YALE UNIVERSITY
BEINECKE RARE BOOK AND MANUSCRIPT LIBRARY
GENERAL COLLECTION OF RARE BOOKS AND
MANUSCRIPTS
PRE-1600 MANUSCRIPTS
Beinecke MS 183 Italy, s. XV
Ovid, Ars amatoria
ff. 1r-42v //Profuit et tenui uentos mouisse flabello/ Et caua
sub tener [hole in page] edem/...vt quondam iuuenes ita nunc mea turba
puelle/ inscribant folijs Naso magister erat. Explicit liber nasonis de
arte amandi felliciter amen. Amen. ff. 43r-44v blank, except for random
scribblings (e.g., Omnia uincit amor et non [sic] cedamus amori).
E. J. Kenney, ed., Amores, etc., OCT (1961) pp. 119-200. Yale MS
183 begins abruptly at Book 1.161 and exhibits frequent lacunae and
interpolations (e.g., the text skips from 1.198 to 263, and inserts two
lines between 1.331 and 332).
Paper (watermarks: unidentified balance, in gutter), ff. iii
(paper) + 44 + iii (paper), 220 x 143 (140 x 99) mm. Written in 24
lines of verse; double vertical bounding lines. Ruled in lead or ink;
prickings in outer margin.
I^^10 (-1, 2), II-IV^^10, V^^6. Catchwords along lower edge, in
gutter.
Written by a single scribe in humanistic script; marginal notes in
italic.
Crude initials on ff. 15r and 30v, 8-line, outlined in black and
filled with various shades of red and yellow; the first initial
incorporates a grotesque. Smaller plain initials, some paragraph marks,
and initial strokes, in red. Spaces left for headings.
Stained and/or repaired throughout; loss of text on f. 1.
Binding: s. xx. Grey paper case with a dark brown calf label,
gold-tooled.
Written in Italy in the 15th century; early provenance unknown.
Belonged to Baron Horace de Landau (1824-1903, bookplate inside front
cover; see his Catalogue des livres manuscrits et imprimes [Florence,
1890] v. 2, p. 102, no. 206 bis); sale (Geneva, 1948, no. 101).
Acquired from C. A. Stonehill in 1948 by Thomas E. Marston (bookplate) and
presented to Yale in 1951.
Bibliography: Faye and Bond, p. 37, no. 183.
Barbara A. Shailor