OVIDIUS NASO, Publius. Libro delle Pistole [Heroides], in Italian, ILLUMINATED MANUSCRIPT ON VELLUM [Florence, copied by Belloncio di Gherardo, 20 May 1393] 280 x 200 mm, 62 leaves + 2 original flyleaves (originally paste-downs). COMPLETE. Collation: 1-8 8 (8/5-6 cancelled blanks, 8/8 blank), with catchwords and contemporary foliation, 30 lines, ruled in ink, justification: 189 x 225mm, written in brown ink in a fine semi-gothic cursive bookhand, rubrics in red, 35 three- and four-line calligraphic initials, alternately in blue and red, with penwork decoration, LARGE HISTORIATED INITIAL on f.1 (70 x 72mm) within full ILLUMINATED BORDER (a little rubbed). (Tear in f.2 repaired with loss of text affecting about 15 words; lower blank margin of ff. 28 and 29 repaired, not affecting text; some soiling and staining throughout; flyleaves somewhat wormed, backed with paper.) Limp grey Middle Hill paper boards (stitching partly broken), in buckram case. PROVENANCE: 1. Copied and signed by Belloncio di Gherardo, who writes on back fly-leaf 'Questo libro ascripto belloncio gherardi finito ogi questo di xx dimaggio a ore xxi½, 1393'. 2. Nicholas de Bernardo, 1457. Erased inscription on rear fly-leaf, partly legible under ultra-violet light. He seems to have been responsible for the list of contents of the volume on the front fly-leaf. 3. Sir Thomas Phillipps. MS 11865 ('ex bibl. variis'). Number and stamp on last fly-leaf, inside upper cover and label on spine. TEXT: An anonymous Florentine verse translation, the most popular version of Ovid's Heroides in Renaissance Italy. This is one of the earliest known copies of this translation and particularly important as it is the only one to suggest the name of the translator, who writes in the colophon on f.60v 'Qui finisce libro delle Pistole dovidio traslatate di gramatica in volgare fiorentino. Qui scripsit scribat semper com domino vivat F A magister puerorum'. This may be a Filippo Alberto, as the translation is ascribed to 'Ser Alberto' in two Florence manuscripts, and since he was a schoolmaster he may be identified with Philippus Magister Florentinus, the author of Regulae , a popular Latin grammar. The translator has prefixed explanatory prologues to each of the Epistolae , containing information taken mainly from Virgil's Aeneid , and Colonna's Historia destructionis Troiae . In the prologue to the Epistle of Phaedra to Hippolytus (folio 9v), the translator dedicates the work to a "bella donna giovane e gentile ..." and describes her coat of arms and that of her husband. She has been identified as Elisa, the wife of Simone de Peruzzi of Florence, thus dating the translation to ca. 1330. Perhaps the most exciting discovery about this translation has been that Chaucer must have possessed a copy, possibly acquired during his journey in Italy in 1378. He used it in Troilus , and in his Legend of Good Women he reproduces the phrasing of Filippo's translation in preference to that of the original. DECORATION: Folio 1 has a large historiated initial 'A' (11 lines), pink on gold ground, depicting Ovid writing at his desk. This is surrounded by an illuminated full border of painted foliage, containing an angel, knight, dragon and birds. Some of the catchwords are embellished with accomplished drawings in ink, such as a ship-of-war, a walled town, a king on his throne carried by two men, etc. THE SCRIBE BELLONCIO DI GHERARDO APPEARS TO BE ENTIRELY UNRECORDED. LITERATURE: G. Bernardoni. Epistole eroiche di Ovidio Nasone volgarizate nel buon secolo della lingua . Milan 1842. S.B. Meech. Chaucer and an Italian translation of the Heroides , in Publications of the Modern Language Association , vol. 45, Baltimore 1930, pp. 110-25.
OVIDIUS NASO, Publius. Libro delle Pistole [Heroides], in Italian, ILLUMINATED MANUSCRIPT ON VELLUM [Florence, copied by Belloncio di Gherardo, 20 May 1393] 280 x 200 mm, 62 leaves + 2 original flyleaves (originally paste-downs). COMPLETE. Collation: 1-8 8 (8/5-6 cancelled blanks, 8/8 blank), with catchwords and contemporary foliation, 30 lines, ruled in ink, justification: 189 x 225mm, written in brown ink in a fine semi-gothic cursive bookhand, rubrics in red, 35 three- and four-line calligraphic initials, alternately in blue and red, with penwork decoration, LARGE HISTORIATED INITIAL on f.1 (70 x 72mm) within full ILLUMINATED BORDER (a little rubbed). (Tear in f.2 repaired with loss of text affecting about 15 words; lower blank margin of ff. 28 and 29 repaired, not affecting text; some soiling and staining throughout; flyleaves somewhat wormed, backed with paper.) Limp grey Middle Hill paper boards (stitching partly broken), in buckram case. PROVENANCE: 1. Copied and signed by Belloncio di Gherardo, who writes on back fly-leaf 'Questo libro ascripto belloncio gherardi finito ogi questo di xx dimaggio a ore xxi½, 1393'. 2. Nicholas de Bernardo, 1457. Erased inscription on rear fly-leaf, partly legible under ultra-violet light. He seems to have been responsible for the list of contents of the volume on the front fly-leaf. 3. Sir Thomas Phillipps. MS 11865 ('ex bibl. variis'). Number and stamp on last fly-leaf, inside upper cover and label on spine. TEXT: An anonymous Florentine verse translation, the most popular version of Ovid's Heroides in Renaissance Italy. This is one of the earliest known copies of this translation and particularly important as it is the only one to suggest the name of the translator, who writes in the colophon on f.60v 'Qui finisce libro delle Pistole dovidio traslatate di gramatica in volgare fiorentino. Qui scripsit scribat semper com domino vivat F A magister puerorum'. This may be a Filippo Alberto, as the translation is ascribed to 'Ser Alberto' in two Florence manuscripts, and since he was a schoolmaster he may be identified with Philippus Magister Florentinus, the author of Regulae , a popular Latin grammar. The translator has prefixed explanatory prologues to each of the Epistolae , containing information taken mainly from Virgil's Aeneid , and Colonna's Historia destructionis Troiae . In the prologue to the Epistle of Phaedra to Hippolytus (folio 9v), the translator dedicates the work to a "bella donna giovane e gentile ..." and describes her coat of arms and that of her husband. She has been identified as Elisa, the wife of Simone de Peruzzi of Florence, thus dating the translation to ca. 1330. Perhaps the most exciting discovery about this translation has been that Chaucer must have possessed a copy, possibly acquired during his journey in Italy in 1378. He used it in Troilus , and in his Legend of Good Women he reproduces the phrasing of Filippo's translation in preference to that of the original. DECORATION: Folio 1 has a large historiated initial 'A' (11 lines), pink on gold ground, depicting Ovid writing at his desk. This is surrounded by an illuminated full border of painted foliage, containing an angel, knight, dragon and birds. Some of the catchwords are embellished with accomplished drawings in ink, such as a ship-of-war, a walled town, a king on his throne carried by two men, etc. THE SCRIBE BELLONCIO DI GHERARDO APPEARS TO BE ENTIRELY UNRECORDED. LITERATURE: G. Bernardoni. Epistole eroiche di Ovidio Nasone volgarizate nel buon secolo della lingua . Milan 1842. S.B. Meech. Chaucer and an Italian translation of the Heroides , in Publications of the Modern Language Association , vol. 45, Baltimore 1930, pp. 110-25.
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.jpg "Source: Christie's")
.jpg "Source: Christie's")
