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

MS. Canon. Misc. 378

Summary Catalogue no.: 19854

Notitia dignitatum, etc.; Switzerland (Basel), 1436

Contents

Summary of Contents: Collection of mostly late antique texts, many illustrated, on geography and the administration of the late Roman Empire, almost all copied in 1436 from a Carolingian volume then preserved in the cathedral library of Speyer (now destroyed), itself deriving from a late antique original.

Language(s): Latin; item 14 in Latin and Greek

(fols. 1v-2r)

Double-page illuminated frontispiece.

Fol. 2v blank.

1. (fols. 3r-15v)
Cosmographia
Rubric: Situs et descriptio orbis terrarum
Incipit: Lectionum peruigili

Lacuna at end, inherited from exemplar

eTK 0814H

Pr. Geographi latini minores,ed. A. Riese (1878), pp. 71–103.

2. (fols. 15v-47v)
Itinerarium prouinciarum Antonini Augusti

Pr. Itinerarium Antonini Augusti et Hierosolymitanum, ed. G. Parthey and M. Pinder (1848).

3. (fol. 47r)

Lists of the hills and aqueducts of the City of Rome:

Septem montes urbis Romae
De aquis urbis
4. (fols. 47r-62v)
Dicuil, Liber de mensura orbis terrae

Pr. Dicuili Liber de mensura orbis terrae, ed. J. J. Tierney (Dublin, 1967)

5.

Texts on the provinces:

(fols. 62v-64r)
Notitia Galliarum

Pr. Notitia Dignitatum, ed. O. Seeck (1876), pp. 261–74

(fols. 64r-65r)
Laterculus Polemii Siluii

Pr. Notitia Dignitatum, ed. O. Seeck (1876), pp. 254–60

6. (fols. 65r-66ra)
De montibus, portis et uiis urbis Romae

Fols. 66rb-66v blank.

7. (fols. 67r-77v)
De rebus bellicis

Pr. Anonymi auctoris De rebus bellicis, R. I. Ireland (Teubner, 1984)

8. (fols. 78r–80r)
Disputatio siue Altercatio Hadriani Augusti et Epicteti Philosophi

Altercatio Hadriani Augusti et Epicteti philosophi, ed. L. W. Daly and W. Suchier (1939).

10. (fols. 84r–87r)
Notitia urbis Constantinopolitanae

Pr. Notitia Dignitatum, ed. Seeck, pp. 230–43.

11. (fols. 87r–88r)
De gradibus cognationum

Pr. Corpus Iuris Romani Anteiustiniani, ed. E. Böcking et al. (1835), p. 173.

12. (fols. 88v–170r)
Notitia dignitatum omnium tam ciu⟨il⟩ium quam militarium

Pr. Notitia Dignitatum, ed. Seeck, pp. 1–225.

13. (fols. 170v–172r)
Demensuratio suie de mensuratione provinciarum

Added text. Title in Pietro Donato’s own hand, 'Demensuratio prouinciarum, que non erat in precedenti codice, sed de antiquissimo libro excerpta.' – i.e. not from the Codex Spirensis but from another 9th-century manuscript, now surviving as Oxford, Merton College MS. 315.

Pr. Geographi latini minores, pp. 9–14.

14. (fols. 172v–173r)
Gregory Nazianzus, De VII mundi spectaculis

An extract from the original Greek, with Latin translation by Cyriaco d'Ancona, both in Cyriaco’s hand with headings in green ink, and here dedicated to Pietro Donato though elsewhere to other patrons.

Fol. 173v blank.

Physical Description

Form: codex
Support: parchment
Extent: 173 fols.
Dimensions (leaf): 273 × 195 mm.
Dimensions (written): 185–90 × c. 130 mm.

Layout

2 cols., 29 lines.

Hand(s)

Humanistic script. The same scribe also copied a Terence at Basel in 1436, perhaps also for Pietro Donato (MS. Vat. Ottob. lat. 1368), with miniatures also by Peronet Lamy (see below).

Fols. 172v-173 written by Cyriaco d'Ancona.

Decoration

Important miniatures, after a Carolingian copy of a late antique MS., by Peronet Lamy. Fine initials. (Pächt and Alexander i. 666 and ii. 599, pls. LII and LVI)

History

Origin: 1436 ; Produced at Switzerland, Basel; miniatures by a French artist, script and initials by an Italian (perhaps Paduan) scribe.

Provenance and Acquisition

Copied for Pietro Donato, at the council of Basel, 1436, from the 'Codex Spirensis', a Carolingian copy, preserved in the cathedral library at Speyer, of a late antique manuscript. Fol. 170: 'Exemplata est hec Cosmographia quę Scoti dicitur cum picturis ex uetustissimo Codice. quem habui ex Spirensi bibliotheca. Anno domini .M.CCCCXXXVI. mense Ianuario. Dum ego Petrus donatus dei pacientia episcopus paduanus uice Sanctissimi domini Eugenij paper .iiij. Generali Basiliensi Concilio pręsiderem'.

No. 209 in the inventory of Donato's books (P. Sambin, 'La bibliotheca di Pietro Donato (1380–1447)', Bolletino del Museo Civico di Padua 48 (1959), 53–98. His annotations throughout the volume.

Jacopo Soranzo, -1761.

Matteo Luigi Canonici, 1727–1805

Guiseppe Canonici, -1807

Purchased by the Bodleian in 1817.

Record Sources

Adapted (2018) from descriptions by B. Barker-Benfield (2014), Watson, and Pächt and Alexander (see bibliography). 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).

Availability

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Digital Images

Digital Bodleian (full digital facsimile)
Digital Bodleian (153 images from 35mm slides)
Digital Bodleian (1 image from 35mm slides)

Bibliography

Last Substantive Revision

2017-07-01: First online publication.