St John's College MS 81

Cicero, De oratore and Orator

Language(s): Latin

1. Fols. 1ra–23vb:

Incipit: Cogitanti michi sepe numero et memoria uetera repetenti perbeati fuisse quincte

Explicit: ab hac contencione dispucionis animos nostros curamque laxemus

Final rubric: M TULLI CICERONIS de oratore liber tercius explicit

Ed. Kazimierz F Kumaniecki, M. Tvlli Ciceronis scripta, fasc. 3 (Leipzig, 1969). Eleven blank lines separate the two texts. The scribe recognized that his copy of text 2 was incomplete at the head and left a blank space to signal this fact; he remained unaware of precisely how much was missing there.

2. Fols. 23vb–28rb:

Incipit: || -toque robustius quam hoc humile de quo dictum est summissius

Explicit: obsequi uerecundia negandi scribendi me inpudentiam suscepisse

Final rubric: Orator Explicit

Cicero, Orator ad M. Brutum,

ed. Rolf Westman, M. Tvlli Ciceronis scripta, fasc. 5 (Leipzig, 1980) beginning at 26.91.1 (27). Fol. 28v is blank. The scribe signalled many topics in the margin, annotation extended by later notes in both the upper and lower margins by various hands of ss. xiv and xv.

Physical Description

Secundo Folio: quam platonis

Form: codex

Support: Vellum (HSOS/HFFH).

ii + 28 + ii (numbered iii–iv).

Dimensions (leaf): 273 × 190 mm.

Collation

1–2⁸ 3¹². Catchwords under the inner columns. No signatures.

Layout

In double columns, each column 210–220 × 70–75 mm. , with 12 mm. between columns, in 50 lines to the column. Prickings on the final few leaves; bounded and ruled in black and brown ink.

Hand(s)

Written in gothic textura semiquadrata, with exaggerated anglicana descenders in the bottom lines, not the usual topline ascenders. Punctuated by point (some adjusted to punctus elevatus), virgula, and punctus elevatus, with a good many later adjustments.

Decoration

An unflourished blue 3-line lombard at the head of item 1.

Elsewhere rubrics unfilled.

Binding

Dark brown leather over millboards, with a plain gold fillet, s. xvii. Sewn on three thongs. ‘81’ in black ink in a paper lozenge pasted to the top of the spine. Modern paper pastedowns, a College bookplate on the front one. At both the front and rear, two modern paper flyleaves; the two leaves at the rear (iii–iv) are still joined at the head.

History

Origin: s. xiv in. ; English

Provenance and Acquisition

‘Zach Pearce, S. T. P Decan Winton in Praefatione suae Editionis hujus Libri Ciceroniani de Oratore hunc MS^tum sic laudat’, with quotation (fol. i, s. xviii).

Record Sources

Ralph Hanna, A descriptive catalogue of the western medieval manuscripts of St. John's College, Oxford (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002)

Availability

For enquiries relating to this manuscript please contact St John's College Library.

Funding of Cataloguing

Conversion of the printed catalogue to TEI funded by the Thompson Family Charitable Trust.

Abbreviations

View list of abbreviations and editorial conventions.

Last Substantive Revision

2020-11: First online publication

A catalogue of Western manuscripts at the Bodleian Libraries and selected Oxford colleges