Details
PETRARCA, Francesco (1304-1374), PORCARI, Stefano (d.1453), FILELFO, Francesco (1398-1481), BRUNI, Leonardo (?1370-1444), MANETTI, Giannozzo (1369-1459): various orations and epistles, in Italian and Latin, ILLUMINATED MANUSCRIPT ON VELLUM
[Florence, ca. 1460]
225 x160mm. 1-610, 72 COMPLETE, catchwords in the middle of the lower margin, 29 lines written in brown ink in a semi-gothic bookhand, justification: 150 x 62mm, rubrics in red, two- to three-line initials of red or blue with penwork flourishing of lilac or red extending up the margins, HISTORIATED INITIAL WITH A PORTRAIT OF PETRARCH AND A THREE-SIDED BORDER made up of foliage of pink blue and green with burnished gold infills and disks on penwork tendrils and including a bird and two putti holding a wreath (opening folio smudged and rubbed, arms erased, light worming final folios). Original panelled goatskin with rope-work border and central sections and roundel stamped in blind, trefoil catches on lower cover and star-shaped studs on upper cover holding remains of silk-covered clasps, spine in five compartments (three corners and head and foot of spine restored, light worming, upper cover worn, endpapers stained and rusted), modern black morocco box.
PROVENANCE:
1. It is likely that the arms on the opening folio were those of the original owner; these are now almost entirely erased but it is possible to see that the upper half of the shield was divided per pale on an azure field.
2. Sir Edward Dering, sale at Puttick's 13 July 1865
3. Sir Thomas Phillipps: spine label 23255, Sotheby's 26 June 1919, lot 68
4. Martini sale at Hoepli, Lugano, August 1934, lot 144
CONTENTS
Francesco Petrarch, epistle to Niccolò Acciaiuoli ff.1-8; Lentulo, Roman official, epistle ff.8-8v; Stefano Porcari, orations in Florence in connection with his office as Capitano del Popolo ff.9v-18; Leonardo Bruni, oration on the nomination of Niccolò da Tolentino as Capitano di guerra for the city of Florence ff.18v-22; Stefano Porcari, orations in Florence and Rome ff.22-42; a foreign scholar's oration arguing for an increase in the study of science and the liberal arts in Florence ff.42-44v; Francesco Filelfo, oration introducing the cycle of lectures on Dante ff.44v-47; Leonardo Bruni, epistle to the inhabitants of Volterra ff.47-48; Giannozzo Manetti, protest held at Florence ff.48-55v; anonymous letter sent to a man cured of illness ff.55v-61
The manuscript is signed below the text on f.61 'Pierus s[er] Bonachu[r]sii Not[arius]'. Piero Buonaccorsi (1410-77) was the son of a notary who died early leaving a large family and larger debts. Piero, a notary himself, was the only one of the heirs who was earning and he had to assume responsibility for the debts and the family's upkeep. He worked first for the vintners' guild and then for the Comune; in 1441 he was chancellor of the Signoria of Florence. His weighty family obligations continued, and throughout his life he struggled to keep financial ruin at bay. His sole consolation was his love of Dante, whom he studied with passion. His 1430 transcription of the Divine Comedy survives (Florence, Bib. Riccardiana 1038). He was the author of a short pious and moral tract Quadragesimale but his most famous original work is his commentary on the Divine Comedy, written in the form of epistles to Romolo de' Medici of the Franciscan convent of S. Croce in Florence. The first of these Epistole is better known as the Cammino di Dante.
Many of the texts gathered together here were orations originally delivered in Florence, usually from the ringhiera of the Palazzo Signoria, the orator standing beside the marzocco, the statue of the heraldic lion symbolic of Florentine jurisdiction and justice. The manuscript must date after January 1452 (1453 n.s.) the latest date mentioned in the text, when Stefano Porcari was suspended from office.
The letter to Acciaiuoli on the nature of kingship is one of very few letters by Petrarch to have been translated from the Latin; it has been suggested that it was translated especially for use in such collections of orations and epistles as the present manuscript: Michele Feo, Codici latini del Petrarca nelle biblioteche fiorentine (Florence, 1991) p.151. Although there was no standardised selection, Petrarch's letter almost always appears alongside orations by Bruni, Porcari and Filelfo. Numerous similar anthologies survive, although more usually on paper rather than vellum, and only modestly decorated - for example Marston 247 and Ms 329 of the Beinecke Library, Yale. They appear to have had an instructional purpose serving Florentine civic humanism, abd bringing together models of two genres of civic address, oratory and epistolography.
The opening folio with the portrait of Petrarch is by Bartolommeo di Antonio Varnucci (1410-79) and bears a strong resemblance to his author portrait of the jurist Antonio Roselli in the copy of Monarchia, sive tractatus de potestate imperatoris et papae (Paris, Bib. Nat. latin 4237): Dix siècles d'enluminure italienne (Paris, 1984), no 98.
[Florence, ca. 1460]
225 x160mm. 1-610, 72 COMPLETE, catchwords in the middle of the lower margin, 29 lines written in brown ink in a semi-gothic bookhand, justification: 150 x 62mm, rubrics in red, two- to three-line initials of red or blue with penwork flourishing of lilac or red extending up the margins, HISTORIATED INITIAL WITH A PORTRAIT OF PETRARCH AND A THREE-SIDED BORDER made up of foliage of pink blue and green with burnished gold infills and disks on penwork tendrils and including a bird and two putti holding a wreath (opening folio smudged and rubbed, arms erased, light worming final folios). Original panelled goatskin with rope-work border and central sections and roundel stamped in blind, trefoil catches on lower cover and star-shaped studs on upper cover holding remains of silk-covered clasps, spine in five compartments (three corners and head and foot of spine restored, light worming, upper cover worn, endpapers stained and rusted), modern black morocco box.
PROVENANCE:
1. It is likely that the arms on the opening folio were those of the original owner; these are now almost entirely erased but it is possible to see that the upper half of the shield was divided per pale on an azure field.
2. Sir Edward Dering, sale at Puttick's 13 July 1865
3. Sir Thomas Phillipps: spine label 23255, Sotheby's 26 June 1919, lot 68
4. Martini sale at Hoepli, Lugano, August 1934, lot 144
CONTENTS
Francesco Petrarch, epistle to Niccolò Acciaiuoli ff.1-8; Lentulo, Roman official, epistle ff.8-8v; Stefano Porcari, orations in Florence in connection with his office as Capitano del Popolo ff.9v-18; Leonardo Bruni, oration on the nomination of Niccolò da Tolentino as Capitano di guerra for the city of Florence ff.18v-22; Stefano Porcari, orations in Florence and Rome ff.22-42; a foreign scholar's oration arguing for an increase in the study of science and the liberal arts in Florence ff.42-44v; Francesco Filelfo, oration introducing the cycle of lectures on Dante ff.44v-47; Leonardo Bruni, epistle to the inhabitants of Volterra ff.47-48; Giannozzo Manetti, protest held at Florence ff.48-55v; anonymous letter sent to a man cured of illness ff.55v-61
The manuscript is signed below the text on f.61 'Pierus s[er] Bonachu[r]sii Not[arius]'. Piero Buonaccorsi (1410-77) was the son of a notary who died early leaving a large family and larger debts. Piero, a notary himself, was the only one of the heirs who was earning and he had to assume responsibility for the debts and the family's upkeep. He worked first for the vintners' guild and then for the Comune; in 1441 he was chancellor of the Signoria of Florence. His weighty family obligations continued, and throughout his life he struggled to keep financial ruin at bay. His sole consolation was his love of Dante, whom he studied with passion. His 1430 transcription of the Divine Comedy survives (Florence, Bib. Riccardiana 1038). He was the author of a short pious and moral tract Quadragesimale but his most famous original work is his commentary on the Divine Comedy, written in the form of epistles to Romolo de' Medici of the Franciscan convent of S. Croce in Florence. The first of these Epistole is better known as the Cammino di Dante.
Many of the texts gathered together here were orations originally delivered in Florence, usually from the ringhiera of the Palazzo Signoria, the orator standing beside the marzocco, the statue of the heraldic lion symbolic of Florentine jurisdiction and justice. The manuscript must date after January 1452 (1453 n.s.) the latest date mentioned in the text, when Stefano Porcari was suspended from office.
The letter to Acciaiuoli on the nature of kingship is one of very few letters by Petrarch to have been translated from the Latin; it has been suggested that it was translated especially for use in such collections of orations and epistles as the present manuscript: Michele Feo, Codici latini del Petrarca nelle biblioteche fiorentine (Florence, 1991) p.151. Although there was no standardised selection, Petrarch's letter almost always appears alongside orations by Bruni, Porcari and Filelfo. Numerous similar anthologies survive, although more usually on paper rather than vellum, and only modestly decorated - for example Marston 247 and Ms 329 of the Beinecke Library, Yale. They appear to have had an instructional purpose serving Florentine civic humanism, abd bringing together models of two genres of civic address, oratory and epistolography.
The opening folio with the portrait of Petrarch is by Bartolommeo di Antonio Varnucci (1410-79) and bears a strong resemblance to his author portrait of the jurist Antonio Roselli in the copy of Monarchia, sive tractatus de potestate imperatoris et papae (Paris, Bib. Nat. latin 4237): Dix siècles d'enluminure italienne (Paris, 1984), no 98.
Sale room notice
It is likely that Piero Buonaccorsi was the original author of the final text included here, rather than the scribe of the manuscript.