COMMENTARIES ON ARISTOTLE; S. XIV 1/4

Title

COMMENTARIES ON ARISTOTLE; S. XIV 1/4

Shelfmark

Merton College MS. 289

Place of origin

England

Date

S. XIV 1/4

Language

Latin

Contents

Form

codex

Support

Parchment

Physical extent

189 (iv + 189) leaves The edges heavily retrimmed with loss of marginalia and spattered with red. Fols. iii-iv and 187 are of thick, stiff parchment.

Hands

A single neat anglicana hand, writing lemmata in large textura.

Decoration

Handsome historiated initials in colours and gold with partial borders: f. 1 7-line S with seated master teaching two students, 3-sided border with magpie at the foot; f. 33 another of the same with a rabbit at the foot of the border; f. 101 I with standing bishop (Grosseteste); f. 125 E, Giles of Rome preaching, with 3-sided border, a grotesque at the foot. Blue initials flourished in red; red or blue paraphs.

Binding

Standard Merton s. xvii, resewn on five bands and rebacked by Maltby; formerly chained from the usual position. fols. i-ii, 188–9 are modern paper blanks. f. iii, the front pastedown in an earlier binding, has marks of two foredge straps and one each at head and tail, also of the large iron chain-staple.

Provenance

Made in England, at the College by 1372: UO48. 79.

Apparently lost to the College for a time before being reacquired by Richard Fitzjames. In the centre of f. iii a shield-shaped piece of parchment (55 × 40 mm.) has been hacked out. On f. ivvan inscription of four lines, possibly Fitzjames’ ex dono, has been thoroughly erased. Just below this is the impression of the usual Fitzjames label, with his coat of arms visible under ultra-violet light, and the marks of nail-holes, therefore originally on the back cover, then pasted to this leaf, since stripped off and lost.

At the head is ‘Precium xxx s.’, mainly erased, probably over an earlier price.

On f. iii is the James no. ‘102’, s. xvii in. Inside the front board is a table of contents, s. xvii, and ‘Q. 2. 5. Art:’, canc. and replaced with ‘O. 2. 5’ and ‘(CCLXXXIX)’ in red; the College bookplate. ‘5’ is inked on the foredge.