Seneca, Epistolae ad Lucillium

Title

Seneca, Epistolae ad Lucillium

Shelfmark

St John's College MS 116

Place of origin

Italian

Date

s. xiv ex. / 1385

Language

Latin

Contents

Form

codex

Support

Vellum (FSOS).

Physical extent

iii + 156 + ii (numbered iv–v)

Hands

Written by two scribes, one in gothic textura rotunda ; the second (who copied fols. 1–6v, 75v–156v) in humanistic bookhand. Punctuation by point (many converted to virgulae), virgula, punctus interrogativus, and punctus elevatus (scribe 2) by point and punctus elevatus (scribe I).

Decoration

Headings in red.

Two initials with floral borders, 3 lines and 6 lines respectively, on fols. 1 and 7, the second with a picture of Seneca as a grey-bearded man holding a book and wearing a turban-like hat.

Elsewhere initia are 3-line alternate lombards, blue on red flourishing and red on violet flourishing.

See AT, no. 917 (95), the decoration added s. xv2/4, and plate lxiv.

Binding

Dark brown leather over millboards, stamped gold fillet, s. xvii. Sewn on five thongs. At the head of the spine ‘116’ on a paper lozenge; in black ink on the leading edges. The front pastedown is old paper (with extensive notes, s. xv ex., listing the works of Seneca, with some brief commentary); the back pastedown modern paper. At the front, two modern paper flyleaves and one of medieval vellum, with nail-holes and rust near the corners, perhaps from attachments for ties; at the rear, one medieval vellum flyleaf, perhaps an earlier pastedown, and one modern paper flyleaf (iv–v).

Provenance

Three erased inscriptions, one surely of ownership (fol. iiiv).

‘Me Tenet Teste Standlye’ above ‘vincte bono Malmy’ (fol. iv); cf. the signature ‘Stonslye’ in MS 139 .

‘Hicsonverus est possessor huius libri’ (fol. iii, s. xvi); he also appears in MS 139 , which was eventually donated to St John’s by William Paddy.

The old shelfmark ‘Abac: ij. N. 83’ (fol. iii).