Il libro di Sidrach: MS Charles Fairfax Murray 16

Titles

Il libro di Sidrach

Maker(s)

Scribe: Pico, Pietro

Entities

• Other

Categories

• Illuminated manuscript
• Manuscript

Description

PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: Parchment, 124 fols., 250 x 180 mm (175 x 127 mm), 31-32 long lines, ruled in faint brown ink, catchwords, quire and leaf signatures.

BINDING: Sixteenth century, limp vellum, sewn on three supports, two pairs of leather ties, the pastedowns are fragments from a fifteenth-century Italian liturgical manuscript, with part of its colophon showing in reverse inside the upper cover, [F]inito libro refferamus gratias Christo. Amen.

CONTENTS: fols. 1r-3r Prologue, rubric Qui si comincia el libro (crossed out) prologho del libro di sidracho lo strolagho lo qual parla di tucte le cose che al uomo bisognano, inc. La providença di dio lo padre tucto possente; fols. 3r-114r Il libro di Sidrach, rubric Qui si comincia lo libro del savio sidracho per lo consiglio del quale el re botusso hedifico la sua torre, inc. Uno re era alleuante lo qual era signor; fols. 114r-122v Table of questions 1-551 (some questions omitted, others listed in table, but not found in main text); fol. 122v Colophon with puzzle suggesting that the scribe’s name was Pietro Pico:

Explicit liber sidrach’ astrologi, una cum capitulis suis,
Scriptor sum talis mea mostrat litera quails
Nomen a primevo ecclexie clavigero sumpsi
Cognomen vero a quadam bicolore ave
E qua carmen istud magistrale datur
Nigrior una pisce, pars altera candida pice

fol. 123r-v Continuation of table with questions 447-476 and 512-538 written out of order, and questions 447-448 listed twice; fol. 124r-v Additional questions 179, 186, 194, unnumbered one, and 202, with rubric Questi sono alguni errori (they correspond to questions 178, 185, 195, 194 and 200 in the table, but are not found in the main text).

DECORATION: Historiated initial in pink on gold and blue ground with spraywork and floral extensions: [L, 7 ll.] Half-length author portrait.

Three unframed ink drawings coloured in green, blue, red, pink and mosaic gold, and inset within the text block: fol. 3v [17 ll.] Building the tower of King Boctus; fol. 4v [15 ll.] King Boctus and a counsellor observe as soldiers imprison an astrologer; fol. 8v [14 ll.] King Boctus and his courtiers observe as Sydrach destroys two idols on an altar.

ORNAMENTATION: Alternate blue and red penwork initials [2-3 ll.] for questions; calligraphic extensions to the ascenders and descenders of letters in upper and lower margins.

Notes

History note: William Morris (1834-1896), his bookplate inside upper cover; purchased with the rest of Morris’s library by Richard Bennett of Pendleton, near Manchester; sold by him at Sotheby’s, London, 5-10 Dec. 1898, lot 1076; purchased by Charles Fairfax Murray (1849–1919); his gift, 1905.