MS. Bywater 37
Collections (six manuscripts bound together); Italian (Venice, Verona, and Padua); 15th and 16th centuries (1460, 1536–40, 1551–64, etc.)
Physical Description
Collation
Binding
Bound in 18th-century Italian three-quarter parchment over pasteboards covered with paper decorated with a wavy red pattern on a white ground (of the type described by Mitchell, 1969, 131); the spine with a red leather title-piece lettered 'OPUSCULI | VARII, and with a paper label inscribed 'Nicolai | Sagundini | epist. ad | Bessarionem | (etc.) | [remainder damaged, illegible]'; the base of the spine inscribed 'No. 53' (cf under Provenance).
History
Provenance and Acquisition
Jacopo Soranzo (1686–1761): with his characteristic 'bold' foliation, now out of sequence (cf. Mitchell, 1969, 129–30, 131–2).
Matteo Luigi Canonici (1727–1806) (on whom see Falconer Madan, A summary catalogue of western manuscripts in the Bodleian Library at Oxford, IV: (collections received during the first half of the 19th century) nos. 16670–24330 (Oxford, 1897), 313): inscribed with characteristic: (i) pressmark at the base of the spine: 'No. 53' (cf. Christopher de Hamel, Hidden friends: a loan exhibition of the Comites Latentes Collection of illuminated manuscripts from the Bibliothèque Publique et Universitaire, Geneva, on view at Sotheby's on the occasion of the Colloque of the Comité International de Paléographie 20–28 September 1985 (London, 1985), no. 23, with pl.); (ii) foliations (cf. Mitchell, 1969, pl. XVIa); and (iii) paper insert with 'No. 53' (cf. Mitchell, 1969; and de Hamel, op. cit.); the manuscripts bound together for him.
Giuseppe Canonici (d. 1807): Matteo died intestate, and his manuscripts passed to his brother.
Giovanni Perisinotti: on Giuseppe's death in 1807, the manuscripts, about 3550 in number, passed to Perisinotti, and after many attempts to sell them, 2045 of them were acquired by the Bodleian in 1817; another group was sold at Sotheby's in 1821; and the remainder, 915 in number, were sold to Sneyd in 1834.
Rev. Walter Sneyd, of Denton House, Cuddeston (1809–1888), 1834: the upper pastedown with his circular bookplate design printed on a rectangular piece of paper (cf. de Hamel, op. cit.); sold at Sotheby's, 16 December 1903 and three following days, lot 708; bought by Dobell for £1 7s.
Bertram Dobell: catalogue 118 (Feb. 1904), item 275, priced £2 5s.
Ingram Bywater: inscribed with his Elenchus number in pencil in the top left corner of the upper pastedown: 'By. | 3677'; the upper pastedown with a cutting from the Dobell catalogue, inscribed in ink by Bywater: 'Dobell 1904'.
Bequeathed to the Bodleian by Ingram Bywater in 1915 (originally catalogued after accession under the Summary Catalogue no. 40069).
MS. Bywater 37, fols. 2–29
Contents
dated (fol. 27r) Venice, 21 August 1460
(see L. Mohler, Kardinal Bessarion (Paderborn: 1925–42), III, 647).Physical Description
Collation
Layout
Ruled in drypoint in the 1st quire, with 25–6 lines, and frame-ruled in brown 'crayon' in the 2nd quire.
Hand(s)
Written in a sloping italic hand in brown ink as far as fol. 11r, line 7; thereafter in a more upright hand, in black ink.
Decoration
No colour is used.
History
MS. Bywater 37, fols. 32–60
Contents
Physical Description
Layout
Ruled in faint leadpoint with 22 lines.
Hand(s)
Written in a humanistic script with 21 lines per page, attributabe to Felice Feliciano.
Decoration
(fol. 31v) Ornamental frame, not filled in, in the form of an architectural monument, in watercolours(?) of blue, red, and dull yellow (Pacht and Alexander, II, pl. LXI.637).
(fol. 32r) Elaborate letter 'F'(ve), with a frame of knotwork on a trellis-like frame.
History
MS. Bywater 37, fols. 61–117
Contents
Fols. 61r-v, 116–117v are ruled, otherwise originally blank
Physical Description
Collation
Layout
Mostly ruled faint leadpoint with 25 lines per page.
History
MS. Bywater 37, fols. 118–175
Contents
An account, predominantly in Italian, of 144 visions seen by him at Venice, 1551–1564, written down, according to a note at the end (fol. 175r), by Livio Sanudo (c.1520–75; on whom see E. A. Cigogna, Inscrizioni Venziane (Venice, 1824), II, 293–7); fol. 118r-v is blank except for the Soranzo foliation; fol. 175v blank.
Physical Description
Collation
Layout
Apparently not ruled. Approx. 19–20 lines of text per page.
Decoration
Several simple pen-drawn diagrams are incorporated into the text to illustrate it (e.g. fols. 124v, 130r, etc.).
History
MS. Bywater 37, fols. 176–244
Contents
Title-page
fol. 176v blank.
Dedication to Matteo Zane , patriarch of Venice 1600–05
fol. 178r blank
Text. Title as on fol. 176r
fol. 244v blank.
Physical Description
Layout
Apparently not ruled.
Hand(s)
Written with up to two eight-line verses on each page.
History
MS. Bywater 37, fols. 245–323
Contents
Ten dialogues in the Paduan dialect, dated 1536–40, dedicated to Pitro dall Chiesa (fol. 32r); the author gives his initials as 'V. S.' (fols. 276v, 294v, 322r, etc.); leaves are missing after fols. 254, 265, 287, and 305; fols. 245r, 257v, 294r, 314r, 321r, 322v-323v are blank except for foliations, etc.
Physical Description
Layout
Ruling not visible.
Hand(s)
Written in humanisctic script with with approx. 24–25 lines per page.
Decoration
Framed ink sketches:
- (fol. 245v) Dialogue 1. Man in a landscape, standing on ploughed furrows (?); half-page.
- (fol. 276v) Dialogue 6. Three cherubs, two of them holding a (?)ball; quarter-page.
- (fol. 294v) Dialogue 8. Bearded man sitting under a tree, with several books; a banderole above is inscribed ' teris studio cognoscere multa'; quarter-page.
- (fol. 314v) Dialogue 10. A tree-stump, from which a new branch is growing; a banderole above is inscribed 'Resurrexi et adhuc tecum sum.'; half-page.
History
Additional Information
Record Sources
Digital Images
Digital Bodleian (1 image from 35mm slides)
Bibliography
Online resources:
Abbreviations
View list of abbreviations and editorial conventions.
Last Substantive Revision
2017-07-01: First online publication.