Copy number: C-022(1)

Bound with C‑021; see there for details of binding and provenance.

Size of leaf: 270 × 189 mm.

SHELFMARK: Auct. N inf. 1.7(2).

Copy number: C-022(2)

Bound with:
1. Marcus Tullius Cicero, Orationes. [Bologna: Printer of Barbatia ‘Johannina' (H *2429), c.1475] (C‑241(2));
2. Petrus Ravennas, Oratio pro patria ad illustrissimum principem Nicolaum Trunum. [Venice: Nicolaus Jenson, after 25 Feb. 1472] (P‑235);
3. Gaius Sallustius Crispus, Opera. [Torrebelvicino: Giovanni Leonardo Longo, after 22 June 1478] (S‑022);
4. Scriptores rei rusticae. Venice: Nicolaus Jenson, 1472 (S‑122(2));
5. Publius Ovidius Naso, Opera. Bologna: Balthasar Azoguidus, 1480 (O‑037(1));
6. Publius Ovidius Naso, Opera. [Venice]: Jacobus Rubeus, [before Dec.] 1474 (O‑039(3)).

Wanting the blank leaf [b6]. The lower edges of some mutilated leaves were repaired, probably c.1900; on the repairs of that period see D. G. Vaisey, ‘E. W. B. Nicholson and the St Gall Conference, 1898', BLR 9,2 (1974), 101-13.

Binding: Eighteenth-century mottled blind-tooled calf; rebacked; the gold stamp of the Bodleian Library on both covers.

Size: 283 × 230 × 70 mm.

Size of leaf: 275 × 200 mm.

On the front endleaf nineteenth-century note, by H. C., probably Henry Cotton: ‘Mem. This is the most tiresome volume I ever had to deal with. H. C.’

Initials and paragraph marks are supplied in red.

Provenance: The provenance of this volume must be considered jointly with that of Auct. N 2.6, which contains Marcus Tullius Cicero, Paradoxa stoicorum; Laelius; Cato maior; Somnium Scipionis [Brescia: Statius Gallicus, before Sept. 1475] (C‑343(1)); and Marcus Tullius Cicero, gatherings [a-z] of Marcus Tullius Cicero, Orationes [Bologna: Printer of Barbatia ‘Johannina' (H *2429), c.1475] (C‑241(1). It seems certain that Auct. N 2.6 (C‑241(1) and C‑343(1)) was owned by Edward Bernard (1638-1697) and that it, together with Auct. O 2.21, constitutes no. 416 in Humphrey Wanley's list of Bernard's books, purchased from Bernard's widow in 1697. The frequent marginal notes in various hands in several of the items allow an attempt at establishing when the constituent parts of the volume were joined together. Auct. N 2.6(1) was bought 24 Sept. 1475 from a Henricus, possibly at Utrecht, by a person whose name is now erased: ‘M. T. Paradoxa. De Amicicia. De Senectute, De So[m]n[i]o Scipionis. Et habui hunc librum ab Henrico traiecti [erasure] die 24 mensis Decembris 1475 pro sex bologninis et sunt quinque quinterni' (this is not quite a correct description of the item in question, which is 1 ‘quinternum', 3 ‘quaterni', and 1 ‘bifolium'; ‘quinternus' appears to be used here to mean gathering); the payment is recorded as having been made in Bol[ognini], so the item may have been bought in Bologna; see C‑343(1); in this item there are frequent corrections to the text, possibly in the hand of the person who bought the item in 1475. Auct. N 2.6(2) and Auct. O 2.21(1) are two sections of the same copy of GW 6764; see C‑241(1-2): Auct. N 2.6(2) begins with a manuscript table of contents, dated 1519, listing and numbering the orations, and both halves of the item have references to the numbering as a running heading in the upper margin, and to the titles of the table preceding each oration; as this item was printed in Bologna, it is tempting to believe that it was also acquired by the anonymous owner of C‑343(1), but there is no firm evidence for this; they were certainly not bought at the same time, as the inscription in Auct. N 2.6 records the number of gatherings bought and no convincing example of the 1519 hand has been found in C‑343(1). It is certain that both items in Auct. N 2.6 and Auct. O 2.21(1) were together before they were acquired by Edward Bernard, as they contain notes in an earlier hand, making observations on the texts and identifying the passages with a hatch sign and with double quotation marks. All three items also have marginal notes and corrections in a seventeenth-century north-European hand. Auct. O 2.21(2) has marginal notes in a hand recognizable from its marginal ‘Nota' and curly lines along the columns of text, probably datable to 1519, as it seems to be the hand that wrote the table of contents preceding Auct. N 2.6(2) (which was, therefore, probably with the other items from c.1519). Auct. O 2.21(3-4) both have notes in the 1519 hand and the seventeenth-century hand, also notes in red ink; on a2r of Auct. O 2.21(3) is a monogram: ‘BCEF(?)IT', with 2 mottoes: ‘Post tenebras spero lucem', and ‘Quid mihi cum Lesbo Sicelis esse volo' (Ep. Sapph. 52). The first leaf of Auct. N 2.6(2) and, therefore, of Auct. O 2.21(1) is decorated, possibly in Germany, or, less likely, in provincial northern France. Over the decoration has been added the coat of arms of de Lesmeleuc, a noble family of Brittany; see P. Potier de Courcy, Nobiliaire et armorial de Bretagne, 2nd edn (Nantes and Paris, 1862), II 94. Decoration in the same style and with the same coat of arms is also found in Auct. O 2.21(3), on a2r, and in a similar style on a1r. Decoration in a similar style is found in Auct. O 2.21(5). Although the style is similar, the decoration does not seem to have been planned jointly for these items. It is, therefore, possible that Auct. N 2.6(2), Auct. O 2.21(1) and Auct. O 2.21(5-6) were decorated separately in the same area, possibly for the same owner, and only joined together later. It is also possible that Auct. O 2.21(5-6) were acquired separately by Edward Bernard, as they might have been items 60 and 61 in Catalogi Bibliothecae Heinsianae pars posterior (Leiden, 1682): ‘60. Ovidii editio Bononiensis anno 1480. | 61. --- Alia sed antiquissima', as it is known that Bernard bought extensively at this sale.

Former Bodleian shelfmarks: P 8.17 Art; 4° S 25 Jur.

SHELFMARK: Auct. O 2.21(7).