• Confessio amantis

Extent:

• iii, 194, i : parchment, illustrations ; 384 x 260 mm

Date:

• 1400-1425

Language:

• English
• English, Middle (1100-1500)

Author:

• Gower, John, 1325?-1408

Description:

• Script: Anglicana formata by three scribes.
• Decoration: Prologue opens on fol. 1r with a framed 13-line column initial of Nebuchadnezzar's Dream of precious metals (Prologue, verses 602-634) with a now-illegible banderole to the right. An old man in blue seated on a canopied pedestal on the right. Opening initial of the prologue historiated with a young man in blue pointing to bookshelves.

Binding note:

• England, 18th century. Parchment over pasteboard, with gold tooling; sewn on 5 cords; endbands with secondary sewing in blue and tan; spine gilt with 5 stamps.

Provenance:

• Taylor Ms. 5 was probably written in London. Early provenance is unknown. The Philadelphia antiquarian bookseller A.S.W. Rosenbach (1876-1952) purchased the manuscript in November 1923 from Phillipps' grandson, Thomas FitzRoy Fenwick (1856-1938). After Rosenbach's death, the manuscript was acquired by the bookseller John F. Fleming, who had worked for Rosenbach. In 1956, Fleming sold it to Robert H. Taylor (1908-1985), Class of 1930. Taylor's bookplate is on the front pastedown. His bequest to the Princeton University Library, 1985.

Source acquisition:

• Gift of Robert H. Taylor.

Contributor:

• Princeton University. Library. Manuscript. Taylor MS. 5.

References:

• Medieval & Renaissance manuscripts in the Princeton University Library, volume 1, pages 411-415.

View in catalog:

• https://catalog.princeton.edu/catalog/99111918873506421