NKS 214 b 4°: Cicero, De inventione. Rhetorica ad Herennium. Boethius, De diff. topicis IV

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NKS 214 b 4°: Cicero, De inventione. Rhetorica ad Herennium. Boethius, De diff. topicis IV

Parchment, 101 ff. (IV-1 + 10 x IV + IV-1 + IV-1), c. 22,5 x 15,5 cm; Italy, saec. XII & XIII

The codex is made up of two components. The oldest and most extensive part is ff. 1-94 (= quires 1-12) with Cicero’s De inventione and the Rhetorica ad Herennium. Large painted initials mark the beginning of a new book; an initial has also been made on f. 86v at Rhetorica ad Herennium IV.47. Boethius’ De differentiis topicis, liber IV, has been copied in a later hand on ff. 95-101 (= quire 13)

Occasional notes have been added to the rhetorical texts in the main part, not to the text of Boethius. Five brief definitions have been recorded on the otherwise blank f. 94v. A leaf from a late medieval liturgical manuscript has been reused as cover for the binding. The lower inner part of f. 79 has been damaged, causing loss of text; the leaf has later been stabilized

The arms of Agostino Barbarigo, doge of Venice from 1486 to 1501, has been added in the lower margin of f. 1r. In the nineteenth century the volume belonged to Lud. Tross, con-rector in Hamm. It was sold to king Frederik VI and given to the Royal Library in 1838. Although neither Baden nor Werlauff mention De differentiis topicis IV, the two parts of the manuscript seem to have been united before the volume left Italy

Bibl.: T. Baden, Notitia cimelii bibliothecæ regiæ publicæ non in ultimis ponendi, Hafniæ 1838. - E. C. Werlauff, Historiske Efterretninger om det store kongelige Bibliothek i Kiøbenhavn, 1844, p. 357. - Ellen Jørgensen, Catalogus codicum Latinorum medii ævi Bibliothecæ Regiæ Hafniensis, Hafniæ 1926, p. 296 ('sæc. XIII'). - Birger Munk Olsen, L'Étude des auteurs classiques latins aux XIe et XIIe siècles, I, Paris 1982, p. 192 (f. 1-94: 'S. XII 2/2'); IV.2, 2014, p. 250. - Codices Boethiani. A conspectus of manuscripts of the works of Boethius, II, ed. Lesley Smith, London 2001 (= Warburg Institute surveys and texts, 27), p. 133 ('s. XIII 2/2')

Erik Petersen