YALE UNIVERSITY
BEINECKE RARE BOOK AND MANUSCRIPT LIBRARY
GENERAL COLLECTION OF RARE BOOKS AND
MANUSCRIPTS
PRE-1600 MANUSCRIPTS
Beinecke MS 61 Italy, 1430
Boethius, De consolatione philosophiae
ff. 1r-36r Carmina qui quondam studio Florente peregi/ Flebilis
heu mestos cogor inire modos/...cum cuncta agamus ante oculos iudici
cuncta cernentis. Explicit liber boetij de consolatione philosophica vi
kal. ianuarij 1430. [another explicit in a modern (?) hand follows] f.
36v blank
L. Bieler, ed., CC ser. lat. 94 (1957) pp. 1-105.
Parchment, ff. 36, 246 x 176 (190 x 132) mm. Written in 36-37 long
lines or lines of verse; vertical bounding lines in hard point,
horizontal guidelines in ink; prickings along lower edge.
I-IV^^8, V^^4. Remains of signatures, in red, on recto of first
leaves (ai, aii, etc.); catchwords appear in center of lower margin,
with a small flourish on each side and below.
Written in round gothic bookhand by one scribe.
Historiated initial with partial border contains the portrait of
Boethius (f. 14r); four illuminated initials of similar design and
colors (dark red, red-orange, green, blue, gold) on ff. 6r, 12v, 22r,
29v (beginning of Books II-V). Small initials and paragraph marks in
red throughout.
Binding: Date? Original sewing on two thick, slit leather straps,
the endbands sewn on leather cores. Flush beech boards with straps
laced through tunnels in the edge to channels slanted up to the outer
face. The ends of the straps therefore protrude well above the face.
Straps nailed and endband cores laid in V-shaped grooves and nailed.
The spine and about one quarter of the boards covered by brown calf
with a nailed parchment strip at the edge, fragments only remaining. No
adhesive on the spine. Channels for straps cut in the upper board.
Holes for pins in the lower, but no marks of pin plates. This binding
could be contemporary or 19th-20th century. It is interesting to note
that the manuscript was bought because of the binding and not because
of the text.
Written probably in Northern Italy in 1430; early provenance
unknown. Purchased from Gabriel Wells in 1935 with funds from the Yale
Library Associates.
secundo folio: Rimari
Bibliography: De Ricci, v. 2. p. 2253, no. 61.
Barbara A. Shailor