Two Lives of Aesop and 200 Fables

Title

Two Lives of Aesop and 200 Fables

Shelfmark

MS. Holkham Gr. 98

Date

17th–18th cent.

Language

Ancient Greek (to 1453)

Contents

Form

codex

Support

paper

Physical extent

ii + 108 + ii endleaves, being foliated as fols 109–110.

Hands

Possibly one Italian humanist who either wrote the text without spirits and accents, and later added those (somehow inaccurately, eg. fol. 1r tit. Ἀισώπου etc), or a second hand (in different ink) added those at a later stage (less likely).

Binding

Typical Holkham binding of light brown leather, with Coke family ostrich crest in gilt in the centre of the upper cover; Date: early nineteenth century. Rebound by John Jones of Liverpool (worked for Holkham 1816–1823). The spine lettered in gilt: /ÆSOPI VITA ET FABULÆ GR.–//MS/ 278 /. A pasted black leather with the new shelfmark is missing: MS. /HOLKHAM/ Gr.98.

Provenance

Erroneous dating (maybe a typo) of XVth C. in S. de Ricci, A handlist of manuscripts in the library of the Earl of Leicester at Holkham Hall: abstracted from the catalogues of William Roscoe and Frederic Madden (Supplement to the Bibliographical Society's Transactions, 7, Oxford, 1932), p. 23.

Ownership Notes: paste down (in pencil): MS. Holkham Gr. 98; fol. 1(r) (in pencil): No 290 278 D3B7. (= Old Catalogue Nrs: Olim Holkham Hall, Libr. of the Earl of Leicester, 278)

It has been suggested that the MS was copied from MS Florence, Laur. conv. soppr. 627 (see B. E. Perry, Studies in the text history of the life and fables of Aesop (Philological monographs of the American Philological Association 7), Haverford, Pa., 1936, pp. 71–72, n. 1). Since variae lectiones and all the page references to MS Florence, Laur. conv. Soppr. 627 have been added by this hand in margins of the main text, it seems more likely that MS Florence, Laur. conv. soppr. 627 served as a model of comparison and not as the scribe’s exemplar – cf. e.g. reference on fol. 75r MS πρός-.