.jpg?w=1)
.jpg?w=1)
.jpg?w=1)
.jpg?w=1)
Elementarium, in Latin, decorated and illustrated manuscript on vellum [North-Eastern Italy, 2nd half 13th century]
Details
Papias the Grammarian (fl.1040s–1060s)
Elementarium, in Latin, decorated and illustrated manuscript on vellum [North-Eastern Italy, 2nd half 13th century]
The ancestor of all modern dictionaries, extremely rarely found on the market, with the only other copy appearing on the market 120 years ago.
c.350 x 230mm., iv (paper) + 140 + ii (paper) leaves of sheepskin parchment, collation: 1–1010, 11–1410, catchwords throughout, ruled in leadpoint and written in rounded gothic script in two columns of 60 lines, c.260 × 165mm, decorated initials throughout, alternately red with blue penwork or vice versa, and one very large puzzle initial extending the very nearly the full height of the page, f.1, illustrated with diagrams at ff.101, 123v (the latter showing the universe, with the Earth at the centre surrounded by the Moon, Mercury, Venus, Sun, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, and the constellations), and two drawings of a papal seal f. 53v (probably lacking more than one gathering after f.100, and one or more leaves at the end, some minor creasing, thumbing, and general wear, but overall in very good condition). Bound in 19th-century Italian(?) quarter calf and brown marbled paper over pasteboards, the spine of gilt green leather with red leather title-piece lettered in gilt capitals ‘Papias Grammaticus Elementarium MS. Saec. XIII’, marbled endpapers (sound, but the edges somewhat worn).
Provenance:
(1) Sold at Ader-Picard-Tajan, Manuscrits à peintures, livres anciens, 19 October 1989, lot 61 (ill.).
(2) Thomas Malin Rodgers (1943–2012), Atlanta-based businessman and puzzle collector: his sale at Bonhams, New York, The Dictionary Collection of Thomas Malin Rodgers, 4 December 2012, lot 1006.
Contents:
Prologue, ‘Filie uterque carissime [sic] debui si potuissem […] f.1; Text, ‘In omnibus gentibus ideo prior est litterarum quod ipsa prior nascentibus vocem aperiat. Abba […]’ff. 1v–140v, ending imperfectly in ‘Yle’ at: ‘[…] visibilia elementa formata sunt. Unde [catchwords:] et eius divinatione’. The last entry for ‘O’ (Ozoli), with catchword ‘P littera cum h’, is on the last page of gathering 10 and gathering 11 starts in Q, thus all of P and part of Q are lacking here. The margins cite authorities using abbreviations in red ink, ‘ps’ (Priscianus), ‘hi’ (Hieronimus), ‘hy’ (Hysidorus), etc. The text includes tables of letters and numbers and mnemonics, e.g. ‘alfa, beta, gamma, delta […] Α, Β, Γ, Δ […] i. ii. iii. […]’, and a few diagrams.
Little is known about Papias, except that he may have lived at Pavia, and is therefore sometimes known as Papias ‘the Lombard’; other nicknames are ‘the Lexicographer’ and ‘the Grammarian’; this, his most famous work, is ‘the first fully recognizable dictionary’. It alphabetises words as far as their third letter. From references in the writings of other authors we know that it was begun before 1045 and was complete by 1053; it is also known by several names, including Alphabetum, Glossarium, Vocabularium, and Elementarium doctrinae rudimentum. It is discussed in detail by Filippo Bognini in La trasmissione dei testi latini del Medioevo / Mediaeval Latin Texts and their Transmission ed. by P. Chiesa and L. Castaldi, vol. IV (Florence, 2012), pp. 413–27, with a list of manuscripts at pp. 418–22.
While not rare in institutional libraries, the text appears to be very rare on the market: the Schoenberg Database records no other copies for sale since one was offered in Jacques Rosenthal’s Catalogue 62 (1906), now in the Bibliothèque nationale de France.
Elementarium, in Latin, decorated and illustrated manuscript on vellum [North-Eastern Italy, 2nd half 13th century]
The ancestor of all modern dictionaries, extremely rarely found on the market, with the only other copy appearing on the market 120 years ago.
c.350 x 230mm., iv (paper) + 140 + ii (paper) leaves of sheepskin parchment, collation: 1–1010, 11–1410, catchwords throughout, ruled in leadpoint and written in rounded gothic script in two columns of 60 lines, c.260 × 165mm, decorated initials throughout, alternately red with blue penwork or vice versa, and one very large puzzle initial extending the very nearly the full height of the page, f.1, illustrated with diagrams at ff.101, 123v (the latter showing the universe, with the Earth at the centre surrounded by the Moon, Mercury, Venus, Sun, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, and the constellations), and two drawings of a papal seal f. 53v (probably lacking more than one gathering after f.100, and one or more leaves at the end, some minor creasing, thumbing, and general wear, but overall in very good condition). Bound in 19th-century Italian(?) quarter calf and brown marbled paper over pasteboards, the spine of gilt green leather with red leather title-piece lettered in gilt capitals ‘Papias Grammaticus Elementarium MS. Saec. XIII’, marbled endpapers (sound, but the edges somewhat worn).
Provenance:
(1) Sold at Ader-Picard-Tajan, Manuscrits à peintures, livres anciens, 19 October 1989, lot 61 (ill.).
(2) Thomas Malin Rodgers (1943–2012), Atlanta-based businessman and puzzle collector: his sale at Bonhams, New York, The Dictionary Collection of Thomas Malin Rodgers, 4 December 2012, lot 1006.
Contents:
Prologue, ‘Filie uterque carissime [sic] debui si potuissem […] f.1; Text, ‘In omnibus gentibus ideo prior est litterarum quod ipsa prior nascentibus vocem aperiat. Abba […]’ff. 1v–140v, ending imperfectly in ‘Yle’ at: ‘[…] visibilia elementa formata sunt. Unde [catchwords:] et eius divinatione’. The last entry for ‘O’ (Ozoli), with catchword ‘P littera cum h’, is on the last page of gathering 10 and gathering 11 starts in Q, thus all of P and part of Q are lacking here. The margins cite authorities using abbreviations in red ink, ‘ps’ (Priscianus), ‘hi’ (Hieronimus), ‘hy’ (Hysidorus), etc. The text includes tables of letters and numbers and mnemonics, e.g. ‘alfa, beta, gamma, delta […] Α, Β, Γ, Δ […] i. ii. iii. […]’, and a few diagrams.
Little is known about Papias, except that he may have lived at Pavia, and is therefore sometimes known as Papias ‘the Lombard’; other nicknames are ‘the Lexicographer’ and ‘the Grammarian’; this, his most famous work, is ‘the first fully recognizable dictionary’. It alphabetises words as far as their third letter. From references in the writings of other authors we know that it was begun before 1045 and was complete by 1053; it is also known by several names, including Alphabetum, Glossarium, Vocabularium, and Elementarium doctrinae rudimentum. It is discussed in detail by Filippo Bognini in La trasmissione dei testi latini del Medioevo / Mediaeval Latin Texts and their Transmission ed. by P. Chiesa and L. Castaldi, vol. IV (Florence, 2012), pp. 413–27, with a list of manuscripts at pp. 418–22.
While not rare in institutional libraries, the text appears to be very rare on the market: the Schoenberg Database records no other copies for sale since one was offered in Jacques Rosenthal’s Catalogue 62 (1906), now in the Bibliothèque nationale de France.
Brought to you by
Eugenio Donadoni
Senior Specialist, Medieval & Renaissance Manuscripts