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Detailed record for Harley 6295
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| Author |
Alexander of Aphrodisias, Aristotle, Hippocrates of Kos, Galen |
| Title |
Collection of philosophical, medical, scientifical and political treatises, including Alexander's 'Problemata' (ff. 1-20), Aristotle's 'Problemata' (ff. 35-65v), Hippocrates's 'Prognosticon' (ff. 89-98), Galen's Commentary on Hippocrates's aphorisms, and a collection of astronomical and chronological tables (ff. 140-156v) |
| Origin |
Eastern Mediterranean (Crete) |
| Date |
2nd half of the 15th century |
| Language |
Greek |
| Script |
Greek minuscule |
| Scribe |
Written by 3 scribes, including Ioannes |
| Decoration |
Headpieces and line-fillers with interlace decoration in light brown or red (ff. 1, 20v, 25, 28, 98, 107, 111). Initials with foliate decoration, titles, rubrics and colophons in light brown or red. Marginal diagrams in red (ff. 124v-126v). |
| Dimensions in mm |
200 x 145 (150 x 85/100) |
| Official foliation |
ff. i + 308 (f. i is an original flyleaf; + 2 unfoliated modern flyleaves at the beginning, and one original and 2 modern at the end) |
| Collation |
Gatherings mainly of 8, with 2 sets of quire signatures |
| Form |
Paper codex |
| Binding |
BM/BL in-house. Late 19th-century. Fore-edges decorated in Cretan (?) style. |
| Provenance |
Partly written (ff. 117-308v) by a scribe identified as Ioannes (and not Georgios Gregoropoulos, as previously believed), possibly in Crete: his signature (f. 308v; see Gamillscheg and Harlfinger 1981).
The Jesuit College in Agen (Lot-et-Garonne, France), maintained by the Jesuits from 1591 to 1762: inscribed, 17th century, 'Coll. Agen. Socie Jesu. Catal. Inscrip.' (f. 1; see Wright 1972).
The Harley Collection, formed by Robert Harley (b. 1661, d. 1724), 1st earl of Oxford and Mortimer, politician, and Edward Harley (b. 1689, d. 1741), 2nd earl of Oxford and Mortimer, book collector and patron of the arts.
Edward Harley bequeathed the library to his widow, Henrietta, née Cavendish Holles (b. 1694, d. 1755) during her lifetime and thereafter to their daughter, Margaret Cavendish Bentinck (b. 1715, d. 1785), duchess of Portland; the manuscripts were sold by the Countess and the Duchess in 1753 to the nation for £10,000 (a fraction of their contemporary value) under the Act of Parliament that also established the British Museum; the Harley manuscripts form one of the foundation collections of the British Library. |
| Notes |
A partial table of contents in Latin and Greek, 16th-century (f. i).
A full table of contents in Summary Catalogue of Greek Manuscripts 1999.
Original fore-edges decoration with two circles linked by an interlace pattern in ink and colour wash, possibly a Cretan-style decoration. |
| Select bibliography |
A Catalogue of the Harleian Manuscripts in the British Museum, 4 vols (London: Eyre and Strahan, 1808-12), III (1808), no. 6295.
Henri Omont, 'Notes sur les manuscrits grecs du British Museum', Bibliothèque de l'École des Chartes, 45 (1884), 314-50, 584 (p. 340).
E. Maunde Thompson, ‘Catalogue of Classical Manuscripts’, Classical Review, 3 (1889), 149-55, 440-45 (pp. 441 no. 129, 445 no. 158).
Die Handschriften der antiken Ärzte, ed. by Hermann Diels, 2 vols (Berlin: Königlichen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1905-1906), I: Hippokrates und Galenos, pp. 5, 13, 41, 46; II: Die übrigen griechischen Ärzte ausser Hippokrates und Galenos, pp. 9, 40, 65.
Paul Moraux, Aristoteles graecus: Die griechischen Manuskripte des Aristoteles, Peripatoi, 8 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1976), I: Alexandrien-London, pp. 433-37.
Cyril Ernest Wright, Fontes Harleiani: A Study of the Sources of the Harleian Collection of Manuscripts in the British Museum (London: British Museum, 1972), pp. 47-48, 465.
Repertorium der griechischen Kopisten 800-1600, ed. by Ernst Gamillscheg and Dieter Harlfinger, Veröffentlichungen der Kommission für Byzantinistik, 3-1, ed. by Herbert Hunger (Vienna: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1981- ), I: Handschriften aus Bibliotheken Grossbritanniens, 3 vols, nos. 204 and 58 (among 'Err.').
Paul Oskar Kristeller, Iter Italicum: Accedunt Alia Itinera: A Finding List of Uncatalogued or Incompletely Catalogued Humanistic Manuscripts of the Renaissance in Italian and other Libraries, 7 vols (London: Warburg Institute; Leiden: Brill, 1963-1997), IV (1989), p. 152.
Summary Catalogue of Greek Manuscripts (London: British Library, 1999- ), I, pp. 197-98 [with further bibliography].
Catalogued for the Harley Medical Manuscripts Project
[http://www.bl.uk/catalogues/manuscripts/INDEX.asp], accessed 27 March 2009 [with further bibliography]. |
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f. 1
Decorated headpiece and initial |
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