Auction Bloomsbury (mars 2008) : \ »Exemplari\ », \ »trattato dell’ abbaco\ », Livre d’ heures …

Bloomsbury Auctions, Inc., New York présente à la vente (sur Ebay) plusieurs précieux manuscrits, dont un exemplari, origine France, copié par un Karolus. Il s’agit peut-être de Charles, copiste cité par R. H. Rouse & M. A. Rouse, Manuscripts and their makers, II, p. 21, comme étant censitaire en 1285 de Saint-Merri. J’ai moi-même lu ce nom dans le Paris AN S 1626/1 qui est un censier de l’abbaye Sainte-Geneviève, daté de 1276: Karolus scriptor (in bordellis) 
Les exemplaria servaient de modèle aux copistes et étaient loués pièce par pièce.

 
Descriptions d’après notices en ligne
[Lot 3B] ARISTOTLE. [Organon.] Composite manuscript on vellum, containing: PORPHYRY. Isagoge; ARISTOTLE. Categoriae, Liber peri hermenias [De interpretatione]; BOETHIUS, Anicius Manlius Severinus. Liber de divisione, De differentiis topicis; ARISTOTLE. Liber topicorum, De sophisticis elenchi, Priora analytica, Posterioria analytica, in Latin. France: mid- and late 12th century and early 13th century]. Decorated manuscript on vellum. 173 ff., complete. Collation: 114 2-68; 7-108 116 125 (of 6, f. 12/1 blank removed); 13-146 158; 16-198; 20-228. Detailed contents: Porphyry, Isagoge ff.1-4 and 11-14v (ff. 5-10v a second copy inserted in the middle of the first gathering); Aristotle, Categoriae ff. 14v-25v; Aristotle, Liber Peri hermenias ff. 25v-31v; Boethius, Liber de divisione ff. 31v-38v; Boethius, De differentiis topicis, books I-III, ff. 38v-53v; Boethius, De syllogismus categoricis, opening sections only, ff. 53v-54v; Aristotle, Liber topicorum ff. 55-97 [a blank leaf, the pair to ff.55, has been removed from the end of this section but there is no gap in either this text or the following]; Aristotle, De sophisticis elenchis ff. 98-117v; Aristotle, Priora analytica, in the Chartres recension ff. 118-149v; Aristotle, Posteriora analytica ff. 150-172v; notes on humors and brief quotations, additions in a 15th-century hand, ff.172v-173v. Six discrete text blocks (200 x 135 mm. and smaller), each ruled in a different pattern of between 29 and 38 lines, written in dark brown or black ink in different small proto-gothic or gothic bookhands. Opening initials of pale red or brown and red, diagrams in text on ff.132v and 138 and in margin of f.3, extensive marginalia in various hands, ranging from detailed explanatory text and diagrams to informal marginal sketches. Modern blindstamped calf over 15th-century bevelled wooden boards, 15th-century French manuscript deed on vellum (written on recto of a folded folio leaf), formerly used as pastedown, at end. Condition: a few wormholes in first leaves, rubbed or stained with some loss to text of ff. 1 and 2, f.106 with repair crossing text, vellum repairs to lower corner of f. 11, outer margin of f. 74 and lower margin of f. 91. Provenance: The individual text blocks are all in French hands, and several of the annotations are in French, providing evidence that the collected manuscript remained in France. Many of the marginalia are seim-effaced A few are dated to the mid-13th century (1240 and 1269). Some of the annotations are unrelated to the text, transcribing for example, the opening of a letter, or recording the receipt of a mattress, but one note, on f. 117v, records payment to a scribe and may relate to the manuscript’s production (Mag[ist]ri karoli scriptoris p[ro] exemplari. ii sol[idi]) (1). — The manuscript deed that was used as a pastedown, dated 1407 and relating to a marriage settlement of Johanette, daughter of Jehan, living at \ »Poulorgny,\ » suggests that the manuscript was still in France when it was rebound in the fifteenth century. — Count Oswald Seilern (1901-1967, booklabel, sale Christies London, 26 March 2003, lot 3). A remarkable composite manuscript, consisting of a compendium of discretely produced manuscripts, originally from more than one codex, that were assembled in the 13th century to provide the entire corpus of works that make up the Aristotelian Organon (\ »The Instrument\ »). Organon was the name given by his followers to Aristotle’s six works on philosophical logic, accompanied by Porphyry’s introduction (Isagoge) and the commentaries by Boethius, through whose Latin translation the works were rediscovered and disseminated throughout medieval Europe. This corpus became the basis for the study of logic and the determining influence on scholastic thought. the assemblage of all of these texts in this thirteenth-century volume provides valuable evidence of the revival of interest in and circulation of the fundamental texts of Antiquity during the in the 12th and 13th centuries. The composite nature of the manuscript mirrors the incremental rediscovery of the Aristotelian corpus during the \ »Renaissance of the twelfth century\ »: the first section contains the works subsequently known as the logica vetus, written in a particularly fine and elegant hand, apparently in southern France in the middle of the 12th century. The quality of the penmanship in this section may have been the inspired the addition of the other texts and possibly ensured the preservation of the volume as a whole. The remaining texts contain the other logical texts of Aristotle, which became known as the logica nova, as they were only recovered in the course of the 12th century. It is not clear whether these other texts were added in a single campaign at a later date, although this seems unlikely, but it is evident that some attempt was made to give them a more uniform look by the addition of the pink-red initials and occasional paragraph marks. The annotations and marginalia attest to the manuscript’s extensive use by various readers from the 13th century and later. Precise clues as to provenance are scarce, most names being illegible or incomplete. The notes include erudite explanatory text and logical diagrams, including one, in a 13th-century hand, which schematically depicts Porphyry’s questions on the status of \ »universals\ » (the problem that brought forth scholasticism), as well as frivolous sketches: at the foot of f.51v is a labeled sketch of a physician holding a urine bottle, and in the outer margin of f.109 a knight astride his horse. Medieval Aristotle manuscripts of this quality and early date appear rarely on the market.
  

Lot 16b: North Italy, Lombardy?: early 16th century

An abbacus manuscript, in Italian. Decorated manuscript on vellum. [Italy], 1419. Signed and dated by the scribe, Joh[ann]es de Strasburg, 18 April 1419. 47 leaves: [19 2-48 56 68]. Possibly incomplete at beginning. Written in brown ink in a small upright cursive, single column, up to 51 lines (variable), section headings and paragraph marks in red, marginal initial capitals and table headings with red capital strokes. Catchwords in center of lower margins on final versos. Ten pages with geometrical diagrams (circles and triangles). Signed and dated at end \ »facto e chompiuto adi 18 April 1419 / [in red] Qui scripsit scribat et sember cu[m] d[o]m[i]ni vivat / Amen solamen Steyg der blin uff den lamen / Joh[ann]es de Strasburg\ ». Modern black goatskin. Condition: First leaf wrinkled and with large stain obscuring one to two words each from 7 lines on recto, occasional small stains Provenance: \ »Piero (?)Strozzo,\ » contemporary ownership inscription at end (of a member of the Florentine banking family?); several illegible or partly eradicated early inscriptions on final verso. — Later manuscript notes with geometrical diagrams on 5 leaves at end. a very fine example of a \ »trattato dell’ abbaco\ » or italian pedagogic manual of commercial mathematics, accounting and geometry. Beginning in the thirteenth century the rise of international trade and banking companies in the Italian city-states prompted the formation of vernacular schools in which commercial mathematics, accounting and writing were taught to sons of the merchant class. This was a radical departure from the humanist educational curriculum, which, if it included mathematics at all, was limited to classical or medieval Latin mathematics – algorisms for determining moveable feast days in the church calendar, or Euclidean geometry. Known as abbaco, this practical course of mathematics was recorded and transmitted in manuscript books, of which several hundred are known to survive, all in Italian, and the vast majority in institutional collections. Long thought to be abbreviated vernacular versions of the Latin Liber abbaci of the 13th-century mathematician Leonardo Fibonacci, an encyclopaedia of practical mathematics, these abbaco manuscripts, of which the earliest dated example is from 1290, may in fact derive from a more widespread culture of commercial mathematics, already known by Fibonacci, and probably flourishing in Provence and/or Catalonia before reaching Italy. From the fourteenth to the sixteenth century so-called abbaco schools flourished throughout northern Italy, in different forms, with the Florentine version being a separate two-year course of study administered to boys aged 11 to 14, while other towns integrated the abbaco teaching into the vernacular schools. The present manuscript opens with problems of addition, multiplication, and division, including fractions. (\ »Abbaco books. did not usually explain addition and subtraction, probably leaving this to the teacher to do\ » – Grendler, p. 313). It proceeds quickly to \ »the heart of abbaco. solving the mathematical problems of business. The ordinary abbaco book might contain four hundred problems and their solutions, of which the largest group by far were business problems (op. cit., p. 314). This manuscript is no exception. The many problems, most presented in a literary, story-telling form that is typical of the genre, relate to commercial arrangements, payment of merchandise, commercial partnerships, measurements and weights, money exchange, etc. Several schematic tables show how to calculate distances; others show different accounting methods or methods of calculating interest. A few other problems are of the \ »recreational\ » sort described by Grendler, designed to exercise purely mathematical skills. The final section, illustrated with neat diagrams, is devoted to practical geometry. Like all abbaco manuscripts, this one contains a trove of information on late medieval Italian commercial practices. The fact that the manuscript is signed and dated adds to its interest and documentary value. The concluding jingle of the scribe Johann from Strassburg is written in an unusual mixture of Italian and German. Written in the lower margins in a seventeenth- or eighteenth-century Italian hand, the later notes testify to the manuscript’s continued use two or three centuries after its production. Abbaco manuscripts appear very rarely on the market. Cf. Paul F. Grendler, Schooling in Renaissance Italy (Baltimore & London 1989), chapter 11, \ »Learning Merchant Skills\ »; Warren Van Egmond, Practical Mathematics in the Italian Renaissance: a Catalog of Italian Abbacus Manuscripts and Printed Books to 1600 (Florence 1981). Cf. Paul F. Grendler, Schooling in Renaissance Italy (Baltimore & London 1989), chapter 11, \ »Learning Merchant Skills\ »; Warren Van Egmond, Practical Mathematics in the Italian Renaissance: a Catalog of Italian Abbacus Manuscripts and Printed Books to 1600 (Florence 1981).

ILLUMINATED MANUSCRIPT LEAVES , France,15th Century. Three leaves from a noted Missal , in Latin, on vellum. [France, ? Britanny, c. 1430s]. each (310 x 230 mm). Double column, 30 lines in black ink in an upright gothic bookhand between 4 verticals and 31 horizontals ruled in grey, one leaf with respectively 9 and 10 lines of musical notation on verso, in square neumes on four-line red staves. Rubricated in red, one heading in gold. Guide letters for rubrics in margins. Numerous illuminated initials in various sizes: three large initials in blue or red on burnished gold grounds with red or blue infill and white penwork decoration, 43 three- to one-line initials in gold on blue and red grounds and with gold, blue and red foliate infill, three line-fillers or Greek crosses in blue or red on gold grounds. Three pages including the page with music with bar borders in burnished gold and pink or blue and with full illuminated borders of acanthus leaves and flowering naturalistic plants in red, blue, green, or gold and hairline tendrils in black ink terminating in gold disks, flower buds and trefoils. Condition: a few small marginal holes and some holes in text block caused by acidic ink. Provenance: Cornelius J Hauck Collection, sale Christies New York, 27th June 2006 lot 104. These leaves were part of a lavishly decorated Missal. The style of the border decoration, particularly the use of orange and liquid gold fruits, evokes the illuminator known as the Master of Margaret of Orléans (duchess of Brittany), and the manuscript may have been produced in Brittany. The leaves contain the opening of the Introit Benedicta sit sancta trinita for Mass on Trinity Sunday, the Introit Resurrexi et adhuc tecum for Mass on Easter Sunday, and the Preface Per omnia secula seculorum from the Canon of the Mass.

BOOK OF HOURS, use of Rouen, in Latin. Late 15th Century Northern France (probably Rouen), [c. 1470-80 and c. 1520]. Illuminated manuscript on vellum. Small 4to (160 x 110 mm). 236 leaves, 1 blank, complete, red ink foliation skips a leaf between fols.86 and 87, ruled in red ink, 25 lines, written-space 112mm. by 70mm.

Bloomsbury Auctions
Site web [Link]

C.E.M.A. Colloque 27-29 mars 2008 : Palimpsestes : écriture, effacement et réinscription dans l’Angleterre médiévale

Colloque du Centre d’études médiévales anglaises (CEMA) de l’Université Paris-Sorbonne Paris IV organisé en l’honneur d’André Crépin, professeur émérite de Paris IV et membre de l’Institut de France.
Un palimpseste est un manuscrit dont on a effacé l’inscription première, en grattant le parchemin ou en le lavant, pour pouvoir réécrire par-dessus. Il s’agit donc d’une succession de couches de texte, dont seule la dernière est généralement lisible à l’œil nu, les strates plus profondes ne faisant au mieux qu’affleurer par endroits. Malgré les difficultés et les frustrations que son étude implique, le palimpseste fascine, car il est témoignage de la disparition d’un texte, d’une écriture, d’une provenance, et promesse latente d’un dévoilement de ceux-ci. Il apporte un éclairage sur la généalogie du texte existant et de son inscription dans une tradition et dans l’histoire du parchemin sur lequel il a été consigné.
Cette quête de l’écriture cachée débouche, de manière plus générale, sur la recherche du texte antérieur, de ce qui précéda le souvenir qui persiste, de l’histoire qui préfigura celle qui a survécu. Aussi le palimpseste représente-il le processus d’adaptation, de traduction et de réécriture qui informe une partie importante de la production littéraire médiévale.

Programme du colloque
JEUDI 27 MARS … SALLE DES ACTES
14h15 Ouverture du colloque: Leo CARRUTHERS (Paris IV) et Marthe MENSAH (Reims)
15h – 16h15 Session I: Manuscrits présidée par Laura KENDRICK (Versailles Saint-Quentin)
Adrian PAPAHAGI (Cluj, Roumanie): An Anglo-Saxon palimpsest in Fleury? An analysis of Orléans BM, MS 342 (290)
Peter STOKES (Cambridge): Recovering palimpsests: some tools and techniques 16h30 – 16h50
Jane ROBERTS (London): Some psalter glosses in their immediate context 16h55 – 17h40 Discussion
17h45 Cocktail au Club des Enseignants de la Sorbonne : toast porté par Jean-Claude MARTIN VENDREDI 28 MARS … MAISON DE LA RECHERCHE
9h30 – 10h45 Session II: Etymologie et lexique présidée par Henry DANIELS (Dijon) Myriam MÉAR (Paris IV): The Sandwich short of a picnic
Gloria CIGMAN (Warwick): Doublets and prose: the harvesting of English vocabulary in the later Middle Ages
11h – 12h15 Session III: Réécriture(s) et diffusion(s) présidée par Henry DANIELS (Dijon)
Gabriella CORONA (York): Latin legends of the Virgin Mary
Arlette SANCERY (Paris IV): La Judith anglo-saxonne, un palimpseste biblique ?
12h30 Déjeuner des intervenants au Club des Enseignants de la Sorbonne
14h30 – 16h15 Session IV: Réinscriptions homilétiques vieil- et moyen-anglaises présidée par Jean-Pascal POUZET (Limoges/Paris IV)
Paul E. SZARMACH (Medieval Academy of America): The palimpsest and Old English homiletic composition Winfried RUDOLF (Oxford): Tormented souls on scratched parchment – textual intervention in an exhortatory sermon in Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Bodley 340 and its parallels
Stephen MORRISON (Poitiers): Textual transformation in some late Middle English sermons
16h30 – 17h45 Session V: Transpositions moyen-anglaises présidée par Jean-Pascal POUZET (Limoges/Paris IV)
Gila ALONI (Lynn University, Floride): The palimpsest as a form of destruction of archetypes – con(text)ualizing Chaucer’s Philomela
Florence BOURGNE (Paris IV): Resisting palimpsests: vernacular engravings in the late Middle English period
SAMEDI 29 MARS … SALLE DES ACTES
9h30 – 11h15 Session VI: Palimpsestes arthuriens présidée par Martine YVERNAULT (Limoges)
Claire VIAL (Paris III): Les lais bretons en moyen anglais, ou les limbes de l’ascendance
Kevin J. HARTY (La Salle, Philadelphie): Completing the medieval with the modern: Eric Rohmer and Chrétien de Troyes’ Le conte du graal
Colette STÉVANOVITCH (IDEA, Nancy-Université): Enquiries into the textual history of the 17th-century Sir Lambewell (British Library, MS Additional 27897)
11h45 – 13h Session VII: Palimpsestes esthétiques et génériques présidée par Tatjana SILEC (Paris IV) Jean-Marc ELSHOLZ (Paris I): Sous les textes, l’image : le récit esthétique de la « matière de Bretagne » dans le film Excalibur de John Boorman
Leo CARRUTHERS (Paris IV): Rewriting genres: Beowulf as epic romance

Site web du CEMA [Link]

Autres activités du CEMA:
Les prochains séminaires CEMA / AMAES de lecture de manuscrits écrits en vieil- ou moyen-anglais auront lieu à la Maison de la Recherche de Paris IV, 28 rue Serpente, salle D 117, les samedis suivants de 10h à 12h : 5 avril, 24 mai, 21 juin

Un breton au service des Orléans: Hugues de Guingamp (ca 1349-ca 1424)

Parmi les quelques secrétaires bretons qui ont marqué notre histoire nationale au XIVe siècle, aux côtés des Yves Simon et Yves Derien, figure Hugues de Guingamp. 

La signature de Hugues de Guingamp. 24 septembre 1396. (c) New York, Columbia University, Rare Book and Manuscript Library Smith Documents 0198
[Lien]

La très utile base \ »Opération Charles VI\ » mise en ligne sur le site du LAMOP [Lien] énumère les diffèrentes fonctions exercées par Hugues de Guingamp. Elles sont assez impressionnantes:
* Auditeur des comptes du duc Louis d’Orléans
* Concierge de l’hôtel de Nesploy
* Conseiller de la duchesse d’Orléans, Valentine Visconti
* Employé aux requètes de l’Hôtel du roi
* Garde des chartes et joyaux du duc et de la duchesse d’Orléans
* Greffier de la chambre des comptes
* Maître lai extraordinaire des comptes
* Membre du conseil du roi Charles VI
* Notaire à la chambre des comptes
* Notaire du roi
* Procureur général des serviteurs du comte de Valois Louis de France
* Secrétaire du duc Charles d’Orléans
* Secrétaire du duc Louis d’Orléans

Hugues de Guingamp fut d’abord clerc et secrétaire du roi (1385), puis conseiller du roi, du duc d’Orléans en leur Chambre des comptes, garde des chartes du duc (1391-1403), enfin auditeur des comptes (1406). Il reçut en 1394 deux cent francs de récompense pour avoir surveillé la construction de la chapelle des Célestins que Louis d’Orléans faisait construire.
Son écu était à un chevron hochant sur un aigle et cantonné de mouchetures d’hermine (BnF Cabinet des titres PO 1448, n° 32835, 4-22)

Quelques sources manuscrites en rapport avec Hugues de Guingant:
(Archives de Joursanvault)
[2892] 1392: Louis, duc d’Orléans, nomme Jean Prunelle et Hugues de Guingant, pour prendre possession, en son nom, de plusieurs fiefs, et recevoir l’hommage de ses vassaux.
[2927] 1402. Compte particulier de Hugues de Guingant, conseiller du duc d’Orléans, pour les dépenses qu’il a faites dans plusieurs voyages en Orléanais.
[3614] 1394. Le duc Louis d’Orléans nomme Alain de Beaumont et Hugues de Guingamp administrateurs de son domaine de Sablé. 
A ce dernier document rattacher cet acte (Catalogue de livres rares et précieux, Manuscrits et chartes originales, Paris, Techener, 1849, n° 1255:) 
Loys, duc d’Orléans, mande à son trésorier de payer 90 francs d’or à Hugues de Guingant, son secrétaire, qui doit aller avec Alain de Beaumont pendre possession du château de Sablé, qu il venait d’acheter de sa tante la reine de Jérusalem et de Sicile. — 22 sept. 1394. — Or. — Débris du scel.

25 juin 1391: Inventaire fait le xxve jour du mois de juing, l’an mil ccc IIIJxx et onze, par nous, Hugue de Guingant et Jehan Gilet, secrétaires de MS le duc de Touraine, présent Jehan Poulain, varlet de chambre et garde des finances dudit MS le duc, et les chiefs des offices d’icelui seigneur, lesquelz ont été avec ledit seigneur ou voyage qu’il a naguères fait ès parties de Lombardie, des joyaulz, vaisselle d’or et d’argent, et autres choses rapportées dudit voyage par lesdiz chiefs d’offices (Paris AN K 264).
14 mars 1394: Parties d’escriptures faictes par Jehan de Villebresme, du commandement et ordonnance de MS le chancellier d’Orliens et de maistre Hugues de Guingant, secrétaire du Roy, du roy NS et de MS le duc d’Orliens et maistre des comptes et garde des chartes et priviléges d’icelui MS le duc. (Le comte de Laborde, Les ducs de Bourgogne. Etudes sur les lettres, les arts et l’industrie, III, p. 55, 100)

Hugues de Guingamp hérita des biens de Nicolas d’Orgemont, chanoine de Notre Dame, dit le boiteux, condamné en 1415 comme membre du parti bourguignon à la privation de ses offices [Lien]

Pierre Cockshaw († 15 mars 2008)

Denis Muzerelle, responsable de la section \ »Paléographie latine\ » à l’IRHT, nous apprend le décès de Pierre COCKSHAW, survenu le 15 mars dernier, dans le cours de sa soixante-dixième année.
Membre de l’Académie royale de Belgique depuis 1993, Conservateur en chef de la Bibliothèque royale de Belgique de 1992 à 2003 et professeur honoraire de l’Université libre de Bruxelles, Pierre Cockshaw était membre du C.I.P.L. depuis 1993.
Les funérailles auront lieu le jeudi 20 mars 2008, à 9 h 30, au Crematorium d’Uccle.