• Historiae Alexandri Magni / Quintus Curtius Rufus.

Extent:
  • 1 volume (i, 152, iv leaves) : parchment, illustrations ; 25 cm
Date:
  • 1465-1470
Language:
Author:
  • Curtius Rufus, Quintus
Description:
  • Script: Humanistica antiqua.
  • Decoration: The history opens with a 10-line gold initial I on white vine-stem decoration, with blue, green, pink, outlined blue, with tiny white dots in threes; and three-quarter border, white vine-stem, with blue, green, pink, double gold bar; two birds; and two putti supporting arms set in a wreath (repainted, of Ludovico Podocataro; see Provenance), all outlined in blue, with tiny white dots in threes (fol. 1r). Books V, VII, VIII, VIIII, and x open with similar gold initials of 8 or 9 lines: fols. 42r, 75r, 94r, 115v, and 131v. The decoration is characteristic of Florentine work of the 1460s.
Binding note:
  • England, late 18th century. Red morocco over pasteboard, gilt-stamped on edges and sides, a flower in each corner; sewn on five bands; gilt edges; spine decoration includes four gilt urns and a gilt mono- gram (“PR” surmounted by a coronet); blue, brown, and black marbled endpapers. Spine title (gilt on green leather label): “q. cvrtii de gestis alex. m. codex memB. sec.”
Provenance:
  • Kane MS. 45 was probably the work of a scribe associated with the Florentine bookseller Vespasiano da Bisticci and dates from around 1465-1470. It was evidently carefully revised and annotated after copying, presumably for an unidentified patron, perhaps in the circle of Pomponio Leto, who certainly used the manuscript, as the 2-line correction on fol. 15r is in his hand. The manuscript was owned by Ludovico Podocataro of Cyprus (1429-1504), who lived in Rome and became a cardinal in 1500. The manuscript was consigned by an unidentified owner to a 1922 auction at Sotheby's, London. The London antiquarian bookseller Maggs Bros., according to a marked sale catalogue at the Grolier Club, bid successfully for the manuscript on 28 March 1922. In the same year, Grenville Kane (1854-1943), of Tuxedo Park, N.Y., acquired the manuscript through the London and New York antiquarian bookseller Wilfrid M. Voynich (1865-1930). The Princeton University Library acquired the manuscript from Kane's heirs in 1946.
Former owner:
  • Podocatharus, Ludovicus, -1504
  • Kane, Grenville, 1854-1943
Contributor:
  • Princeton University. Library. Manuscript. Kane MS. 45.
References:
  • Medieval & Renaissance manuscripts in the Princeton University Library, volume 2, page 103-106.
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