Literary

Accession number: 
MS M.497
Title: 
Literary
Created: 
Florence, Italy, between 1470 and 1475.
Binding: 
Formerly in Italian brown calf, blind-tooled, ca. 1850; rebound by Deborah Evetts in May 1973 in burgundy leather on four raised bands.
Credit: 
Purchased by J. Pierpont Morgan (1837-1913) in 1912.
Description: 
271 leaves (1 column, 34 lines), bound : vellum, ill. ; 320 x 215 mm
Provenance: 
Written and illuminated for Francesco Sassetti (1421-1490); passed to the library of Matthias Corvinus, King of Hungary; manuscript returned to Italy with Beatrice of Aragon after his death; in the collection of Giovan Francesco De Rossi (Giovanni Francesco Rossi) and Luisa Carlotta di borbone (daughter of Lodovico, Duke of Parma); the Jesuit College at Wien-Lainz; Voynich, Florence; Tammaro De Marinis, Florence (catalogue 12, 1913, no. 15 and plate; listed as sold); purchased by J. Pierpont Morgan (1837-1913) from Alexandre Imbert in 1912; J.P. Morgan (1867-1943).
Notes: 

Ms. written and illuminated in Florence, Italy, in the early 1470s.
Texts: Cicero, Opera (fol. 1-268); Niccolò Niccoli, Commentarium in peregrinatione Germaniae (fol. 268v-270).
The Niccoli text is a narrative of his search for manuscripts in Germany.
Scribe: Hubertus.
Decoration: 1 illuminated circular table of contents; 8 illuminated incipit pages with arms and emblems; 6 large, and numerous small, illuminated initials.
Artist: the painted title page and flower borders are by the cleric Benedetto di Silvestro.

Script: 
humanistic script
Language: 
Latin
Century: 
Classification: