Marston MS 250     Lucca, 1435, 1436
Francesco Barbaro, De re uxoria, etc.

1. ff. 1r-44r  Francesci barbari Veneti ad Insignem Laurentium de
medicis florentinum de re uxoria liber incipit feliciter.  Prologus.
Maiores nostri Laurenti carissime beniuolentia uel necessitate
[in margin: al. necessitudine] sibi coniunctos in nuptiis sibi donare
consueuerunt...[f. 2v:]  De coniugio. C. i.  Antequam de delectu
uxoris et officio dicere incipio de ipso coniugio prius pauca mihi dicenda
sunt...ab optima fide ac animo certe tibi deditissimo certe proficiscitur.
[colophon:]  Expletus scribi per me Guillielmum Rustichellium [?]
Pisis Luce D. Ia. mccccxxxiiij Indictione xij. pridie Nonas Nouembris.

Francesco Barbaro, De re uxoria, with his dedicatory preface
to Lorenzo di Giovanni de' Medici; A. Gnesotto, ed., Atti e Memorie
della R. Accademia di scienze, lettere ed arti in Padova n. s. 32 (1915-16) pp.
23-100.  Proper nouns, extracted from text, are noted in margins along with
brief notes in several hands (e.g., f. 5v: Quot In uxorem
spectanda:  mores, virtus, etas, genus, forma, opes).  Chapters numbered
i-xvi (last two partially erased).

2. ff. 44v-49r  Oratio Leonardi Aretini in qua Heliogabalus Augustus ad
matronas Romanas orat ad meretriciam inuitans.   Prohemium.  Heliogabalus
Augustus Inter caetera notate lasciuie flagitia....Oratio.  Incredibilis
me libido habet conmilitones et uehementem in me ardorem concitari
sentio...in hac cupidinis militia dona magnifica reportabit.  dixi/
Leonardus Aretinus recreandi ingenij causa ludens ridensque dictauit...ne
esserant.  [colophon:]  Scripta oratio Heliogabali per me Guillielmum
Rustichellum a pisis.  Luce die xxviij Iunij. mccccxxxv more Pisanorum.

Leonardo Bruni, Oratio Heliogabali ad meretrices; Baron, p. 162; M. Z.
Boxhorn, Historiae Augustae scriptorum latinorum minorum (Leiden, 1632)
p. 97.

3. ff. 49v-59r  Dialogus Platonis cur Socrates a carcere fugere recusarit
cum capitaliter damnatus foret E grais in latinas uersus litteras a
Leonardo Aretino Incipit.  So.  Quid huc aduenisti o Crito?  an non adhuc
summum est mane...ipse reboat sonitus.  facitque ut audire queam alios.
Explicit dialogus Platonis cur Socrates aufugere recusarit cum
capitaliter damnatus foret.  E greco in latinum translatatus [sic] per
Lenardum [sic] Aretinum.

Plato, Crito, the first version of the Latin translation by
Leonardo Bruni (1420s); Baron, pp. 173-74.  A. Carosini, ed.,
Il Critone latino di Leonardo Bruni e di Rinuccio Aretino,
Accademia toscana di scienze e lettere "La Colombaria" Studi 62
(Florence, 1983) pp. 165-83; Marston MS 250 not cited.

4. ff. 59r-63v  Incipit Apologia Socratis de greco in latinum
translatata
[sic] per Leonardum Aretinum.  Socratis quoque dignum mihi uidetur meminisse.
Cum in iudicium uocatus fuit...quam Socrates usus est illum ego uirum
felicissimum duco.  Explicit Apologia Socrates per Aretinum
translata.

Xenophon, Apologia Socratis, translated into Latin by Leonardo
Bruni; Baron, p. 187.

5. f. 64r  Epistola Virgilij ad Mecenatem.  Virgilius Mecenati salutem.
Ruffum Pomponium libertum tuum nouelle uidi...sat tenuit Philelphum
reconciliet siuis [?] est.  Vale.  f. 64v blank

The ps.-Virgilian Epistola Virgilii ad Maecenatem written by Pier
Candido Decembrio as a young man in 1426; he had difficulty convincing
his contemporaries that it was not genuine.  See text and note published
by L. Barozzi and R. Sabbadini, Studi sul Panormita e sul Valla
(Florence, 1871) pp. 23-24, n. 10; see also R. Sabbadini, Le scoperte
dei codici latini e greci ne' secoli XIV e XV (Florence, 1967) p. 176.

Parchment (most leaves palimpsests from several different manuscripts
and parchment previously ruled with lines perpendicular to current written
space), ff. i (paper) + 64 (modern pagination in pencil 1-127) + i (paper),
212 x 142 (142 x 76) mm.  28-31 long lines.  Double vertical bounding
lines, full length (Derolez 13.31); some single horizontal bounding lines
(Derolez 13.13); all rulings in ink.  Remains of prickings in upper
margin.
I-VIII 8.  Horizontal catchwords to right of center in lower margin,
verso (Derolez 12.2).
Written in humanistic bookhand by a single scribe, above top line.
Illuminated initial of poor quality, f. 1r, 7-line, gold (almost
completely rubbed), with red penwork filigree and small stylized leaves,
with some touches of gold.  At the top of the page, beneath rubric,
arms of the Rustichelli family (per pale, or, a lion rampant sable;
or, 4 bars nebuly sable), surrounded by red penwork.  Plain initials in 
red and blue.  Headings in red.  Some small initials touched with yellow.
Off-set impression of eyeglasses on ff. 33v-34r.
Binding:  Germany [?], s. xix-xx.  Case bound with leaves from a parchment 
manuscript (Breviary, France, s. xiii 2). On the front pastedown:  rubrics
for the major feasts and their octaves occurring in late June (John the
Baptist, 24 June) through mid-August (Assumption, 15 August), and the beginning
of the lessons to be read within the octave of the feast of John the Baptist;
on the back pastedown:  end of the lessons for Hilarianus of Arezzo (7 August)
and beginning of the second lesson for Cyriacus, Largus and Smaragdus (8 
August).

Written in Lucca in 1435 (colophon, art. 1) and 1436 (colophon, art. 2)
by Guillielmus Rustichellus of Pisa whose arms appear on f. 1r and who
dated the manuscript "more pisanorum" (see A Cappelli, Cronologia, cronografia
e calendario perpetuo pp. 9-10, 11, 14).  He also
copied another manuscript in Lucca in "1434-35" (Colophons, v. 2, no.
6058; A. Mancini, "Index codicum latinorum Publicae Bybliothecae 
Lucensis,"  Studi italiani di filologia classica 8 [1900] pp. 213-14).
Provenance otherwise unknown.  Purchased in 1957 from H. P. Kraus by
L. C. Witten (inv. no. 1538) who sold it in 1959 to Thomas E. Marston
(bookplate).

secundo folio:  es exempla

Bibliography:  Faye and Bond, p. 93, no. 250.

Barbara A. Shailor