Guido delle Colonne, Historia destructionis Troie

Title

Guido delle Colonne, Historia destructionis Troie

Shelfmark

St John's College MS 92

Place of origin

England

Date

s. xv1

Language

Latin

Contents

Form

codex

Support

Vellum and paper, in the usual fashion, four paper sheets folded inside a single vellum sheet, which then forms both the outer and centre bifolia (FSOS/ FHHF). All quires are regular groups of four sheets folded in folio. There are three paper stocks: A Cloche / Glocke: not in Briquet, but resembles most closely no. 4081(1415 × 1427, northern France and the Low Countries); cf. also nos. 4082(1417 × 1426, the Rhineland and northern France) and 4086 (1446, Sens):a single example, the outermost sheet of quire 1 ( fols. 2+ 11). B Einhorn / Tête de Licorne : resembles Piccard X ( Fabeltiere) nos. 1076–85, 1175, all of them much too old (1387 × 1394, Dutch; and 1380, Florence): the four sheets of quire 5. C Waage / Balance: the general variety Piccard V 1, nos. 69–178, in wide use c.1407 x 1440: all the remainder, perhaps more than one stock (quires 1–4, 6–10 a separate stock?).

Physical extent

Fols. iii + 120+ ii (numbered fols. iv and v).

Hands

Written in formal secretary. Punctuation by medial point and double virgula .

Decoration

Headings in red.

Sporadic red paraphs to break up the text.

All spaces for capitals at heads of sections unfilled, with no guide letters.

Binding

Plain brown leather over millboards, s. xvii, rebacked, with a plain stamped fillet with floral stamps in the corners. Sewn on three thongs. Gold ‘92’ in the top compartment of the spine, a black ink notation on the leading edges, but not the full shelfmark. Endleaves and pastedowns marbled paper, a College bookplate on the front pastedown. At the front, the marbled leaf and two modern paper flyleaves; at the rear, one paper flyleaf and another marbled leaf (iv–v).

Acquisition

‘Liber Collegii Sancti Joannis Baptistae’ (s. xviii); ‘Donum Dedit Guillielmi Derham Ejusdem Socius A.D. 1725’ (fol. 1 , lower margin).

Provenance

‘Sunt´ Willm ’, the remainder illegible ( fol. 120v, lower margin, cancelled and cut off, s. xv).

A note on the text and its date ( fol. iiiv, s. xviii).