• Cassiodorus, Seneca, Solinus.

Extent:
  • 1 volume (iv, 238 leaves) : parchment, illustrations ; 23 cm
Date:
  • 1150-1225
Language:
Contents:
  • 1. 1r-2r: “Incipit prologus Cassiodori in librum variarum formularum. Cum disertorum gratiam aut communibus fabulis aut gratuitis beneficiis nullis [tamen?] ueris meritis collegissem ...” Explicit: “Nam quia uestras de nobis disputationes ingerimus qui uestra pocius iudicia sustinemus.”
  • 2.2v-84v: “Incipit liber Cassiodori. Oportet nos clementissime imperator pacem querere qui causas iracundie cognoscimur non habere ...” Explicit: “Hunc enim et maiorum suorum commonet uirtus, et auunculus efficaciter excitat theodericus.”
  • 3.88r-96v: “Incipit epygrama uel epythoma librorum lucilii anne senece de benefitiis uel liberalitate ad eburtium liberalem amicum suum. I[nter multos ac varios errores] temere inconsulteque uiuentium nichil prope modum uir optime liberalis duxeris ...” Explicit: “Non est magni animi beneficium dare et perdere. Hoc est magni animi perdere et dare. Explicit.”
  • 4. 97r-98r: “Gallioni Lvcius Anneus Seneca salutem. Licet cunctorum poetarum carmina gremium tuum semper illustrent ...” Explicit: “Stultus es qui fles mortem mortalium. Quid istic mirum aut nouum est?”
  • 5. 99r-102v: “Incipit Liber qui dicitur | ludus senece de morte claudii cesaris. Quid actum sit in celo in aduentu eius. Q[uid] ante diem tercio idus octobris anno nono initio seculi uolo memoriae tradere ...” Explicit: “Is menandro liberto suo tradidit, ut a cognitionibus abesset.”
  • 6.104r-164v: “Incipit Senece xiiii liber moralium epistularum ad lucilivm. Rem vtilem desideras et sapientiam properanti necessariam diuidi philosophiam et ingens corpus eius in membra disponi ...” Explicit: “Tunc habebis tuum cum intelliges infelicissimos esse felices, cum intelleges infelicissimos esse felices. Vale.”
  • 7.168r-169v: “In quodam codice ut eiusdem prenotacio indicabat inueni senecam philosophum breuiter scripsisse de remediis fortuitorum ad quendam nomine gallionem ... Quid enim habes inquid aostelus quod non accepisti?”
  • 8.169v-171v: “Morieris. Ista hominis natura est non pena. Hac conditione intravi ut exirem ...” Explicit [X. Amicum perdidi]: “... tu in tanta tempestate ad unam anchoram stabas.”
  • 9.171v-172v: “Seneca in libro in prologo libri VII. Non minus ad rem existimo pertinere nisi dicta sunt ...” Explicit: “Nichil enim firmi habent, qui ad incerta propensus est.”
  • 10.172v-227v: “Prima. Ex his que mihi scribis et ex his que de te audio bonam spem de te concipio ...” Explicit: “Denique illud dulcissimum est honestissimumque idem uelle atque idem nolle. Sapiens sapienti praestabit egregium opus pari iugo ducet.”
  • 11.227v-230r: “Credimus et tenemus et fideliter predicamus quod pater genuerit uerbum hoc est sapientiam per quem facta sunt omnia unigenitum filium. Unus unum eternus coeternum, summe bonus equaliter bonum ...” Explicit: “Ac sic eos et in mortales superbos noxios, ne inmortalitatis iactancia seducerent ad miseriam, et sue mortis humilitate, et sue beatitudinis benignitate destruxit in eis, quorum corda per suam fidem mundans ab illorum in mundissima dominatione liberavit.”
  • 12.230v: “Quod facis hic subici, faceas ibi postea dici | Ter retinet ter nos prima figura modos | Primus subiectis, tribus adicit omne uel omnis | Bis ponit nullus, assumens omne secundus ...” Explicit: “Confert in quartum medie conuersio Sextum | Quam mihi noticiam grauitas perplexa negabat | Hec ego quos feci uersiculis didici Expliciunt uersus figurarum.”
  • 13.231r: “[Quoniam] quidem impatientius pocius quam studiosius opusculum ... loco te habitum quo enim cui laboris nostri summa (!) dicauimus.”
  • 14.231r-234r: “Sum(!) et aurium clementia et obtimarum artium studiis ...” Explicit: “... anno quarto intercalarent unum diem et oporteret ||”
Description:
  • Title from printed catalog.
  • Script: Scribe A (early 13th or very late 12th century): fols. 1r-84v, 104r-164r, and possibly fols. 231r-234r; writes regular, upright early Textualis libraria with a square aspect. Scribe B (12th century): fols. 88r-90r; Protogothic verging on Textualis libraria. Scribe C (12th century): fols. 90v-102v; early Gothic, completes stint begun by scribe B; Textualis libraria, small and compressed. Scribe(s) D (12th century): fols. 168r-230r; Protogothic, possibly English. Scribe E: fol. 230v; compressed Protogothic hand in two columns, with first and last initials of each line capitalized, remaining text within the columns.
  • Decoration: English Gothic.
Binding note:
  • Italy, 15th century. Brown goatskin over wooden boards, probably oak (8 mm thick). Blind-stamped interlacing patterns fill a frame that has at its center an octagonal area with this pattern and an 8-pointed star filled in the middle.
Provenance:
  • Garrett MS. 114 is comprised of two 13th-century sections with a 12th-century section bound between them to keep all the Seneca texts together. The manuscript was certainly in English hands from a very early date, when it was owned by the Augustinian Abbey of the Holy Cross in Waltham, Essex. Robert Garrett (1875-1961), of Baltimore, Maryland, Class of 1897, purchased the manuscript in May 1925 from the New York bookseller Ernest Dressel North. His gift to the Princeton University Library, 1942.
Source acquisition:
  • Gift of Robert Garrett, 1942.
Contributor:
  • Princeton University. Library. Manuscript. Garrett MS. 114
References:
  • Medieval & Renaissance manuscripts in the Princeton University Library, volume 1, pages 252-257.
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