Epistolae ad familiares
- Creator:
- Gellius, Aulus
- Published/Created:
- Northwestern Italy; Netherlands,
[ca. 1400; between 1415 and 1431] - Physical Description:
- ff. i + i + 182 + i + i : parchment ; 263 x 180 (180 x 117) mm.
- Notes:
- Script: Written in a neat fere-humanistic hand by a single scribe, below top line.
14 elegant illuminated initials and partial borders at the beginning of each of the 16 books (the opening pages of Books XII and XV have been excised). Initials, 5- to 3-line, blue with white filigree or red with gold filigree on cusped grounds of gold. Most of the illuminated initials filled with bust-length portraits, presumably of Cicero's correspondents, on red, blue or diapered ground. Some initials filled with vine scrolls with trilobe leaves in red with white highlights against gold ground. Partial borders, scrolling vine with trilobe leaves or acanthus in blue, pink, red and gold with white highlights and green, red and blue with gold highlights. Small figures of angels, dressed in green with gold wings in borders or margins, some playing musical instruments, one holding an open book, one holding the cloth of Veronica. Other marginal figures include the "Agnus Dei" and a pelican piercing its breast. The figures are all characterized by white faces, small angled black eyes, and a preference for green and gold, the green with contour lines in gold. Plain initials alternate red and blue. Rubrics throughout.
Binding: Nineteenth century, France (?). Red velvet case with a dark green gold-tooled label: "M. T. Ciceronis Epistolae Ad Familiares MS. in Membranis". Gilt edges.
Imperfect: incomplete, some leaves wanting with loss of text. - Abstract:
- Manuscript on parchment (hairside yellow and speckled) of Cicero, Epistolae ad familiares. With Extract from Aulus Gellius, Noctes Atticae III.8.8: Epistula Fabricii et Aemilii consulum ad Pyrrhum regem. The text was copied ca. 1400 and the border decoration added between ca. 1415 and 1431.
- Associated Names:
- Cicero, Marcus Tullius [Creator]
- Topics:
- Illumination of books and manuscripts, Medieval
Manuscripts, Medieval--Connecticut--New Haven
Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts in Beinecke Library - Language:
- Latin
- Genre:
- Hand coloring
Historiated initials
Illuminated manuscripts
Marginalia
Rubrics - Format:
- Text
- Content Type:
- Archives or Manuscripts
- Rights:
- The use of this image may be subject to the copyright law of the United States (Title 17, United States Code) or to site license or other rights management terms and conditions. The person using the image is liable for any infringement.
- Access Restrictions:
- Public
- Call Number:
- Marston MS 59
- Orbis Record:
- 9807165
- Yale Collection:
- Beinecke Library
- Digital Collection:
- General Collection, BRBL, Yale University
- oid pointer:
- 11422962
- Citation:
- Shailor, B. Catalogue of Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts in the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Marston MS 59.
Cicero, Epistolae ad Familiares. General Collection, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University. - Extent of digitization:
- Complete work digitized.
- OID:
- 10269813
- PID:
- digcoll:3759160
