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

MS. Canon. Class. Lat. 161

Summary Catalogue no.: 18742

Contents

Language(s): Latin

(fols. 1r-109v)
Solinus, Collectanea rerum mirabilium
(fols. 1r-2r)

Prologue

Rubric: IVLIVS SOLINVS AD | VENTO SVO SALUT.
Incipit: QVOM ET A|VRIVM C|⟨LEMENT⟩|IA
Explicit: (fol. 2r)persequemur fide;
Final rubric: FINIT PROLOG(VS)
(fols. 2r-6v)

Capitula, followed (fol. 6v) by T-O world map.

(fols. 7–106v)
Rubric: I SOLINI CHOSMOG|RAPHI POLYSTORIA
Incipit: S|VNT QVI VI|DERI VELINT
Explicit: insularum qualitatem

De Babilonia, cap. lxiii, ends fol. 106v, followed without break by two additional items:

(fols. 106v-107r)
Rubric: DE HIBERNIA CAPITVLVM LXIIII
Incipit: Hibernia eo[sic] latitudine sui status et salubritate ac serenitate arcum mundum[sic] brytanie prestat
Explicit: gentem addiderunt

Extract from Bede, Historia ecclesiastica, i.1

(fols. 107r-109v)
Rubric: DEMENSVRATIO PROVINCIARUM
Incipit: INDIA Vlterior finitur ab oriente oceano ęgeo
Explicit: in latitudine milia passuum ccc ET CAETERA

eTK 0742D; as pr. A. Riese, Geographi latini minores (1878) 9–14; also P. Schnabel, ‘Die Weltkarte des Agrippa’, Philologus 90 (1935), 425–31.

Final rubric: LAVS TIBI CHRISTE | Mºccccºlviiº \xiiijo Madij/

Physical Description

Form: codex
Support: parchment
Extent: i (unfoliated, conjoint with pastedown) + i + 109 + i + i (unfoliated, conjoint with pastedown), foliated i, 1–110.
Dimensions (leaf): 235 × 150 mm.

Collation

Quires of 10; vertical catchwords written inside the inner bounding lines.

Layout

1 col., 27 lines, written space 160–5 × 85–90 mm. ; ruled in ink with double vertical inner and outer bounding lines extending the full height of the page; written above top line.

Hand(s)

Written in humanistic script by the same scribe as MS. Canon. Class. Lat. 133 and Cologny, Foundation Martin Bodmer, Cod. Bodmer 51 (A. C. de la Mare and L. Nuvoloni, Bartolomeo Sanvito (2009), p. 384).

Decoration

Interlace initial, fol. 1r.

T-O world map, fol. 6v (later fifteenth-century addition?).

Fine miniature, fol. 7r, previously attributed to Leonardo Bellini or circle (Pächt and Alexander ii. 603, pl. LVIII), now to an anonymous Venetian or Paduan artist. Square frame, supported by two winged putti, containing initial S and two coins with profile heads of a woman and a young man (‘Diva Faustina’ and ‘Antonius hopilius’ [sic for Antoninus Pius], see J. J. G. Alexander, The Painted Book in Renaissance Italy: 1450–1600 (2016), p. 364 n. 171).

Three-line alternating red and blue initials at the beginning of chapters.

Chapter titles and marginal rubrics in carmine.

Binding

Modern binding.

History

Origin: 1457 ; Italian, Padua or Venice (?)

Provenance and Acquisition

Arms of Bernardo Bembo erased from fol. 7 and his ex libris from fol. 109v; annotations by him.

Matteo Luigi Canonici, 1727–1805.

His brother Giuseppe Canonici, -1807.

Purchased by the Bodleian in 1817.

Record Sources

Preliminary description by Matthew Holford, 2018. Previously described in the Quarto Catalogue (H. O. Coxe, Catalogi codicum manuscriptorum Bibliothecæ Bodleianæ pars tertia codices Græcos et Latinos Canonicianos complectens, Quarto Catalogues III, 1854).

Digital Images

Digital Bodleian (1 image from 35mm slides)

Bibliography

Last Substantive Revision

2018-10-04: Description revised and updated.