Marston MS 274     France, s. XV 2
Leonardo Bruni, De bello punico, Fr. tr. Jean Lebegue

f. 1r [Title for table of contents:] Cy dedens est contenue la table du liure 
de la premiere partie bataille punique...Et premierement commencent les 
Rubriches ou chappictres [sic]. Premierement Le prologue du translateur ou 
liure...Et premierement la table du premier liure.  [table:] De la premiere 
guerre punique, Cest adire...et fut la cite de agrigentum prinse;
ff. 1v-2r Cy fine le premier liure...et de la male fortune de cornelius consul
Roumain.  [table:] Comment tantost apres la prinse de cornelius...Les
condictions de la paix entre les Roumains et les cartagiens; ff. 2r-v Cy fine 
la premiere partie du premier liure...qui furent diuerses. [text:] Comment 
hanibal conquist le pont et la cite...et son ost desconffit; f. 2v Cy 
commence la seconde partie...apres la paix faicte entre eulx et les
cartagiens.  [table:] Comment les Roumains conquirent...Et puis tout vint a 
leur abaissance; ff. 2v-4v Cy fine la Table.  Cy apres ensuyt le prologue...
premirement: [prologue:] A Treshault et souuerain prince Charles septiesme de 
cest nom...Et vieus a la desclairacion fe de son liure; ff. 4v-74r Cy commence 
la [desclairacion crossed out] translacion...la dicte translacion faicte en 
l'an mil.iiij#c-.xlv.  [text:]  Certes je doubte que aucuns ne cuident fort... 
aucun pou de lieux wider et partir hors de toute la Region.  Amen deo gratias.
Explicit. Cy fine le liure de la premiere guerre punicque.  ff. 74v-75v
ruled, but blank

Leonardo Bruni, De bello punico, Fr. tr.  by Jean Lebegue;
made, and presented in 1445, for Charles VII of France (1422-1461).  

Paper (watermarks:  closest to Briquet Armoiries-Trois fleurs de lis
1686), ff. ii (paper) + 76 (f. iii, 1-75, modern foliation), 285 x 193
(199 x 125) mm.  33 long lines.  Single vertical and horizontal bounding
lines.  All rulings in pale red ink.  Prickings in upper and lower
margins.
I 12 (ff. iii, I-II), II-VI 12, VII 4.  Catchwords to right of center
in lower margin, verso.  Quire and leaf signatures (e.g. a j., 
a ij.,...a vj., X for central bifolium) in lower left corner, recto.
Written by a single scribe in an elegant batarde script that sits above
the line, rather than on it.
Red and blue divided initials, 5-line, on ff. 1r, 2v, 4v, and for major
text divisions thereafter.  3- to 2-line plain red or blue initials
throughout.  Initials alternate red and blue for tables on ff. 1r-2v. 
Multi-line headings in red sharply indented toward right.  Guideletters 
for illuminator.
Binding:  France, s. xvi.  Olive green goatskin, roughly gold-tooled
with the arms of Claude d'Urfe in the center and a monogram of his
initial [C] with that of his wife, Jeanne de Balzac [I] in the corners,
together with cornucopiae, caducei, laurel and flaming altars.  (See J.
Guignard, Nouvel armorial du bibliophile [Paris, 1890] pp. 460-61.) 
Gilt edges.  Corners repaired. 

Written in France in the second half of the 15th century.  It was perhaps
commissioned by Louis Malet de Graville, amiral de France (1441/50-1516);
the inscription, s. xvi, along upper edge of f. iii verso indicates that
he bequeathed the volume to his daughter Anne Malet de Graville (before
1506-before 1540):  "A anne de Grauille de la succession de feu monsieur
L'admiral V#c xviij."  See E. Quentin-Bauchert, Les femmes bibliophiles de
France [Paris, 1886] pp. 386-87, for a similar inscription in Paris,
B. N. fr. 254.  She bequeathed her library to Claude d'Urfe (1501-58), 
who married her daughter Jeanne de Balzac and whose arms appear on the 
binding (see above). For a history of the d'Urfe library and a list of the
surviving books (including Marston MS 274 on pp. 89, 94), see A. Vernet,
"Les Manuscrits de Claude d'Urfe (1501-58) au Chateau de la Bastie,"
Academie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres:  Comptes-Rendus (Paris, 1976)
pp. 81-97.  Note in purple ink on f. i recto:  "R [?] Barbet/308
b[?]"; note with date "1754" on back pastedown.  Belonged to Lucius Wilmerding;
purchased at the sale of his estate (Parke-Bernet, 5 March 1951, no. 42)
by H. P. Kraus (Cat. 80, no. 26) who sold it in 1960 by Thomas E. Marston
(bookplate).

secundo folio:  gastez

Bibliography:  Faye and Bond, p. 96, no. 274.

Barbara A. Shailor