Marston MS 139     France, s. XIV 1/4
Aegidius Romanus, De regimine principum

ff. 1r-179v  Incipit liber de regimine principum editus a fratre egydio
romano ordinis fratrum heremitarum sancti augustini.  Ex regia ac sanctissima
prosapia oriundo...ut nostra reuerenda nobilitas requisiuit.  [table of
chapters, Bk. I, part 1:]  Incipiunt capitula prime prime [sic] partis
primi libri de regimine principum.  Quis sit modus procedendi in regimine
principum.  Quis sit ordo dicendorum...Quantum sit premium regis bene regentis
populum sibi commissum.  [text, f. 1v:]  Capitulum .i. quis sit modus
procedendi in regimine principum.  Oportet ut latitudo sermonis...deus
ipse suis promisit fidelibus qui est benedictus in secula seculorum.
Amen.

Many manuscripts and early printed editions; Glorieux, no. 400q;
Zumkeller, no. 54; G. Bruni, Le Opere di Egidio Romano (Florence, 1936)
with list of manuscripts on pp. 83-90 (Marston MS 139 not identified).  Table
of chapters, numbered in Arabic numerals in margins, precedes each part
of each book.  One leaf missing between ff. 88-89 with portions of
chs. 9-10 of Bk. II, part 2 ("...ut sit memor prouidus.  cautus.  et
circumspectus // heres essent depicte uel sculpte...").

Parchment (poor quality, pieced), ff. iii (paper) + i (contemporary
parchment flyleaf) + 179 + iii (paper), 175 x 130 (125 x 88) mm.  2
columns, 34 lines.  Double vertical bounding lines, single rulings between
columns, single upper horizontal bounding line, all full across.  Pairs
of rulings in upper, outer and lower margins, the first pair for running 
titles, the last for catchwords.  Ruled in lead.  Prickings in upper, lower,
and outer margins.
I-V 12, VI 10, VII 12, VIII 10 (-7), IX-X 10, XI 12, XII 14, XIII-XV 12,
XVI 6.  Remains of quire and leaf signatures (e.g., a i, a ij, a iij, etc.)
in lower margin, recto, lightly written in red or black.  Catchwords below 
inner column, verso, between rulings.
Written by multiple scribes in small gothic bookhand.
Divided intials, red and blue, 6- to 5-line, with pen flourishes in red
and blue, mark major text divisions; initial on f. 1r has simple border
extending down inner margin.  Small initials, 3- to 2-line, alternate red
and blue, with penwork flourishes in opposite color.  Headings (some missing)
and running headlines in red.  Paragraph marks alternate red and blue.
Notes to rubricator.
Binding:  France, s. xix.  Black goatskin, blind-tooled, with gold-tooled
doublures.  Bound by L. Magnin, Lyon.  Stains from fore-edge clasps of
earlier binding on early parchment flyleaf.

Written in France in the first quarter of the 14th century.  Two early
ownership inscriptions on f. iv verso, one written over the other.  The
later one, partially visible under ultra-violet light, states that
Brother Jacobus de Arigonis purchased the volume from Bartolomeus
Baraterius, 25 May 1396, for eight [?] gold florins ("Iste liber est fratris
Iacobi de arigonis [landii or bandii?] quem emit a bartolameo baraterio
*** mccclxxxxvj die xxv madij precio flor. uiij [?] auri").  Early shelf-mark
in ink on f. iv recto "+ xxxij"  followed by a brief later note, s. xvi, on 
the author and the text which paraphrases Johannes Trithemius, De scriptoribus
ecclesiasticis, from the Paris edition of 1512 (ff. 109v-110r).  Unidentified
modern notation on recto of final flyleaf, in pencil:  "5414-E."
Purchased from Emile Rossignol of Paris in 1958 by L. C. Witten (inv. no. 2158),
who sold it in 1959 to Thomas E. Marston (bookplate).

secundo folio:  morali

Bibliography:  Faye and Bond, p. 80, no. 139.

Barbara A. Shailor