Diodori Siculi Historiarum Priscarum / a Poggio in latinum traducti.

Extent:

i, 165 leaves : parchment, illustrations ; 287 x 200 (210 x 120) mm bound to 300 x 207 mm.

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Abstract:

Latin translation of Diodorus Siculus' Biblioteca historica, Books 1-6, translated by Poggio Bracciolini.

Description:

Incipit: “Diodori Siculi Historiarum Priscarum a Poggio in latinum traducti incipit Liber Primus in qvo hec continentvr Totius operis prohemium … Liber Primvs Magnas merito gratias rerum scriptoribus homines debent…”
Explicit: “Quibus de rebus suo loco scribetur a nobis. Explicit Liber VI.”
Ms. codex.
Title from incipit (fol. 2r).
Brief annotations and topical headings in the margins. Text preceded by the translator's prologue with a dedication to Pope Nicholas V (fol. 1r-2r). Title also on spine.
Collation: Parchment ; fol. i (contemporary) + 165 ; catchwords for most quires ; modern foliation in pencil.
Layout: 31 long lines per page.
Decoration: The text opens on fol. 1r with a 6-line gold initial N with white vine-stem decoration on blue, green, and pink, and one gold carrot projecting into the left margin; erased arms at the foot of the page surrounded by a wreath, amid white vine-stem decoration as above, growing from a golden urn. Books I–VI each open with a 5-line gold initial with white vine-stem decoration on blue, green, and pink.
Origin: Produced in Rome shortly after 1450. Copied by one of the translator's scribes, probably in Rome.

Binding note:

Italy, 15th century. Blind-tooled brown calf over wooden boards (7 mm thick), tooled with interlacing pattern and with an eight-pointed star centerpiece on each cover; four decorated leather clasps upper to lower board, decorative star-headed nails on the upper board, metal catchplates (decorated with fleurs-de-lis) on the lower board. Beaded endbands.

Provenance:

. The erased arms on fol. 1r may possibly be those of Decio Azzolini (1549 or 1550–1587), of Rome. Intermediate provenance unknown. In the collection of the Marchese Giovanni Pietro Campana. Sold in 1860 by Sotheby's London. Sir Thomas Phillipps acquired the manuscript, possibly from booksellers Thomas and William Boone. Sold by Sotheby's in 1896, then by J. & J. Leighton, and Giuseppe Martini. Robert Garrett purchased the manuscript on 22 December 1924 from Wilfrid M. Voynich. His gift to the Princeton University Library, 1942.

Source acquisition:

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References:

Medieval & Renaissance manuscripts in the Princeton University Library, volume 1, pages 233-235.

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