MS 147
[Metamorphoses]
The Metaporphoses [manuscript]
Title in M. R. James catalogue: L. Apuleii Madaurensis Metamorphoseon libri XI. et Florida
Title in Ker, MLGB II: Apuleius
Italy, 1350-1450.
1 v. : ill. ; 220 x 156 mm.
Written in Latin.
Secundo folio: nodosum gerit.
Date: Robertson and Ker suggest early 15th century, but due to the similarity to Milan, Biblioteca Ambrosiana, L 58 supp. (dated to the 14th century), this manuscript could have been produced earlier than 1400. There are no palaeographical details to suggest either way.
Material: membrane; heavily damaged -- mould damage has pitted the surface of many leaves and caused the media to detach. As a result, the text is often illegible. 20th-century wax repairs to some folios and many long edges.
Format: codex.
Written space: 145 x 99 mm.
Number of leaves: v + 124 + iv.
Collation: 1 leaf + 1-4¹⁰ 5⁸ 6-12¹⁰ 13⁶ (6 cancelled).
Quire and leaf signatures and catchwords: no signatures visible due to damage of the leaves' edges; catchwords.
Page preparation: ruled in ink; including blank folios 121-124. No pricking visible, perhaps due to the mould damage along the edges.
Mise-en-page: single columns (30 lines) written in a set script below the top line. Rubrics. Paragraph marks.
Decoration: the first folio has two full page illustration: f.1r is a coloured drawing of a donkey, f.1v is a pen drawing of a bearded male figure, sat on a dais holding a book on his lap and a pen in his right hand -- it is likely to portray Apuleius. Forty-seven pen drawings appear on the bas-de-page of following folios, illustrating episodes in the narrative (for an exhaustive description, see James). The style of this artist is similar to that of the illustrations in Milan, Biblioteca Ambrosiana, L 58 sup., although not as precise. Minor initials in red (2-3 lines); red minim strokes decorate capitals at the beginning of sentences. Catchwords appear inside drawings of animals at ff.79v and 109v.
Handwriting: southern littera textualis; multiple scribes.
Correction: interlinear spelling corrections in Bernardo Bembo's hand.
Marginalia, later additions: signposts and brief marginal notes added in Bembo's humanistic hand throughout. His notes and ex libri appear at ff.123v-124r. On f.123v there is a Greek alphabet accompanied by their pronunciation and the Gloria Patri in Greek with an interlinear transliteration. M.R. James added a "title page" with basic information about this volume on the last pf the modern paper upper flyleaves.
ff.2r-106r: Apuleius, Metamorphoses ; ff.106r-120v: Apuleius, Florida ; ff.121r-124v: blank.
N.R. Ker, Medieval manuscripts in British Libraries, v. 2 (1977), p. 760
M.R. James, A descriptive catalogue of the manuscripts in the library of Eton College (1895), pp. 76-80
Bernard, Catalogi librorum manuscriptorum Angliae et Hiberniae, 1697, 12
N. Giannetto, Bernardo Bembo: umanista e politico veneziano (Florence, 1985), pp. 311-312
D.S. Robertson, "The manuscripts of the Metamorphoses of Apuleius", Classical Quarterly 18 (1924), pp. 27-42, 85-99
Eton College Library, MS 147
Reproduction available (NB images of ff.44v-45r missing from microfilm); Bodleian Library; Eton College Library should be contacted for permission to reproduce; SFW 2007
Origin: Italy.
Provenance: owned by Bernardo Bembo in the 15th century, who wrote "Codex Bernardi Bembi patricii veneti" on f.123v. It was very likely brought to Eton by Sir Henry Wotton, who acquired part of Bembo's library when it was sold in Venice during one of his stays. Former ECL shelfmark: Bl.6.2.
19th-century green morocco over paste/millboards, bound by J.S. Wilson (Cambridge) in 1894. Covers decorated with blind fillet to form a border, blind dotted fillet on board edges, and gilted dotted fillet on turn-ins. Spine with five raised bands, decorated with gilt titling ("L. Apvlei Metamorphoses et Florida" ; "ms. saec. xiv"). Endpapers of modern plain and decorated paper (lining papers and facing leaves); three leaves at both ends of the textblock.
Apuleius Metamorphoses
Bembo, Bernardo, 1433 - 1519 former owner.
Wotton, Henry (), 1568 - 1639 Sir former owner.
Italy.
lat
B50113