Livre des merveilles du monde

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Accession number:

MS M.461

Title:

Livre des merveilles du monde

Created:

France, probably Angers, ca. 1460.

Binding:

18th-century French or Belgian red morocco gilt with red silk end covers, in slip case.

Credit:

Purchased by J. Pierpont Morgan (1837-1913) in 1911.

Description:

129 leaves (1 column, 35-37 lines), bound : vellum, ill. ; 281 x 220 mm

Provenance:

In two miniatures are found the Anjou-Naples bearings; was ca. 1600 in Spain; no. 1236 in an old catalogue; J. Barrois Collectin (no. 148), sold in 1849 to the Earl of Ashburnham; his sale (London, 1901, no. 397) to Quaritch; Octave Gallice Collection, Epernay; purchased by J. Pierpont Morgan (1837-1913) from Léon Gruel in 1911; J.P. Morgan (1867-1943).

Notes:

Ms.; written and illuminated in France, probably Angers, ca. 1460.
Text: French translation of a compilation of excerpts borrowed in part from ancient texts including, Historia naturalis by Pliny the Elder and De memorabilibus mundi by Gaius Julius Solinus, and the thirteenth century Otia imperialia by Gervaise of Tilbury.
The colophon on fol. 129v reads, "Explicit le livre des merveilles du monde".
Decoration: 57 large miniatures.
Artists: Master of the Geneva Boccaccio, a member of the Jouvenel des Ursins group (See, John Plummer, The Last Flowering, 1982, no. 44 and Marc-Édouard Gautier and François Avril, Splendeur de l'enluminure, 2009, no. 35.)
The illustrations are based on those in an earlier example of the text by the Master of Marguerite d'Orléans, dated 1428 (Paris, BnF, ms. fr. 1377-1379).

Variant Title:

Le Livre des secrets de l'histoire naturelle.

Script:

bastarda

Language:

French

Resources:

Description/Bibliography

Century:

15th century

Genres:

Bastarda