Beschreibung:

Illuminated manuscript on vellum in French, Le livre nomme Decacornon (The Book called Decacornon), France (Paris?), first half of the fifteenth century, 293 x 217 mm. 90 leaves (complete). Collation: ii + [1-98 106 118 124] + ii, with horizontal catchwords on last verso of each quire. Written in French bâtarde script in 2 columns of 37 or 38 lines. Columns ruled in blind with vertical bounding lines; prickings occasionally visible in upper or lower margins; horizontal ruling only occasionally visible; written area: 215 x 150 mm. Chapter headings entered in red through f. 9r; later spaces left blank or filled in by readers. Alternating red and blue paragraph signs in text; occasional red underlines in text. Chapters begin with two-line initials alternating in red and blue, with flourishing in the opposite color (many rubbed or smudged). Two larger initials particolored in red and blue with flourishing in both colors, ff. 40v and 82v. One half-page miniature, f. 1r, depicting Daniel lying in bed under a red coverlet with red and yellow pillows, under an orange canopy, viewing a lion-like beast emerging from a den on a hillside, the beast with ten horns as described in the Biblical book of Daniel (miniature rubbed; see further discussion of Daniel below), partial ivy-leaf border with the miniature. Frequent marginal annotations by several later readers. (Many vellum leaves with original slits formerly closed by sewing. F. 1r with opening initial removed and the first eleven lines damaged with partial loss of text (also on verso); this hole patched with a fragment of a different manuscript. Erasure in bottom margin of f. 1 leaving two holes. Several leaves with original patches over natural holes, several patches detached or partially detached but present, those on ff. 19 and 21 with original text; others in blank areas.) Bound in early 19th-century French quarter calf and mottled boards (top of spine defective, rear hinge splitting).
Contents: (f. 1r) "Cy commence le livre qui est nomme decacornon pour ce quil traicte des dix commandements de la loy selon les .x. cornes de la quarte beste qui apparuit a Danyel" ... (f.90v) "Cy fine le livre nomme Decacornon Deo gracias."
Provenance: Ex libris Ludovici Grandinet (erased inscription on second front flyleaf); Abbe Joseph-Felix Allard (1795-1831); Sir Thomas Phillipps, MS 3743 (Middle Hill stamp on front pastedown; inscription on first front flyleaf).
ONLY ONE OTHER COPY KNOWN.
AN EXCEPTIONAL MEDIEVAL MIRROR-FOR-PRINCES MANUSCRIPT USING THE TEN COMMANDMENTS AS A FRAMEWORK TO TEACH THE PRINCIPLES OF GOOD GOVERNMENT. Embracing the central theses of Aristotelian and Platonic ideas of government, the author of the Decacornon suggests that good government is essentially rooted in the king's own attention to virtue, and that the attributes of good kingship, such as prudence, temperance, judgment, all have their basis in the practice of the ten commandments. The Decacornon is composed with a sophisticated sensibility and wide-ranging intellectuality, quoting from the great classical philosophers Plato, Aristotle, and Boethius, and even referencing Maimonides, alongside the standard biblical religious texts, as well as incorporating secular history and literary romance.
The Decacornon was likely composed during the reign of Charles V of France (reign 1364-1380), also known as Charles the Wise. Charles V was by all accounts a pillar of good governance, and embraced the scientific political theory of Plato and Aristotle. Believing in the importance of books and manuscripts to upholding the continuation of good governance, upon assuming the throne in 1564, he commissioned the rebuilding of the Louvre, including a new three-story library. In a conscious effort to legitimate the Valois dynasty and to provide useful tools for his successors, Charles commissioned translations of classical texts, including Aristotle and Plato, as well as the composition of new French texts. According to Claire Sherman, "His carefully organized collection included Mirror of Princes texts on the moral and political education of rulers as well as political treatises and historical writings" (Sherman, p 6). His first biographer, Christine de Pizan, in her 1404 work "stresses the moral and educational functions of the translations, citing the king's concern for future generations" (Sherman, p 7). Whether commissioned by Charles V, inspired by Charles V, or even translated for Charles V from an unknown source, the Decacornon serves as a fine reflection of Charles V's own high-minded idea of kingship, morality, and the importance of instruction in all of the arts and sciences.
Only two manuscript copies of the Decacornon are known to exist: the present exemplar and one bound with other 15th-century material at the Bibliotheque National in France (BNF fr. 24433). This BNF copy, written on paper, contains a copied text full of oversights and errors of transcription, its miniature relatively unaccomplished and sketch-like. A few mentions of the Decacornon are to be found in the inventories of older manuscript collections, but the whereabouts of these copies are unknown. The first recorded copy of the work appears in the detailed inventory of Charles V's library in 1374 as item 206 (Delisle, Recherches sur la librairie de Charles V, 1102), described as "en petit volume." This is possibly the same volume described ("un petit volume") in the library of Charles, Duc d'Orleans in 1496, although the binding differs. Labbe's Nova bibliotheca manuscriptorum (1653) lists a copy of the Decacornon bound with another 15th century text at the Bibliotheque Royale, again apparently lost, and a 1660s library catalogue of the Augustines Dechausses of Croix-Rousse in Lyon lists a "folio" copy of the Decacornon within the Abbey's library. We think it likely our copy is actually the Dechausses copy, which may have been sold to Sir Thomas Phillips by L'Abbe Allard, who is known to have sold a number of manuscripts from Abbeys throughout Europe.
An outstanding example of the "mirror for princes" genre, the Decacornon serves as an important asset for deepening our understanding both of the ideals of Charles V as well as Europe's transition from the Dark Ages to the early Renaissance. The Decacornon has not been formally studied by scholarship, but the text appears unique in its use of the ten commandments as a structure for discussing political theory and good kingship. The ten-horned beast from which the text takes its name (and its opening miniature) comes from the book of Daniel (7:7), a vision typically interpreted as prophesying the rise of a great and dominating political power under Christian kingship – an interpretation altogether in accord with Charles V's practical achievements and his utopian political ideals.
References:
Delisle, Recherches sur la librairie de Charles V, Paris, 1907.
Sherman, Imagining Aristotle: Verbal and Visual Representation in Fourteenth-Century France, Berkeley, 1995.