Beinecke MS 681
Italy (Venice?), s. XIV 2
Ps.-Cicero, Rhetorica ad Herennium

ff. 1r-21r	Marci Tullii Ciceronis rethoricorum novorum ad G. Herenuum liber incipit. 
[prologue:] Etsi negotiis familiaribus inpediti vix satis otium studio suppeditare possimus, ipsum 
quod datur otii libentius in philosophia consumere consuevimus ... [text:] Oratoris offitium est de 
hiis rebus posse dicere, que res ad usum civilem moribus ac legibus constitute sunt ... Hec omnia 
adipiscemur, si rationes preceptionis dilligentia consequamur et
exercitacione.  Explicit liber 
Tullii. Deo gratias. Amen.		f. 21v blank (for notes see below)

Ps.-Cicero, Rhetorica ad Herennium, G. Achard, ed., Bude (1989). Books II, III and IV begin 
respectively ff. 3v, 8r and 12r.


Parchment (goatskin), ff.  I + 21 (f. 21 is at the same time the rear cover), 290 x 200 mm.  The 
outer side of the quires is flesh side. Numerous wormholes in the covers and first and last leaves. 
Some irregular edges and corners. Early foliation in arabic numerals in the lower outer corner of 
the recto pages.

I10 (ff. 1-10; ff. 3 and 8 are singletons with stubs), II10 (ff. 11-20); the front cover and f. 21 are a 
bifolium, with the hair side at the outer side.

Ruled with brown ink for two columns of  64 lines below top line, 194/199 x 131/132 mm., 
intercolumnar space 13 mm. Ruling type 46.  Pricking in the upper, outer and lower margins.

Copied by one hand in small Southern Gothica Textualis Libraria (Rotunda) in two sizes. Large 
initials at the head of Books I and III are followed by a line in fancy majuscules alternating with 
penwork. The scribe wrote the invocation "Ihesus" in the upper margin of f. 1r.

Headings in red. Paragraph marks in red or blue. Plain initials (mostly 2-line) in red. Flourished 
initials of various sizes in blue with red penwork (a few have deviant colours). Each of the four 
books opens with a large flourished initial; the one at the beginning of Book II is a littera duplex 
(7 lines), the one at the beginning of Book I, of the same type, is more elaborate (14 lines).

Unbound.

The irregular structure of quire I has no implications for the text. A few marginal notes and 
corrections (some in Greek). A long addition in clumsy late Humanistic Semitextualis in the 
lower margin of f. 6r. Annotations (pen trials) on the front cover  by various hands in Humanistic 
script, s. XV, partly repeated several times: "Virgilius in Eneida: Quid non mortalia pectora cogis, 
/ Auri sacra fames?" (Vergil, Aeneis, 3.56); "Oracius in Odis: Nunc vino pellite curas" (Horace, 
Carmina, 1.7.31); "B. Qui michi dicit Ave, mox tolatur ab eo Ve; / Senper sit sine Ve qui michi 
dicit Ave"; "Virginis intacte dum veneris ante figuram, / Pretereondo cave ne sileatur Ave" 
(Walther, Sprichwoerter, v. 5, p. 776, no. 33619); "Pratale in ecclesia sancte Mari? dict? vill? ante 
eius figuram". On the rear cover (f. 21v) praise of Venice (s. XV/XVI): "Grecia docta fuit, iam 
Roma potencior armis; / Nunc Veneti docti, nunc tenet arma leo. / Publica res Veneta est foelix 
senperque futura / Legibus in peno (?) preside iusticia". Purchased on the Edwin J. Beinecke 
Fund in honor of Herman W. Liebert, Yale 1933.

Albert Derolez

R 17.02.09