Marston MS 47     France or Italy [?], s. XII/XIII
Ovid, Metamorphoses

1. f. 1r [Title in upper margin:]  Publij Ouidij nasonis 
Metamorphoseos liber incipit. qui dicitur Ouidius maior. et habet 
libros xv. [text:]  Orba parente suo quicumque uolumina cernis/ 
his saltem uestra detur in urbe locus/...Emendaturus si 
licuisset eram.

Ovid, Tristia 1.7.35-40; S. G. Owen, ed., OCT (1915 and thereafter).

2. ff. 1r-120v Incipit liber metamorfoseos.  In noua fert animus 
mutatas dicere formas/ corpora dij ceptis nam uos mutastis et illas/
...Parte tamen meliore mei.  super atra perhennis// [final 4 lines of
text added, s. XV#e#x., concluding:]  Siquid habent veri Vatum presigia 
viuam. [Greek].

Ovid, Metamorphoses; ed., R. J. Tarrant (Oxford, 2004). For 
additional information on the manuscript tradition, see Texts and 
Transmission, pp. 276-82).  The text of Marston MS 47 contains 
interlinear and marginal notes, including words and phrases in Greek, 
throughout; some marginalia are contemporary; most are s. xiv-xv.  
Lactantian tituli, often in red ink, added in margins (D. A. Slater, 
ed., Towards a Text of the Metamorphosis of Ovid [Oxford, 1927]).
Portions of text have been retraced by a later hand.

	Parchment (much worn, pieced), ff. i (paper) + i (early 
parchment flyleaf) + 120 + i (paper), 295 x 160 (225 x ca. 65) mm.  
50 lines of verse.  Triple vertical bounding lines, full length; 
three or four upper and lower horizontal bounding lines and usually 
three or four through middle of leaf, full across.  Additional pair 
of vertical rulings in outer margin. Ruled in lead.  Remains of 
prickings in upper and lower margins.
	I-XV 8.  Contemporary quire signatures (Roman numerals), some 
erased, in lower margin, verso, for first 8 gatherings.  Catchwords, 
either horizontal or vertical, appear to be later additions, s. xv.
	Written by at least three scribes in scripts ranging from late 
caroline minuscule to early gothic bookhand, all above top line (see 
also provenance below).  Interlinear and marginal annotations and 
running headlines by several hands, s. xiii-xv.
	Two illuminated initials, f. 1r, severely damaged:  21-line 
initial I for first verse of art. 2 incorporates an elongated 
grotesque, originally purple, red, blue, and green on gold ground; 
4-line initial at beginning of art. 1, gold on red ground with center 
totally effaced.  8-line initial for Bk. 2, f. 8v, gold on blue [?] 
ground, now rubbed:  inhabited by winged grotesque biting its back 
with intertwining foliage in blue, green, orange and mauve on gold 
and red ground.  Books 3-15 have attractive penwork initials divided
red and medium blue with designs in both colors, ascenders
and descenders often sweeping far into margins.  Headings and paragraph
marks in red.  First letter of each verse (either set apart from text
block between the first and second or placed directly on the second 
vertical bounding line) stroked with yellow.
	Binding:  Place uncertain, s. xix.  Sewing, possibly original, 
on four kermes pink slit straps.  Plain, wound endbands on tawed skin 
cores. 
	Tan blind-tooled goatskin over wooden boards, also possibly 
original as they are cut in for the straps.  Title gold-tooled on 
spine: "Ovidii Metam./ Saec. XV. M. S. in memb."

Written at the end of the 12th or beginning of the 13th century either 
in France or Italy:  although the physical format and the penwork 
initials are consistent throughout the codex and are characteristic 
of French manuscripts of this period, the script of ff. 66r-180v is 
similar to that occurring in manuscripts from Northern Italy.  Marginal
annotations of the 14th-15th centuries appear to be written by Italian 
hands. Belonged in the second half of the 15th century to Antonius 
Farfuzola who annotated the text, added the final four lines of Book 
15 and wrote the following inscription on the early front flyleaf, 
verso:  "Die viiij#o maricij [?] 1481 tertio die quatrigessime scilicet
primo ueneri inceptum fuit opus ouidij scilicet metamorfosios per 
dominum magistrum antonium farfuzolam."  This inscription is written 
on the dorse of a fragment of a 15th-century legal document, in 
Latin, recording events in the diocese of Verona.  Belonged to Sir 
Thomas Phillipps (no. 9033, note of T. E. Marston on first flyleaf);
sold by W. H. Robinson (London, Cat. 83, 1953, p. 131 with 
reproduction of ff. 64v-65r) to H. P. Kraus, from whom it was
purchased in 1955 by Thomas E. Marston (bookplate).

secundo folio:  Ere ligabantur

Bibliography:  Faye and Bond, p. 69, no. 47.
	F. Munari, Catalogue of the Manuscripts of Ovid's Metamorphoses,
University of London, Institute of Classical Studies, Bulletin 
Supplement no. 4 (London, 1957) p. 57, no. 287.
	B. Munk Olsen, L'Etude des auteurs classiques latins aux XI#e 
et XII#e siecles v. 2 (Paris, 1985) pp. 152-53, no. C99.

Barbara A. Shailor