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Walters Ms. W.393, Rufus Festus, Breviarium Rerum Gestarum Populi Romani; Pseudo-Aurelius Victor (?), De Viris Illustribus; Ludovico Foscarini, Gesta Victoris et CoronaeBrowse images (Browse images in a new window) | TEI in XML format
Manuscript
Rufus Festus, Breviarium Rerum Gestarum Populi Romani; Pseudo-Aurelius Victor (?), De Viris Illustribus; Ludovico Foscarini, Gesta Victoris et Coronae
Text title
Collection of texts by Rufus Festus, Pseudo-Aurelius Victor (?), and Ludovico Foscarini
Author
Authority name: Festus, Rufus
As-written name: Ruffus Sextus
Known as: Sextus Rufus
Author
Authority name: Pseudo-Aurelius Victor
As-written name: Pliny Veronesis
Author
Authority name: Ludovico Foscarini
As-written name: Ludovicus Foscarenus
Known as: Ludovico Foscarini
Known as: Ludovici Foscareni
Abstract
Written in the fifteenth century, perhaps ca. 1450-1460 in Venice, this manuscript contains works by Rufus Festus, Pseudo-Aurelius Victor, and Ludovico Foscarini. The first text, Breviarium Rerum Gestarum Populi Romani, is a purposefully brief history of the Roman Empire. The first half describes Rome's acquisition of its provinces in chronological order, while the second half is an account of Rome's wars with Persia. It was written in 370 CE for the Emperor Valens (r. 364 to 378 CE), who ruled the Eastern Roman Empire while his brother Valentinian I (r. 364 to 375 CE) ruled the West. In the rubric and incipit of the Walters' manuscript, Festus is erroneously named Ruffus Sextus, which stems from an early corruption of "Festus" to "Sextus." In addition, Valens is named Valentinian, confusing one brother for another. The second text, De Viris Illustribus, also concerns the history of the Roman Empire and dates to the fourth century CE. It gives short, concise biographies of important men from Rome's long history. It is one of many such texts that fall within the genre of Roman exemplary literature, the most famous of which is Suetonius' early second century CE work "De Vita Caesarum" or âThe Lives of the Caesars.â In the manuscript tradition, the author of De Viris Illustribus has been given as both Pliny Secundus Veronesis, otherwise known as Pliny the Younger, who was writing in the late first century CE, or as Aurelius Victor, a fourth century CE historian. The Walters text adopts the former, naming the author as "Pliny Veronesis." Most scholars have dismissed both Pliny and Aurelius Victor as potential authors, and instead prefer to say he was a late antique scholarly commentator working in the fourth-early fifth century CE. The third text is an account of the lives of Victor and Corona, two Christian martyrs that were killed during the Roman Empire. According to its 1439 dedicatory letter, the text was written by Venetian humanist Ludovico Foscarini (1409-1480) and dedicated to Jacopo Foscaro (ca. 1416-1457), the son of the 65th Venetian Doge Francesco Foscari. In 1439 Jacopo was serving as praetor of Feltre, a small city and commune outside of Venice, whose patron saints are Victor and Corona. On fol. 65r, the beginning of the dedicatory letter, is depicted heraldry that likely represents the noble Giustiniani family of Venice. The text was written during the lifetime of Bernardo Giustiniani (1408â1489), a prominent Venetian senator and diplomat who was also an avid historian interested in the Roman Empire. His close friendship with Ludovico Foscarini suggests that it was perhaps Bernardo who commissioned the production of the Walters manuscript.
Date
Second half of 15th century CE
Genre
Historical
Literary -- Prose
Language:
The primary language in this manuscript is Latin.
Support material
Parchment
Likely evidence of cropping for the new binding on fol. 1r; pastedowns and flyleaves composed of modern parchment
Extent
Foliation: iii+94+iii
Modern pencil foliation, upper right and lower bottom right corners, rectos
Collation
Formula: iii + Quires 1-4: 10 (fols. 1-40); Quires 5-6: 12 (fols. 41-64), Quire 7-9:10 (fols. 42-94) + iii
Catchwords: In the first text, written in black ink on center of bottom versos (as on fol. 10v); in the second and third texts, written in black ink vertically on right bottom corner versos (as on fol. 30v)
Comments:
Dimensions
10.2 cm wide by 14.4 cm high
Written surface
6.1 cm wide by 9.2 cm high
Layout
Contents:
fols. 1r - 94v:Decoration:
fol. 1r:
fol. 65r:
The heraldry has been identified as belonging to the Giustiniani family of Venice, whose members held various positions of power in the city from the fifteenth through the seventeenth centuries.
fol. 66r:
fol. 68v:
fol. 78r:
Binding
The binding is not original.
Bound in London, England by Leighton between 1896 and ca. 1912 based on an inscription on the inner board that reads "Leighton Brewer St W."; brown Morocco leather with blind gold tooling in the form of rectangular frames; Leighton added a binion of parchment before and after the fifteenth-century parchment
Provenance
Created second half of the fifteenth century, Venice(?), Italy perhaps for the Giustiniani family based on the heraldry found on fol. 65r
Marchese Campana sale (London, 20 July 1860, no. 244) to Boone, for Sir Thomas Phillipps, England (no. 18094 in his collection)
Quartich Booksellers, London, 1896 (published in their catalog 164, no. 147), purchased from sale of Sir Thomas Phillips' estate (London, 1896, no. 999)
Leo S. Olschki, bookseller, Florence, before 1912
Henry Walters, Baltimore, purchased from Leo S. Olschki ca. 1912 (list no. 9, inv. no 5813)
Acquisition
Walters Art Museum, 1931, by Henry Walters' bequest
Bibliography
De Ricci, Seymour. Census of Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts in the United States and Canada. Vol. 1. New York: H. W. Wilson Company, 1935, p. 838, no. 472.
Eadie, John William. The Brevarium of Festus; a critical edition with historical commentary. London: Athlone Press. 1967, p. 26.
Labalme, Patricia H. Bernardo Giustiniani: a Venetian of the Quattrocento. Roma: Edizioni di storia e letteratura, 1969.
Sherwin Jr., Walter K. "De Viris Illustribus: Two Unexamined MSS in the Walters Art Gallery." Classical World 65, no. 5 (1972): 145-146.
Sage, Michael M. "The 'De Viris Illustribus' Authorship and Date." Hermes 108 (1980): 83-100.
Frazier, Alison Knowles. Possible lives: authors and saints in renaissance Italy. New York: Columbia University Press. 2005, p.xxii, plate 1; p. 387.
Kelly, Gavin. "The Roman World of Festus' Breviarium." In Unclassical Traditions, Volume 1: Alternatives to the Classical Past in Late Antiquity, edited by Christopher Kelly et al. Cambridge: Cambridge Philological Society, 2010, p. 72-91.
Contributors
Principal cataloger: Berlin, Nicole
Cataloger: Walters Art Museum curatorial staff and researchers since 1934
Editor: Herbert, Lynley
Copy editor: Dibble, Charles
Conservators: Polidori, Elisabetta; Quandt, Abigail
Contributors: Emery, Doug; Tabritha, Ariel; Vinson, Aubrey; Wiegand, Kimber
Publisher
The Walters Art Museum
License
Licensed for use under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported Access Rights, http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/legalcode. It is requested that copies of any published articles based on the information in this data set be sent to the curator of manuscripts, The Walters Art Museum, 600 North Charles Street, Baltimore MD 21201.
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