Details

Standardized Title:

Bellum Catilinae

Subjects:

Jugurthine War, 111-105 B.C.
Rome -- History -- Conspiracy of Catiline, 65-62 B.C.

Form/Genre:

Codices (bound manuscripts)
Histories (literary works)
Annotations.
Manuscripts, Renaissance.

Language:

Latin.

Summary:

Humanist copy of Sallust's works on the history of Rome, with contemporary and later annotations, including alternate readings, some of which were incorporated into the text as corrections.

Contents:

1. f.1r-53r: De Catheline conjuracione liber.
2. f.53r-160v: Jugurtinum bellum.

Notes:

Ms. codex.
Title from rubrics (f. 1r, 53r).
Foliation: Parchment, i + 160 + i; 1-160 ; contemporary foliation in ink, upper right recto.
Layout: Written in 22 long lines ; frame-ruled in drypoint.
Script: Written in a humanistic book script.
Decoration: 1 6-line illuminated initial in blue, red, and green on gold (f. 1r); 1 5-line initial in gold on a shaped ground of white vine work filled with red, green, and blue (f. 53v); partially effaced coat of arms (f. 1r); 2- and 3-line initials alternately in red or blue; rubrics and some annotations in faded red ink.
Binding: Contemporary Italian blind-tooled goatskin over wooden boards; remnants of three clasps and red silk straps, one in the center of each edge; spine largely gone; pastedowns and conjugate flyleaves from a 14th-century manuscript, possibly a grammatical text, written in littera bononiensis with red or blue initials with contrasting flourishing, very faded.
Origin: Possibly written in Padua, between 1455 and 1465.

Local notes:

Lawrence J. Schoenberg & Barbara Brizdle Manuscript Initiative.

Penn Provenance:

Copied for and owned by members of the Maffei family of Volterra, west of Siena (coat of arms, f. 1r; erased inscription of Mario Maffei and possible 16th-century reference to his descendents, verso of back flyleaf).
Formerly owned by Clemented Carilli da Volterra, 17th century (inscription, f. 155v).
Formerly owned by Giuseppe Antonio Saccardini di Volterra dated 1666 (verso of back flyleaf).
Sold at auction at Christie's, 7 June 2000, lot 9, to Lawrence J. Schoenberg.
Deposit by Lawrence J. Schoenberg and Barbara Brizdle, 2012.
Gift of Barbara Brizdle Schoenberg, 2021.

Cited in:

Described in Transformation of knowledge: early manuscripts from the collection of Lawrence J. Schoenberg (London: Paul Holberton, 2006), p. 144-145 (LJS 381).

Publications about:

Herman, Nicholas. Making the Renaissance Manuscript: Discoveries from Philadelphia Libraries (exh. cat.). Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Libraries, 2020. 186-87 (cat. 51).

Cited as:

LJS 381.

Contributor:

Maffei, Mario, 1463-1537, former owner.
Carilli, Clemente, former owner.
Saccardini, Giuseppe Antonio, former owner.
Lawrence J. Schoenberg Collection (University of Pennsylvania)

Contains:

Bellum Jugurthinum.

OCLC:

802407359

Web link:

The Lawrence J. Schoenberg and Barbara Brizdle Manuscript Initiative Fund Home Page