Details
STATUTES OF MANTUA of 1303, in Latin, MANUSCRIPT ON VELLUM
[Mantua, first half of the 14th century]
346 x 263mm. i+101+i leaves: 1-28 35 (of 6; vi blank, cancelled) 4-58 62 7-98 102 114 12-138 144 15-162 (each lacking text; one quire evidently missing between them) 178; traces of early signatures in centre of lower margins (quire 1 signed with a and subsequent quires with two letters, i.e., quire 2 with a on first recto and b on last verso, quire 3 with b on first recto and c on last verso, etc.); a few catchwords, apparently 15th-century, in centre of lower margin on last verso; two early modern ink foliations, one (followed here) in upper right corner of recto (ff.1-102, including medieval flyleaves, f.37 twice), the other in center of upper margin (incomplete, with errors); double columns of 38 lines (ff.2-93) or 35 lines (ff.94-101); ruled in lead, justification 290 x 210mm (ff.2-93) or 315 x 210mm (ff.94-101); written in dark brown ink in Italian gothic rotunda script, by two principal hands; rubricated with section headings, 2-line initials in margins, and paragraph signs, all in red (notes for rubricator visible in margins); one red and blue divided pen-flourished initial on f. 94 (early repairs to many leaves, with text rewritten on vellum patches in hands of the 15th or early 16th century; f.71 torn and not repaired with loss of text; occasional early deletions, text still legible; marginalia in various late medieval and early modern hands, some cropped; ff.45-46 deeply stained with text partially obscured; ff.70-77 with fore-edges trimmed narrower than textblock; later notes and scribbles on text leaves ff.39v-47 and on originally blank folios; miscellaneous spotting and marginal stains). 19th-century marbled boards with sheep spine and corners (rubbed, joints split).
PROVENANCE:
1. BAYLARDINUS [?] DE NOGAROLIS: CANCELLED TEXT CONCERNING PRIVILEGES ACCORDED HIM AND HIS FAMILY, F.101V
2. NOTICES OF BIRTHS DATED 1408-22, F.101V; 1426-77, F.93V; 1428, F.22V
3. BONADEUS DE BONADEIS, BARRISTER AND NOTARY OF MANTUA: PARTIALLY ERASED INSCRIPTION, F.1; INSCRIPTION, F.102
4. BERNARDINUS DE BONADEIS, SON OF ANTONIUS DE BONADEIS, WHO HAD THE CODEX RESTORED, 'SUPRASCRIPTA STATUTA ... DOMINI BONADEI DE BONADEIS OLIM CAUSIDICI ET NOTARII MANTUANI VESTUTATE COLABENTES RESTAURARI FECI': INSCRIPTION DATED 14 FEBRUARY 1523, F.102
5. MARCHESE LANZONI: 'DE IURIBUS MARCH. LANZONI', INSCRIPTION, F.1
6. SIR THOMAS PHILLIPPS (1792-1872): HIS MS. 301, INKSTAMP AND NUMBER ON FRONT PASTEDOWN
CONTENTS:
Title: Statuta condita per ... viros dominos Raynaldum et Botironum fratrum [sic] de Bonacolsis vicarios imperiales perpetuos ciuitatis Mantue de anno millesimo trecentesimo tertia indictione prima de mense Septembris ... (f.1, in a hand of the 15th or 16th century); Primus liber de regimine potestatis et eius electione de maleficiis et aliis pertinentibus ad officium et de damnis datis (ff.2-22, f.22v blank); Secundus liber de causis criminalibus (f.23-39, f.39v blank); [Book III, without rubric, regulating commerce] (f.40-47, f.47v blank); Liber quartus de paraticis (ff.48-65, f.65v blank); Liber quintus de priuilegiis de oblatione et de festiuitate ecclesie maioris (ff.66-69, f.69v blank); De vicaria dominorum Raynaldi et Botironi fratrum de Bonacolsis (ff.70-77v); Liber septimus de electis officialibus (ff.78-85v); Liber statutum communis Mantue pertinentium ad officium inde deputati per dominos vicarios super aggentibus et laboreriis (ff.86-89v); Statuta loquencia super feudis (ff.90-90v); Super blado et legumine (ff.91-93, f. 91v blank but text is apparently continuous, f. 93v blank); De custodia vignalium (ff.94-101).
THE OLDEST MANUSCRIPT KNOWN OF THE STATUTES OF MANTUA OF 1303. Although various laws and privileges for Mantua survive from the 12th and 13th centuries, the statutes promulgated in 1303 under the tyrants Rainaldo and Botiro Bonacolsi appear to be the first substantial compilation of the laws of the city. The present manuscript is an early copy of that compilation. It also includes subsequent statutes dated between 1303 and 1313 and may have been copied before 1328, when the Bonacolsi were expelled by Luigi Gonzaga. This manuscript is the ultimate source of all printed descriptions and editions of the 1303 statutes of Mantua, since the later manuscripts that have served as sources for the published discussions derive from the present codex.
The statutes of Mantua promulgated by the Bonacolsi brothers were discussed and published by Carlo D'Arca in his Storia di Mantova (Mantua, 1871-1874, II, pp.45-309, III, pp.5-299). D'Arca's knowledge of the text derived from a copy made in 1780 from a manuscript he described as 'copia operata al 1523 da Bernardo Bonadei, notaio di Mantova ... in carta pergamena scritta in caratteri semigotici ed autenticta per mano di notaio del secolo XVI, esistente in casa Lanzoni'. This description corresponds clearly to the present manuscript, the whereabouts of which was not known when the Catalogo della raccolta di statuti of the Italian Biblioteca del Senato was compiled in the mid-20th century.
The description of the statutes given in the Catalogo della raccolta di statuti (IV, pp.191-93) corresponds in general to the present codex. However, examination of this manuscript suggests nuances of historical development and compilation that are not reflected in the published accounts. Although the statutes are described as being in 10 books, only the first five books are numbered in the original rubrics. The so-called Book 6, which names the Bonacolsi in its rubric, occupies in the present codex the quire that is trimmed differently from the others and interrupts the sequence of catchwords. The sections Statuta loquencia super feudis and Super blado et legumine appear to represent different books: each begins with a large indented 5-line initial, but quire 15 (ff.90-91) is now a made-up bifolium in which f.90r is signed n and f.90v is blank; the two leaves of quire 16 (ff.92-93) are conjugate and signed, f.92r with p and f.93v with q, which leaves quire o unaccounted for. At the end of the codex, the so-called Book 10, De custodia vignalium, is in a different hand with a different style of initial than the rest of the manuscript. Whatever the explanation of these features, this codex had assumed its present form by the early 15th century, when notices of births from 1408 to 1477 were entered on various of its blank pages, and well before its 'restoration' in the early 16th century, presumably the point at which the torn leaves were repaired and missing text provided. The present manuscript thus offers unique contemporary evidence for the development of the early laws of Mantua.
[Mantua, first half of the 14th century]
346 x 263mm. i+101+i leaves: 1-28 35 (of 6; vi blank, cancelled) 4-58 62 7-98 102 114 12-138 144 15-162 (each lacking text; one quire evidently missing between them) 178; traces of early signatures in centre of lower margins (quire 1 signed with a and subsequent quires with two letters, i.e., quire 2 with a on first recto and b on last verso, quire 3 with b on first recto and c on last verso, etc.); a few catchwords, apparently 15th-century, in centre of lower margin on last verso; two early modern ink foliations, one (followed here) in upper right corner of recto (ff.1-102, including medieval flyleaves, f.37 twice), the other in center of upper margin (incomplete, with errors); double columns of 38 lines (ff.2-93) or 35 lines (ff.94-101); ruled in lead, justification 290 x 210mm (ff.2-93) or 315 x 210mm (ff.94-101); written in dark brown ink in Italian gothic rotunda script, by two principal hands; rubricated with section headings, 2-line initials in margins, and paragraph signs, all in red (notes for rubricator visible in margins); one red and blue divided pen-flourished initial on f. 94 (early repairs to many leaves, with text rewritten on vellum patches in hands of the 15th or early 16th century; f.71 torn and not repaired with loss of text; occasional early deletions, text still legible; marginalia in various late medieval and early modern hands, some cropped; ff.45-46 deeply stained with text partially obscured; ff.70-77 with fore-edges trimmed narrower than textblock; later notes and scribbles on text leaves ff.39v-47 and on originally blank folios; miscellaneous spotting and marginal stains). 19th-century marbled boards with sheep spine and corners (rubbed, joints split).
PROVENANCE:
1. BAYLARDINUS [?] DE NOGAROLIS: CANCELLED TEXT CONCERNING PRIVILEGES ACCORDED HIM AND HIS FAMILY, F.101V
2. NOTICES OF BIRTHS DATED 1408-22, F.101V; 1426-77, F.93V; 1428, F.22V
3. BONADEUS DE BONADEIS, BARRISTER AND NOTARY OF MANTUA: PARTIALLY ERASED INSCRIPTION, F.1; INSCRIPTION, F.102
4. BERNARDINUS DE BONADEIS, SON OF ANTONIUS DE BONADEIS, WHO HAD THE CODEX RESTORED, 'SUPRASCRIPTA STATUTA ... DOMINI BONADEI DE BONADEIS OLIM CAUSIDICI ET NOTARII MANTUANI VESTUTATE COLABENTES RESTAURARI FECI': INSCRIPTION DATED 14 FEBRUARY 1523, F.102
5. MARCHESE LANZONI: 'DE IURIBUS MARCH. LANZONI', INSCRIPTION, F.1
6. SIR THOMAS PHILLIPPS (1792-1872): HIS MS. 301, INKSTAMP AND NUMBER ON FRONT PASTEDOWN
CONTENTS:
Title: Statuta condita per ... viros dominos Raynaldum et Botironum fratrum [sic] de Bonacolsis vicarios imperiales perpetuos ciuitatis Mantue de anno millesimo trecentesimo tertia indictione prima de mense Septembris ... (f.1, in a hand of the 15th or 16th century); Primus liber de regimine potestatis et eius electione de maleficiis et aliis pertinentibus ad officium et de damnis datis (ff.2-22, f.22v blank); Secundus liber de causis criminalibus (f.23-39, f.39v blank); [Book III, without rubric, regulating commerce] (f.40-47, f.47v blank); Liber quartus de paraticis (ff.48-65, f.65v blank); Liber quintus de priuilegiis de oblatione et de festiuitate ecclesie maioris (ff.66-69, f.69v blank); De vicaria dominorum Raynaldi et Botironi fratrum de Bonacolsis (ff.70-77v); Liber septimus de electis officialibus (ff.78-85v); Liber statutum communis Mantue pertinentium ad officium inde deputati per dominos vicarios super aggentibus et laboreriis (ff.86-89v); Statuta loquencia super feudis (ff.90-90v); Super blado et legumine (ff.91-93, f. 91v blank but text is apparently continuous, f. 93v blank); De custodia vignalium (ff.94-101).
THE OLDEST MANUSCRIPT KNOWN OF THE STATUTES OF MANTUA OF 1303. Although various laws and privileges for Mantua survive from the 12th and 13th centuries, the statutes promulgated in 1303 under the tyrants Rainaldo and Botiro Bonacolsi appear to be the first substantial compilation of the laws of the city. The present manuscript is an early copy of that compilation. It also includes subsequent statutes dated between 1303 and 1313 and may have been copied before 1328, when the Bonacolsi were expelled by Luigi Gonzaga. This manuscript is the ultimate source of all printed descriptions and editions of the 1303 statutes of Mantua, since the later manuscripts that have served as sources for the published discussions derive from the present codex.
The statutes of Mantua promulgated by the Bonacolsi brothers were discussed and published by Carlo D'Arca in his Storia di Mantova (Mantua, 1871-1874, II, pp.45-309, III, pp.5-299). D'Arca's knowledge of the text derived from a copy made in 1780 from a manuscript he described as 'copia operata al 1523 da Bernardo Bonadei, notaio di Mantova ... in carta pergamena scritta in caratteri semigotici ed autenticta per mano di notaio del secolo XVI, esistente in casa Lanzoni'. This description corresponds clearly to the present manuscript, the whereabouts of which was not known when the Catalogo della raccolta di statuti of the Italian Biblioteca del Senato was compiled in the mid-20th century.
The description of the statutes given in the Catalogo della raccolta di statuti (IV, pp.191-93) corresponds in general to the present codex. However, examination of this manuscript suggests nuances of historical development and compilation that are not reflected in the published accounts. Although the statutes are described as being in 10 books, only the first five books are numbered in the original rubrics. The so-called Book 6, which names the Bonacolsi in its rubric, occupies in the present codex the quire that is trimmed differently from the others and interrupts the sequence of catchwords. The sections Statuta loquencia super feudis and Super blado et legumine appear to represent different books: each begins with a large indented 5-line initial, but quire 15 (ff.90-91) is now a made-up bifolium in which f.90r is signed n and f.90v is blank; the two leaves of quire 16 (ff.92-93) are conjugate and signed, f.92r with p and f.93v with q, which leaves quire o unaccounted for. At the end of the codex, the so-called Book 10, De custodia vignalium, is in a different hand with a different style of initial than the rest of the manuscript. Whatever the explanation of these features, this codex had assumed its present form by the early 15th century, when notices of births from 1408 to 1477 were entered on various of its blank pages, and well before its 'restoration' in the early 16th century, presumably the point at which the torn leaves were repaired and missing text provided. The present manuscript thus offers unique contemporary evidence for the development of the early laws of Mantua.