RESERVED
[Commentaries on Aristotle, De Physica].
[Italy (Venice)], illuminated manuscript on paper, 24 February 1435.£75,000.00
4to. 300 leaves, wanting first leaf (which remains loosely enclosed as partial stub with illuminated initial; in this state since the late seventeenth century) and single leaf from seventh gathering, else complete, collation: i9, ii-vi10, vii9, viii-xxix10, xxx12, remnants of catchwords and contemporary foliation, double column of 53 lines in a tiny hand influenced by secretarial script (the scribe naming himself Andreas and “AB” in colophons), quotations from Aristotle’s work in larger angular script, red paragraph marks and running titles throughout, initials in red or blue with contrasting penwork, single illuminated initial (in pink, green, orange and blue acanthus leaves on blue and burnished gold grounds, with large bezants in margin) on remaining section of frontispiece, watermarks that of tri-lobed hill/Golgotha and a partial watermark with two arrow heads, strips of earlier manuscripts reused to strengthen gutters, some small spots, a few wormholes and slight discolouration to edges, small tears to foot of fols. 3-4, slightly trimmed at top edge, overall in fine condition on thick polished paper with clean margins, 282 by 220mm.; early nineteenth-century Italian binding of pasteboards with painted spine, cracking at spine but solid.
A substantial Aristotelian codex, with the commentary of an important English fourteenth-century philosopher, and a noble Italian provenance.
Provenance:
- Written by a scribe who names himself in the colophon on fol. 300r as “ego andreas scripsi”, and apparently also on fol. 66v as “A.B.” in large red letters there. He states he completed the work on the 24 February 1435 (although the last numeral descends so far below the line that it might just be read as a ‘9’), in Venice.
- Early, possibly contemporary ex libris of Petri ex Captaneis on verso of last.
- Conte Pirro de Capitani (d. c. 1669; also Pyrro de Capitaneis), Milanese nobleman, general and sometime ambassador to the imperial court in Vienna: inscriptions in late seventeenth-century Italian hand listing its contents and its donation, presumably to the Capuchin Friars of Monza in Milan, who are recorded as receiving a magnificent gift of books from him (see Philippi Argelati Bononiensis Bibliotheca scriptorum Mediolanensium, 1745, col. 684).
- Ercole Giuseppe de Silva (1756-1840, conte di Biandrate), and from his vast family library in Cinisello Balsamo, Milan (which borders Monza): his oval ex libris stamp and in his binding. In the catalogue of his collection: Catalogo de’ libri della biblioteca Silva in Cinisello, Monza, 1811, under ‘Nota de’ Codici manoscritti’, no. 43 (corresponding to “MS / 43” in gilt at foot of spine); his sale with Potier in Paris: Catalogue de livres rares et précieux, imprimés et manuscrits … provenant de la bibliothèque de M. le comte de S*** de Milan … les lundi 15 et mardi 16 février 1869, lot 199, and apparently unrecorded since.
Text:
The changing popularity of the works of Aristotle in the West, perhaps more than any other, illustrates the great sea changes of interest in secular Classical works during the collapse of the Roman Empire, the Dark Ages and the renaissance of learning that followed the Crusades and the foundation of scholarly translation-schools in Spain and Sicily. Much of Aristotle’s works were translated into Latin in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, with significant contributions made by William of Moerbeke and Bartholomeus de Messina in the thirteenth century. While fragments of leaves from such manuscripts can be obtained, codices, or even substantial fragments of them, are now of great rarity on the open market.
What is of particular note here is that this commentary is by an English medieval theologian, Walter Burley (or Burleigh; c. 1275-1344/5), one of the most prominent and influential philosophers of the fourteenth century. He was probably a Yorkshireman by birth, and after education in Oxford and Paris, served Edward III as courtier, occasional ambassador to Pope John XXII, Lord Treasurer and finally Lord Chamberlain, as well as bishop of Durham.
“Of [Burley’s] commentaries those on the Physics are undoubtedly the most important…this last effort which Burley devoted to the exposition and analysis of Aristotle’s Physics contains, it appears, the most significant of his contributions to natural philosophy”. DSB
The text is rare on the market, and while a handful of copies are listed as appearing in the last century, none has appeared since the southern French copy of the mid-fifteenth century in the Ritman sale at Sotheby’s, 6 July 2000, lot 17.
