Textmanuscripts - Les Enluminures
130 folios on paper, watermark, horn, horizontally orientated, string visible on horn, close to Piccard online no. 119303, Vicenza, 1429, modern foliation in pencil top outer corner recto, complete (collation i16 ii-iii12 iv10 vi-vi12 vii10 viii6[ending f. 87v, -4, 5, 6, three leaves cancelled with no loss of text] ix12 ii-xi10 xii12 [12, pastedown]), no signatures or catchwords, unruled, but with leaves folded or ruled in blind for full-length vertical bounding lines with an additional fold/rule down the middle (justification 215-210 x 110-105 mm.), copied by several scribes in 39-54 long lines, rubrics and headings in a larger rounded gothic bookhand, text in small current gothic scripts, quickly written but very legible, 2-line initials in text ink with pen flourishing in various styles, some quite exuberant, f. 61v, diagram, tree of consanguinity (undecorated circles), f. 1, partially detached, edges frayed, light stains lower margins through f. 4, some worming, some ink burns (f. 73v-74, 76, resulting in small holes in the paper) and bleed-through, quires reinforced at the beginning and middle with some cracking along the reinforcement. ORIGINAL BINDING of wooden boards, cut square without a bevel, flush with the bookblock, spine now bare, small strip of red leather front cover (so once quarter bound?), and a fragment on back, sewn on two bands, nail on front cover from strap (once fastened front to back, straps now missing), unrestored and fragile, front cover almost completely detached. Dimensions 280 x 210 mm.
Law students in fifteenth-century Italy cut their teeth on the essential Roman law text, Justinian’s Institutes, of which this manuscript preserves an extensive commentary. Its size and layout were designed to ensure ease of use. Still in its original binding and thus retaining wide margins, it is legible throughout, copied in two size and types of script, on good paper stock, and decorated with pen initials by the scribe(s) in the same ink as the text. It includes a full-page diagram summarizing relationships by blood; “trees” of consanguinity are often found in Canon Law manuscripts but are unusual in this context. The text was an influential one, but it still lacks a modern critical edition. There are no copies reported in the United States, and no sales recorded in the Schoenberg Database.
1. Written in Northern Italy c. 1420-1440, as suggested by evidence of script and watermark.
2. Occasional contemporary corrections of words and short phrases; there is a extensive addition on f. 7v, squeezing in a passage at the end of a section, and continuing into the margin.
3. Added manicules (pointing hands) and marginal notes showing use.
4. Pasted inside back cover, partial typed description in German, dated 1939; inside front cover in pencil, 409 852-121 / 20/ and a price code; ‘26’ circled.
ff. 1-22v, [book 1] In nomine domini. Incipit Recolete Institutionum, incipit, “[text], In nomine domini nostri yhesu christi. Imperator cesar fluuius Justinianus allamanicus. [commentary], Ista Rubrica continet quinque partes principales quam in prima parte ponitur inuocatio diuini ….; [text], Imperatoriam magestatem non. [commentary], Dividitur hoc prohemium in duas partes. In prima parte imperator premittit duo fore necessaria ad tenendam maiestatem …; … [f. 1v], Titulus de Justicia et Jure, [text], Justicia est constans et perpetua. [commentary], Diuiditur iste titulus in quinque partes. In prima parte ponitur diffinitio iusticie …; … [text, book 1, tit. 26], Nouissime sciendum est eos. [commentary], Hoc dicit malus propositus tutoris …,” Explicit liber primus;
On f. 14v, lib. 1, tit. xi, De adoptonibus, ends near bottom of page, leaving lines blank; lib. 1, tit. xii, begins on f. 15, “Quibus modis ius potestatis solvitur …”; there is a long marginal addition on f. 18v (lib 1 tit xxii).
ff. 22v-58, [book 2], Incipit secundus de rerum diuisione. Superiori libro de iure personarum. R., incipit, “[commentary], Hic titulus dividitur in duas partes. In prima parte declarat quinque species rerum …,” Institutionum seu elementorum compositorum. Explicit liber secundus;
Lib 2, tit xxi, ends top f. 55v, remainder blank; f. 56, incipit, [text] “Et cum quesitum esset, [commentary], Porcio hereditatis vnius … [in Lib. 2, tit. xxii].
ff. 58-87v, Incipit tercius. De hereditatibus que uobis ab intestatu deferuntur. Intestatur decedit, incpit, “Intestatur decesisse dicitur qui autem nullo condito de testo decessit autem condio …,” Explicit liber tercius;
ff. 60v-61, side notes present in margin alongside tit. iii-vi; f. 61, tit. vi, De gradibus cognationum, begins mid-folio; f. 61v, Tree of consanguinity; f. 62, blank; f. 62v, text continues in tit. vi.
ff. 88-129, Incipit quartus liber. De obligationiubs que ex delicto nascuntur, incipit, “[text], Cum expositum sit superior libro de. [commentary], Diuiditur iste titulus in quatuor partes. In prima parte ponit diffinitionem furtii …, [f. 126], De publicis iudiciis, [text], Publica iudicia neque. [commentary], Iste titulus diuiditur in duas partes. Prima ponit declarationem …, [text] Est inter publica iudicia. [commentary], Hoc dicit lex Julia fauia de plagiariis … de quo in illo § S[unt?] qui pecuniam. In glo. allegata,” Amen. Deo gratias; [ends mid f. 129, remainder and ff. 129v-130, blank].
Johannes de Platea, Commentary on Justinian, Institutiones. Our identification of the text is provisional. The text has never been edited; there is one modern study of the author (Feenstra, 1982), which was not available to us for this description. However, the text of Freiburg im Breisgau, UB, HS 231 (Hagenmaier, 1980, pp. 3-5), shares the incipit and explicit of our manuscript, and the text in our manuscript is related, although not identical to the commentary as printed in Lyon 1507 (the 1507 edition includes additions by Johannes de Gradibus; see Online Resources).
Johannes de Platea (d. after 1427) was a Bolognese jurist and professor of law. This commentary was an influential one and survives in multiple manuscripts (22 are listed in Manuscript Juridica, Online Resources, although the incipits, when given, suggest some variation in the text; none are listed in the US or in Digital Scriptorium), and was printed multiple times in the sixteenth century (Lyon, 1507, repr. 1516, 1532, 1548, Pavia, 1508). It is not clear whether this author’s Apparatus libri institutionum, Segovia, 1472-4, GW M14492 is the same text. He was also the author of a commentary on the Code, books 10-12 (GW M14495). The present manuscript refers to its text as a “Recolete” of the Institutes (f. 1). Recollectae, recollectiones, reportata, and reportationes are all names given to the copies or notes taken by students at lectures or disputations. Further study would be needed to see if this manuscript is a copy directly based on student notes, or a fair copy from a written exemplar (the second alternative seems most likely in this case). Of special interest in this manuscript is the diagram on f. 61v, a “Tree of Consanguinity” showing relationships by blood. Diagrams such as this are very common in Canon law manuscripts. Although they are less common in this context, the information they summarized was equally important to students of civil law. Marriage was central to questions of family law, succession and inheritance, and many legal issues depended upon the degrees of family relationship.
The Corpus Iuris Civilis (“Body of Civil Law”) is the name given to the collection of legal texts issued from 529 to 535 by order of Justinian I, Roman Emperor. The Corpus included originally included the Code (Codex), a compilation, by selection and extraction, of imperial enactments to date, the Digest or Pandects, an encyclopedia composed of mostly brief extracts from the writings of Roman jurists, and the Institutes (Institutiones), the subject of our manuscript. These texts were updated in the Novelle in 556. During the Middle Ages, the Justinian Corpus was the focus of intense study from the eleventh century; it was “received” or imitated as private law and its public-law content was quarried for arguments by both secular and ecclesiastical authorities. This revived Roman law, in turn, became the foundation of law in all civil law jurisdictions.
The Institutes (535 C. E.) was intended as a sort of legal textbook for law schools and included extracts from the Codex and the Digest. The prologue is addressed to “the youth desirous of studying the law,” and continues, “The imperial majesty should be armed with laws as well as glorified with arms, that there may be good government in times both of war and of peace, and the ruler of Rome may not only be victorious over his enemies but may show himself as scrupulously regardful of justice as triumphant over his conquered foes…. Receive then these laws with your best powers and with the eagerness of study and show yourselves so learned as to be encouraged to hope that when you have compassed the whole field of law you may have ability to govern such portion of the state as may be entrusted to you.” In the medieval and Renaissance law school, the Institutes would have been the first text studied. The Institutes has remained a resource for legal scholars over the centuries by presenting a more accessible, rationally ordered, and concise summary of the main concepts of Roman Law than the much larger and more comprehensive Digest; it was cited by the New York Supreme Court in a property law case as recently as 1805 (Online Resources, “The Medieval Law School”).
Cavallar, Osvaldo and Kirshner, J. Jurists and Jurisprudence in Medieval Italy: Texts and Contexts, Toronto Studies in Medieval Law 4, Toronto, Buffalo, London, 2020.
Feenstra, Robert. Johannes de Platea, Bologneser Professor aus dem Anfang des 15. Jh.: die Uberlieferung seiner Schriften, mit kurzen Beiträgen über Henricus de Piro, Arnoldus Westphal und Johannes de Gradibus, Munich, 1982.
Hagenmaier, Winfried. Kataloge der Universitätsbibliothek Freiburg im Breisgau, Band 1, Teil 3: Die lateinischen mittelalterlichen Handschriften der Universitätsbibliothek Freiburg im Breisgau, Wiesbaden, 1980, pp. 3-4.
Johannes de Platea and Jean Gradi. Excellentissimi peritissimiq[ue] vtriusq[ue] iuris professoris domini Johannis de platea co[m]mentaria in quattuor libros institutionum. que olim imperfecta et ineme[n]datissima prodierunt: nu[n]c vero integra ac diligenter castigata cu[m] additionibus adiunctis per egregiu[m] virum dominum Joha[n]nem de gradibus vtriusq[ue] iuris professorem feliciter incipiunt, Lyon, 1507.
Online,
https://books.google.com/books?id=RUlmAAAAcAAJ&dq=libellus+ago+contra+ticium&source=gbs_navlinks_s
Krueger, P. and T. Mommsen, eds. Corpus Iuris Civilis. Volumen Primum. Institutiones ..., Hildesheim, 2000.
Available online: https://archive.org/stream/corpusjuriscivil01krueuoft#page/n3/mode/2up
Kuttner, Stephen, et al. A Catalogue of Canon and Roman Law manuscripts in the Vatican Library, Studi e testi 322 and 328, Vatican City, 1986-.
L’Engle, S. and R. Gibbs. Illuminating the Law. Legal Manuscripts in Cambridge Collections, London, 2001.
Radding, C. M. and A. Ciarelli. The Corpus Iuris Civilis in the Middle Ages. Manuscripts and Transmission from the Sixth Century to the Justice Revival, Leiden and Boston, 2007.
Stein, Peter. Roman Law in European History, Cambridge, 1999.
Thomas, J. A. C. The Institutes of Justinian. Text, Translation and Commentary, Amsterdam and Oxford, 1975.
Justinian, Institutiones, Latin text online
http://legalhistorysources.com/Law508/Roman%20Law/JustinianInstitutes.htm
G. R. Dolezalek, Manuscripta Juridica
http://manuscripts.rg.mpg.de/
Justinian, Institutes, Latin text online
http://legalhistorysources.com/Law508/Roman%20Law/JustinianInstitutes.htm
Justinian, Institutes, (Project Gutenburg) English translation, J. B. Moyle, 1913
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/5983/5983-h/5983-h.htm
Berkeley Law, Robbins Collections, “Roman Legal Tradition and the Compilation of Justinian”
https://www.law.berkeley.edu/library/robbins/RomanLegalTradition.html
Berkeley Law, Robbins Collections, “The Medieval Law School”
https://www.law.berkeley.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/Medieval-Law-School.pdf
Nathan Dorn, “Jolande Goldberg on Tree Figures, Memorization and the Law of Blood Relations,” March 20, 2012
https://blogs.loc.gov/law/2012/03/jolande-goldberg-on-tree-figures-memorization-and-the-law-of-blood-relations/
Michael Widener, “Learning the Law: Visual Aids,” November 15, 2018
https://library.law.yale.edu/news/learning-law-visual-aids
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