Accession number
MS M.461
Object 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 line
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).
A sister manuscript by the same illuminator was acquired by the Getty Museum in March 2022 (their ms. MS 124).
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).
A sister manuscript by the same illuminator was acquired by the Getty Museum in March 2022 (their ms. MS 124).
Script
bastarda
Language
French
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