Fabr. 80 8°: Franciscus Petrarca, Bucolicum carmen

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Fabr. 80 8°: Franciscus Petrarca, Bucolicum carmen

Parchment, 41 ff., ca. 21 × 12 cm; Italy, 15th Century

Petrarch’s Bucolicum carmen, a collection of 12 Latin eclogues, was composed between 1346 and 1348

This manuscript is complete but was never finished. Space has been left open for initials, and the first line of the first eclogue is missing. It was clearly the plan that the initials and the first line of Ecl. I should have a more elaborate form than the rest of the text

The manuscript once belonged to Marquard Gude (1635-1689). It was acquired by Johann Albert Fabricius (1668-1736) at the only partially completed auctions of Gude's manuscripts in Hamburg 1706 & 1709. Fabricius' manuscript collection was inherited by his son-in-law Hermann Samuel Reimarus, after whose death in 1768 it was bought as an ensemble by Copenhagen University Library in 1770. The entire University Library collection of manuscripts was incorporated into the Royal Library in 1938

Bibl.: Erik Petersen, Intellectum Liberare. Johann Albert Fabricius - en humanist i Europa. København 1998, p. 1062

Erik Petersen