Testament de Amyra Sultan Nichemedy.

Extent:

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Contents:

1.1r-23r: “Jehan treschier amy. Je pour la consalacion avant tous autres entendent la verite en ce petit livre dispose et en auise ton excellente et tresaymee fraternite que du moys dauril derrain passe vindrent ambassadeurs de assirye de la cite de halap en latin appellee Alleppo ...” Explicit: “O tres chier Jehan vous estes advise de tout ce que en ce temps est fait et advenu pardeca lautre suruenant dieu deuant aurez ains nos autres. In christo feliciterque valere Amen. Ex constantinopoli XIIa mensis septembris 1481. Cy fine le testament de amyra sulthan Nichhemedy en son temps empereur des turcs.”

Description:

Title from printed catalog.
French translation of an anonymous Italian letter (12 September 1481) addressed to someone named Jehan (Giovanni), concerning the death and funeral of the Ottoman Turkish Sultan Mehmed II, “the Conqueror”; and the civil war faced by his successor Bayezid II against his brother Jem.
Script: Bâtarde.
Decoration: Part 2 opens on fol. 14v with a 4-line gold initial A, on a parti-colored blue and red square field filled with gold filigree; trompe l'oeil borders in lower and upper margins, with a moth and two snails among flowers and leaves on pale golden ground, the arms of the Prince of Wales in the lower margin.

Binding note:

England, late 15th century. Bound by the “Caxton Binder” around 1482. Brown calf over wooden boards (7 mm thick), tooled with a lattice of intersecting bands stamped with fleurs-de-lis; border of triangular dragon stamps; no catches or clasps; spine rebacked.

Provenance:

Garrett Ms. 168 was written and decorated in Bruges after 12 September 1481 (the date of the letter copied), and then bound by the “Caxton Binder” in Westminster. The manuscript was produced for Edward, Prince of Wales (born 1470), later briefly King Edward V (r. 9 April to 25 June 1483). It also bears the signature of his two sisters: “Elysabeth the kyngys dowgther boke” and “Cecyl the kyngysdowgther.” It was once part of the library of Sir Henry Ingilby, Bart., of Ripley Castle, Yorkshire, it was in his 1920 sale in London where it was bought by Quaritch. Robert Garrett (1875-1961), of Baltimore, Maryland, Class of 1897, purchased the manuscript from the London antiquarian bookseller Bernard Quaritch in 1936. His gift to the Princeton University Library, 1942.

Source acquisition:

Contributor:

References:

Medieval & Renaissance manuscripts in the Princeton University Library, volume 1, pages 383-385.

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