LAMBERT OF AUXERRE (d.1270), Summa logicae, in Latin, ILLUMINATED MANUSCRIPT ON VELLUM
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LAMBERT OF AUXERRE (d.1270), Summa logicae, in Latin, ILLUMINATED MANUSCRIPT ON VELLUM

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LAMBERT OF AUXERRE (d.1270), Summa logicae, in Latin, ILLUMINATED MANUSCRIPT ON VELLUM

[northern France, probably Paris, 3rd quarter 13th century]
210 x 155mm. 60 leaves: 1-312, 410, 512, 62(two consecutive singletons from a gathering of unknown length), 'primus sexternus' written in lower margin of first folio and catchwords on final versos, two columns of 47 lines written in brown ink in a small cursive hand between 48 horizontals and four verticals ruled in plummet, justification: 140 x 54-9-54mm, paraphs alternately red or blue, three-line initials alternately of red or blue flourished with the other colour, ILLUMINATED FOLIATE INITIAL of burnished gold, red, blue and pink (glue from spine spread onto endleaf causing lifting of first words of five lines of text and section of illuminated bar border from fol.1, ink spots at inner corner of upper edges). 19th-century paper (spine lacking, gatherings disbound).

PROVENANCE:

The manuscript is likely to have been no 210 in the sale of Mr Hall's books at Howe, Leonard & Co, Boston, Mass., 9 November 1846. In 1921 it was given by the Reverend Appleton Grannis to the library of the Episcopal Theological School, Cambridge, Mass. It was published by the School's Instructor in Church History, the Reverend J.R. Wright in Bulletin de philosophie médiévale, 8-9, 1966-7. The ETS became part of the Episcopal Divinity School, the present owners of the manuscript in 1974.

CONTENT:

Lambert of Auxerre, Summa logicae ff.1-47 (Explicit 'Sum[m]ula ma[gist]ri Lamb[er]ti fratris de s[an]c[t]o victore); followed by further unidentified texts opening 'Circa pueriles disputationes' f.47-52 and 'Sequitur de impersonalibus...' f.52-60v (lacking end), described by Alessio as 'Anonimi summa supra omnes partes orationis' and 'Anonimi tractatus de grammatica'.

The Dominican Lambert of Auxerre is believed to have written his Summa around 1260-65. Covering the whole field of medieval logic, it combined the materials of Aristotle's writing with the more recent developments of medieval semantic theory, the 'properties of terms'. This manuscript is one of only five identified as representing the authentic tradition of the text descended from the exemplar of Lambert: ed. F. Alessio, Lamberto d'Auxerre, Logica (Summa Lamberti), 1971. It is included among only eleven surviving manuscripts of either the authentic or interpolated versions listed in T. Kaeppeli, Scriptores Ordinis Praedicatorum Medii Aevi, III, 1980, pp.57-58.

The style of the illumination suggests that the manuscript was produced either before, or within a few years of, the author's death and probably in Paris. Lambert was buried at St Jacques, the Dominican house in Paris that was a centre of production for Dominican texts and manuscripts intended for Dominican readers. The manuscript could well have been written there and it would be worth considering whether the unidentified texts are unknown works by Lambert.

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