Manuscript: Cicero, De Officiis, 1465

Abstract

On paper, written in elegant Italian humanistic bookhand, signed and dated by the scribe ‘Silvester magistri Iohannis phisici Baldoli Fulginatis’ (‘Silvester, [in the service] of Master Giovanni Baldoli of Foligno, physician’), 24 May 1465. Unusually, the book retains its original binding of blind-stamped leather over wooden boards. On p. 16 is shown a common form of marginal NB mark, a pointing hand (‘maniculus’). The note says ‘Nota quis sit uir sapientissimus’ (‘Note what sort of man is the wisest of all’). The pastedowns are reused parchment leaves, the text, mainly washed off, in an Italian Gothic hand, probably 14th-century. In the lower margin of fo. 21r is an unidentified armorial flanked by the initials B. B. On fo. 1r is a note ‘Antonii Lazzarini liber emptus in foro Maceratae. IV. Kal. Aprilis An. 1751’ (‘The book of Antonio Lazzarini, bought in the market of Macerata, 29 March 1751’). Macerata is a small town in the March of Ancona (north-eastern Italy). Bought by the University Library from the New York bookseller B. M. Rosenthal, 1961. Cent Rare PA 6296 .D5 1465.