Parchment, 81ff., 23,5 × 15,5 cm; Italy (Florence), c. 1450
Humanist manuscript containing two classical works by Sallustius, Bellum Catilinarium (or Catilinae conjuratio) and Bellum Jugurthinum.The late (and sometimes imprecise) copy is unimportant as a source to the transmission of the texts. The importance of the manuscript, written in the characteristic humanistic script and beautifully ornamented, is rather linked to the high esteem of the Renaissance for classical texts and ancient culture that it reflects
The manuscript was made on behalf of Vespasiano da Bisticci (1421-1498) in Florence. Shortly after its production it belonged John Tiptoft, earl of Worcester, who stayed in Padua 1459-1461. Here Tiptoft presented the manuscript as a gift to his fellow countryman Peter Courtenay in 1460. Whether the manuscript ever came to England is unknown. The Danish scholar Frederik Rostgaard acquired the manuscript in Venice in 1699. For a brief period it belonged to count Christian Danneskiold-Samsøe. The Royal Library bought the manuscript at the auction of his library in 1732
Bibl.: Ellen Jørgensen, Catalogus codicum Latinorum medii ævi Bibliothecæ Regiæ Hafniensis, Copenhagen 1926, p. 322. - Roberto Weiss in The Bodleian Quarterly Record, VIII (1935-1938), p. 234f. - R. J. Mitchell, John Tiptoft (1427-1470), London 1938, p. 64, 164f., 208. - Roberto Weiss, Humanism in England during the Fifteenth Century, 3rd ed., Oxford 1967, p. 114-117. - Josef Delz in Italia Medioevale e Umanistica, XI (1968), p. 313f. - Albinia C. de la Mare in Miniatura fiorentina del Rinacimento 1440-1525. Un primo censimento, I, ed. A. Garzelli, Firenze 1985, p. 544. - Albinia C. de la Mare in Medieval Manuscripts of the Latin Classics: Production and Use, edd. C. A. Chavannes-Mazal & Margaret M. Smith, London 1996, p. 206
Erik Petersen
