large initials, four- to seven-line, in gold on blue, green, pink, and red grounds with floral and foliate marginal extensions throughout; one-line initials at the beginning of each seven-line stanza, alternating between blue with red flourishing and gold with blue flourishing; letters in the top line of each page with calligraphic strapwork and extended ascenders

Script

Bâtarde

Provenance

• Fifteenth-century inscription, John Farlond (fol. 6r); sixteenth-century inscription, Egame Hawes (former pastedown verso); Sir Thomas Phillips, Phillipps MS 4254 (inside front cover; bottom margin, fol. 1r); acquired 1923
   

Related resources

• Philip H. & A.S.W. Rosenbach Foundation Museum. A Selection from Our Shelves: Books, Manuscripts, and Drawings from the Philip H. & A.S.W. Rosenbach Foundation Museum (Philadelphia: Philip H. & A.S.W. Rosenbach Foundation, 1973), no. 7.
• An exhibition of fifteenth-century manuscripts and books in honor of the six hundredth anniversary of the birth of Geoffrey Chaucer (1349-1400) March 25 to April 30, 1940 at the Rosenbach Company, New York City (New York: Rosenbach, 1940), pp. 14-15.
• Walters Art Gallery. Illuminated books of the Middle Ages and Renaissance : an exhibition held at the Baltimore Museum of Art, January 27-March 13 (Baltimore: Walters Art Gallery, 1949), p. 58, no. 158.

Keywords

• Biography
• 15th century
• English
• Central Arab lands (Near East)
• Egypt
• Greece
• Italy
• History
• Illumination
• Biblical

Licenses

• Text

  These images and the content of Rosenbach Museum & Library MS 439/16: Fall of princes 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, Rosenbach of the Free Library of Philadelphia has waived all copyright and related or neighboring rights to this metadata about Rosenbach Museum & Library MS 439/16: Fall of princes. 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 — Prologus
• fol. 4r — Liber primus
• fol. 43v — Prologus libri secundi
• fol. 44v — Liber secundus
• fol. 73r — Prologus libri tercii
• fol. 74r — Liber tercius
• fol. 103v — Prohemium libri quarti
• fol. 105r — Liber quartus
• fol. 126r — Liber quintus
• fol. 146v — Liber sextus
• fol. 169v — Liber septimus
• fol. 180r — Prohemium octavi libri
• fol. 181r — [Liber octavus]
• fol. 198r — Liber nonus

Decorations

• fol. 4r — Small miniature, Boccaccio in his study with Adam, Eve, and the serpent outside
• fol. 74r — Small miniature, Andalus writing with three students
• fol. 105r — Small miniature, Marcus Manlius in combat
• fol. 126r — Small miniature, Boccaccio in his study with three vain young men
• fol. 146v — Small miniature, Boccaccio asleep in his study with a vision of Fortune
• fol. 169v — Small miniature, Boccaccio in his study with Antony, Caesarius, and Agrippa
• fol. 198r — Small miniature, Boccaccio in his study, with the emperor Mauricius kneeling