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A Renaissance bishop and his books: a preliminary survey of the manuscript collection of Pietro del Monte (c. 1400–57)1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 August 2013

David Rundle
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Papers of the British School at Rome , Volume 69 , November 2001 , pp. 245 - 272
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Copyright © British School at Rome 2001

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Footnotes

1

My first debt of gratitude is to the British School at Rome, whose generosity allowed me to begin this project. I would also like to thank the École Française, at whose conference in February 2000 I presented some of my conclusions; I thank Prof. Diego Quaglioni for his comments on that occasion. Prof. A.C. de la Mare most kindly commented on a draft of this paper and provided idenfications of some of the scribes. Finally I would like to thank the Marc Fitch Fund for its generosity in providing a grant towards the publication of the illustrations that accompany this article.

References

2 da Bisticci, Vespasiano, Le Vite I (ed. Greco, A.) (Florence, 1970), 269–70Google Scholar.

3 For example, he asserted that del Monte was at the Council of Constance which, if it were true, would make him a child genius: he was at that time still parsing at the feet of Guarino. The Council del Monte attended was Basel (Vespasiano, Le Vite (above, n. 2)).

4 The one scholar to recognize the significance of del Monte's collection was Monsignor Jose Ruysschaert who, at one stage, intended to publish a study on it. He was unable to provide that study himself, but recent notices of del Monte manuscripts often have depended on Monsignor Ruysschaert's generosity with his knowledge.

5 The manuscripts so far identified as del Monte's are listed in the Appendix; they are cited in the notes by their number in that listing, in bold.

6 In this biographical section, the citations will be kept to a minimum. For del Monte's life, see Dizionario biografico degli Italiani (sub nomine) which is heavily endebted to Quaglioni, D., Pietro del Monte a Roma (Rome, 1984)Google Scholar; the fullest discussion that, however, says little about del Monte's writings, remains Zanelli, A., ‘Pietro del Monte’, Archivio Storico Lombardo 34 (1907), 317–78 and 46–115Google Scholar; a useful summary also appears in King, M., Venetian Humanism in an Age of Patrician Dominance (Princeton, 1986), 405–6Google Scholar.

7 Sottili, A., Studenti tedeschi e umanesimo italiano nell'Università di Padova durante il Quattrocento I: Piero del Monte nella società accademica padovana (1430–33) (Padua, 1971)Google Scholar.

8 On del Monte's English years, see Weiss, R., Humanism in England in the Fifteenth Century (third edition) (Oxford, 1967), 24–8Google Scholar; Haller, J., Piero da Monte (Bibliothek des Deutschen Historischen Instituts in Rom 19) (Rome, 1941)Google Scholar, which partially prints del Monte's epistolary; Harvey, M., England, Rome and the Papacy (Manchester, 1993), 74–7, 163–5Google Scholar; D. Rundle, ‘Carneades' legacy: the morality of eloquence in the humanist and papalist writings of Pietro del Monte’, English Historical Review (forthcoming).

9 As well as in ‘Carneades' legacy’ (above, n. 8), I have discussed De Vitiorum inter se Differentia in ‘On the difference between Virtue and Weiss: humanist texts in England in the fifteenth century’, in Dunn, D. (ed.), Courts, Counties and the Capital (Stroud, 1996), 181–203Google Scholar.

10 Transcribed by Zanchin, M., Il primato del romano pontifice in un opera inedita di Pietro del Monte del secolo XV (Vigodarzere, 1997)Google Scholar.

11 This work is the focus of Quaglioni, Pietro del Monte a Roma (above, n. 6).

12 Vespasiano, Vite (above, n. 2), 270.

13 Quaglioni, Pietro del Monte a Roma (above, n. 6), 187–96. Del Monte was certainly acquainted with Barbo, but the only letters from him to the future pope, dating from his English years, have the tone of one addressing not so much a friend as a social superior: Haller, Piero da Monte (above, n. 8), no. 44, 46, 72, 74, 159.

14 They are, for the most part, present (without notice of their provenance) in the 1475 inventory of the Vatican that was printed by Müntz, E. and Fabre, P., La bibliothèque du Vatican au XVe siècle (Bibliothèque des Écoles Françaises d'Athènes et de Rome 48) (Paris, 1887), 159–225Google Scholar. See also Fohlen, J., ‘Les manuscrits classiques dans le fonds Vatican latin d'Eugène IV (1443), à Jules III (1550)’, Humanistica Lovaniensia 34a (1985), 1–51Google Scholar.

15 Del Monte's coat of arms from 34 is reproduced (as ‘unidentified’ arms) at Pellegrin, E., Les manuscrits classiques latins de la Bibliothèque Vaticane III/1 (Paris, 1991)Google Scholar, pl. 11b.

16 Examples of manuscripts where the Barbo arms seem to be painted over del Monte's are 21, 43, 47 and possibly 55.

17 For several manuscripts that can now be shown to have been del Monte's, Paul II's ownership has been assumed to be the earliest provenance evidence: see, for example, Pellegrin, Les manuscrits classiques (above, n. 15).

18 This only provides a minimum estimate — several more manuscripts were written by scribes who also worked on del Monte codices, but they lack the positive proof to make a certain attribution of provenance. Equally, other manuscripts in the early Vat. lat. numbers (for example 12, 34, 39, 46, 63) for which the only evidence of ownership is del Monte's safely can be assumed to have entered the Barbo library, adding to both the overall number in that collection and the proportion that can be shown to come from our man.

19 The 26 are listed by Fohlen, ‘Les manuscrits classiques’ (above, n. 14). Again, the figure of sixteen is a minimum: both BAV, mss Vat. lat. 1749 and 1861 might have come from del Monte (the first includes nota marks that seem to be in his hand, but there is no more extended annotation to confirm this impression; the second appears to be by the same scribe as the second half of 29).

20 For example, the library of Matthias Corvinus of Hungary incorporated Johannes Vitez's manuscripts, on which see Csapodi-Gárdonyi, K., Die Bibliothek des Johannes Vitez (Budapest, 1984)Google Scholar.

21 In the sharply divided historiography on Paul II, Weiss, R., Un umanista veneziano: Papa Paolo II (Venice, [1958])Google Scholar, is a twentieth-century example of the sympathetic approach, with pp. 30–2 discussing Barbo's ‘bibliophilia’; his list of Paul II's manuscripts includes 33 and 55. For further discussion of this issue, see my ‘The two libraries: humanists' ideals and ecclesiastics’ practice in the book-collecting of Paul II and his contemporaries', Collection de l'École Française de Rome (forthcoming).

22 The background to the editio princeps is explained in the printer's preface (Brescia: Bonino Bonini, 1490–1), pt 1 21b, on which see Catalogue of Books Printed in the XVth Century now in the British Museum VII (London, 1935), 971–2Google Scholar. See also Colli, V., ‘Il cod. 351 della Biblioteca Capitolare ‘Feliniana’ di Lucca: editori quattrocenteschi e ‘Libri Consiliorum’ di Baldo degli Ubaldi (1327–1400)’, in Ascheri, M. (ed.), Scritti di storia del diritto offerti dagli allievi a Domenico Maffei (Padua, 1991), 255–82Google Scholar; Pennington, K., ‘The Consilia of Baldus de Ubaldis’, Tijdschrift voor Rechtsgeschiedenis 56 (1988), 85–92CrossRefGoogle Scholar. On Emili, see Alfieri, G. Treccani degli, Storia di Brescia II (Brescia, 1961), 169, 174, 211Google Scholar.

23 1, 2, 9. On Malipiero as a book-collector, see Perer, M.L. Gatti and Marubbi, M. (eds), Tesori miniati: codici e incunaboli deifondi antichi di Bergamo e Brescia (Cinisello Balsamo, 1995), 151–67Google Scholar.

24 1, 2. On Domenichi generally, see Dizionario biografico degli Italiani (sub nomine); King, Venetian Humanism (above, n. 6), 363–5. On his book-collecting, see Villa, C., ‘Brixiensia’, Italia Medioevale e Umanistica 20 (1977), 243–75Google Scholar.

25 Villa, ‘Brixiensia’ (above, n. 24), 244.

26 9, the second volume of Decembrio's epistolary (the first of which, 2, passed to Domenichi), has painted at the foot of fol. 1 Malipiero's curious charge: argent, an eagle's wing and claw sable. For other examples of this blazon, see Gatti Perer and Marubbi, Tesori miniati (above, n. 23), 155, 163. The other volume probably owned by Sanudo is 8.

27 For an example of Sanudo's financial incompetence, see Chambers, D.S., ‘Marin Sanudo, Camerlengo of Verona (1501–2)’, Archivio Veneto 99 (1977), 37–66Google Scholar.

28 On Colon's manuscript purchases from Sanudo, see Wagner, K., ‘Sulla sorte di alcuni codici manoscritti appartenuti a Marin Sanudo’, La Bibliofilia 73 (1971), 247–62Google Scholar. 9, with Sanudo's ownership-note on a loose leaf, does not appear in Wagner's list of 21 manuscripts bought by Colón from Sanudo. To his list can also be added the following codices with Sanudo's note: Sevilla: Biblioteca Colombina, mss 5/3/25 (16 and 17), 5/5/20 (10), 5/6/2. For an introduction to Colón and his library, see the exhibition catalogue Las Joyas de la Colombina, with an introduction by J. Gil ([Seville], [1992?]).

29 On Torquemada's library generally, see Izbicki, T., ‘Notes on the manuscript library of Cardinal Johannes de Turrecremata’, Scriptorium 35 (1981), 306–11CrossRefGoogle Scholar; this list overlooks 6, which is the only extant example of a manuscript written by del Monte, bought by Torquemada and then owned by Leonardo Mansueti (on whom see below). For manuscripts lent to Torquemada by Eugenius IV, see Manfredi, A., I Codici di Niccolò V (Vatican City, 1994)Google Scholar, sub indice. On Torquemada generally, see Black, A., Monarchy and Community (Cambridge, 1970)Google Scholar.

30 A modern biography of Mansueti appears in Kaeppeli, T., Inventari di libri di San Domenico di Perugia (1430–1480) (Rome, 1962), 21–40Google Scholar. This work also edits the inventory of Mansueti's library; further identifications appear in Ruysschaert, J.'s review in Revue d'Histoire Ecclesiastique 58 (1963), 617Google Scholar, to which may be added the information that London: British Library, ms Egerton 2516 is Mansueti no. D 73 (see Kirsteller, P.O., Her Italicum, 7 vols (Leiden 1963–1997), IV, 144–5)Google Scholar.

31 Apart from 6, Mansueti owned 10 and 65. From the inventory, the only codex identifiable as, in all probability, coming from del Monte's library is no. D 105, Vita Pelopide … conversa per Antonium Becariam Veronensem, a work which Beccaria dedicated to Pietro del Monte. This copy, presumably the presentation volume, does not seem to survive; the dedication has been edited by Giustiniani, V., ‘Sulle traduzioni latine delle ‘Vite’ di Plutarco nel Quattrocento’, Rinascimento (second series) 1 (1961), 3–62, at pp. 52–3Google Scholar.

32 BAV, ms Vat. lat. 2675 is one Torquemada manuscript not later owned by Mansueti, and it may well have been from del Monte's collection. However, there is no definite evidence for its provenance beyond an ambiguous note at fol. ii verso: Emit dominus Sancti Sixti de bonis domini Brixiensis.

33 Torroncelli, A., ‘Note per la biblioteca di Marco Barbo’, in Bianca, C. et al. (eds) et al. (eds) et al. (eds) et al. (eds), Scrittura, biblioteche e stampa a Roma nel Quattrocento: aspetti e problemi (Vatican City, 1980), 343–52Google Scholar; Ruysschaert, J., ‘Miniaturistes ‘remains’ sous Pie II’, in Maffei, D. (ed.), Enea Silvio Piccolomini. Papa Pio II (Siena, 1968), 245–82, esp. pp. 261–2Google Scholar; Alessio, G.C., ‘Per la biografia e la raccolta libraria di Domenico della Rovere’, Italia Medioevale e Umanistica 27 (1984), 175–231, esp. p. 195Google Scholar.

34 Del Monte's manuscripts, 56, 60–1, were transcribed for Marco Barbo as BAV, mss Vat. lat. 4186 and 4192; on this, see Miethke, J., ‘Die handschriftliche Überlieferung der Schriften des Juan González, Bischof von Cádiz (†1446)’, Quellen und Forschungen aus Italienischen Archiven und Bibliotheken 60 (1980), 275–324, at pp. 287–8Google Scholar; Izbicki, T., ‘A collection of ecclesiological manuscripts in the Vatican Library: Vat. lat. 4106–4193’, Miscellanea Bibliothecae Apostolicae IV (Studi e testi 238) (Vatican City, 1990), 89–130, at pp. 120–4Google Scholar.

35 BAV, ms Vat. lat. 1217 may stand as an example: the putti and roundel, complete with the Barbo arms and original supporter of a bishop's mitre, are painted at the bottom of fol. 1 by a different illuminator from the half-border of the same folio. However, this manuscript can not be linked definitely to del Monte: it lacks any annotations by him, although it was written by the same scribe as 26, which does include del Monte's coat of arms.

36 There is a corollary to this hypothesis: that Marco Barbo donated some of his manuscripts to his relation's Apostolic Library in his own lifetime. This assumption is contrary to Fohlen's apparent belief that Marco Barbo's manuscripts must have arrived in the Vatican after his death: see Fohlen, ‘Les manuscrits classiques’ (above, n. 14), 10n.

37 Autograph works: 8, 51–2, 54; notebooks: 17, 62, 64.

38 5, 7, 50, 53, 56, 60–1, 65–6.

39 Vespasiano, Vite (above, n. 2), 269.

40 The Aquinas is 22–5; patristic works include his copy of Jerome (15–16), his Lactantius (12), and his Traversari translations (11, 26).

41 31–2, 38.

42 28, 37; see also 27, 29, 33–6, 40–2, 44–5, 48.

43 Villa, ‘Brixiensia’ (above, n. 24), 250–3; for example BAV, mss Vat. lat. 2059 and 4088 (the latter previously owned by Malipiero).

44 Examples are BAV, mss Vat. gr. 1291 (owned by both Malipiero and Domenichi) and 446 (owned by Pietro Barbo).

45 On the minority interest in Greek texts, see Kibre, P., ‘The intellectual interests reflected in the libraries of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries’, Journal of the History of Ideas 7 (1946), 257–97, at pp. 260–6CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

46 I intend to discuss elsewhere the matter of del Monte's ‘translation’ of ‘Epiphanius’. He did learn some Greek, enough to be able to transcribe passages in that language into his copies of various classical texts (for example 28).

47 I outline a typology of ecclesiastical book collecting in ‘The two libraries’ (above, n. 21).

48 This evidence was authoritatively presented by Angelo Maria Quirini in the apologist introduction to his edition of Canensi, M., Pauli II Veneti … Vita (Rome, 1740)Google Scholar.

49 The one definite example of others copying manuscripts in his household comes from his Paduan days: see Varanini, G.M., ‘Un codice trascritto in casa di Pietro del Monte studente a Padova’, Quaderni per la Storia dell'Università di Padova 13 (1980), 147–9Google Scholar.

50 62, fol. 221v–226. For a lost presentation manuscript, see above n. 31. Del Monte also solicited George of Trebizond to write him a treatise; on this, see Monfasani, J., George of Trebizond (Leiden, 1976), 91–2Google Scholar, with the brief work partially edited, from the one surviving copy (Parma: Biblioteca Palatina, ms Parm. 28), in Monfasani, J., Collectanea Trapezuntiana (Binghamton, 1984), 311–12Google Scholar.

51 The former, 3, is discussed by me in ‘Two unnoticed manuscripts from the collection of Humfrey, Duke of Gloucester: part I’, Bodleian Library Record 16 (1998), 211–24Google Scholar; the latter, 59, is listed in Manfredi, I Codici di Niccolò V (above, n. 29), no. 520 and briefly described by Zanchin, Il primato del romano pontifice (above, n. 10), 47–9.

52 On Balsemo, see Cortesi, L. and Mandel, G., Iacopo da Balsemo miniatore (c. 1425–c. 1503) (Bergamo, 1972)Google Scholar; Rossi, M., ‘Prime considerazione sulla schedatura dei codici miniati della Biblioteca Angelo Mai di Bergamo’, in Ceccanti, M. and Castelli, M. (eds), Il codice miniato: rapporti tra codice, testo e figurazione. Atti del III congresso di storia della miniatura (Florence, 1992), 387–404Google Scholar; Gatti Perer and Marubbi, Tesori miniati (above, n. 23), 127–42. A plate of the initial at 59, fol. 72, signed by Jacopo, is reproduced in Zanchin, Il primato del romano pontifice (above, n. 10), 246. Another signed initial by Jacopo is reproduced in de Hamel, C., Scribes and Illuminators (London, 1992), 56Google Scholar.

53 The most resplendent is 33; 43 also has a fine border, with a portrait of a rather cadaverous Alexander the Great in the opening initial. An author portrait, less ornate, also occurs at 27, fol. 1.

54 Examples of such off-the-shelf productions are 11, 19, 26, 30, 37, 44, 49; similar in aspect, but with the addition of del Monte's coat of arms, are 34 and 63. On Vespasiano's scribes and illuminators, see most recently A.C. de la Mare, ‘Vespasiano da Bisticci as producer of classical manuscripts’, in Chavannes-Mazel, C.A. and Smith, M.M. (eds), Medieval Manuscripts of the Latin Classics (London, 1996), 167–207Google Scholar.

55 The letter written in England is transcribed in Rundle, D., ‘Two unnoticed manuscripts from the collection of Humfrey, Duke of Gloucester: part II’, Bodleian Library Record 16 (1998), 299–313, at pp. 304–5Google Scholar; see also Weiss, R., ‘Piero del Monte, John Whethamstede and the Library of St. Albans Abbey’, English Historical Review 60 (1945), 399–406CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

56 Milano: Biblioteca Ambrosiana, ms J. 235 inf., fol. 22v. On Decembrio's translation, see Zaccaria, V., ‘Sulle opere di Pier Candido Decembrio’, Rinascimento 7 (1956), 13–74, at pp. 47–53Google Scholar.

57 At London: British Library, ms Cotton Nero E. v, fol. 31 appears a note by del Monte; his manicula or marginal line also appear at fols 29, 30, 32v, 44, 46, 54v, 58, 62, 75, 91, 135v and 157. This information identifies one of the annotators alluded to in the full description of this manuscript in de la Mare, A.C., ‘Manuscripts given to the University of Oxford by Humfrey, Duke of Gloucester’, Bodleian Library Record 13 (1988–1989), 112–21, at pp. 112–15Google Scholar.

58 42 copied from BAV, ms Vat. lat. 1863. On this, see Clark, C.U., The Text Tradition of Ammianus Marcellinus (New Haven, 1904), esp. p. 58Google Scholar.

59 46–7. An opening from 46 is reproduced in Grafton, A. (ed.), Rome Reborn (Washington, 1993), pl. 81 (p. 100)Google Scholar (without recognition that the scribe is del Monte).

60 Vespasiano, Vite (above, n. 2) 269.

61 On Bruno Johannes, see Bénédictins of Bouveret, Colophons des manuscrits occidentaux (Freiberg, 1965–1982), no. 2367–71Google Scholar; Liebaert, P., ‘Miniatori e scribi tedeschi in Italia’, in L'Italia e l'arte straniera (Atti del X congresso internazionale di storia dell'arte in Roma) (Rome, 1922), 200–14, at p. 204Google Scholar; Dykmans, M., ‘Le plus ancien manuscrit du Cérémonial de Grégoire X’, Archivum Historiae Pontificiae 11 (1973), 86–112, at pp. 103–5Google Scholar.

62 Zonta, C. and Brotta, I. (eds), Acta Graduum Academicorum Gymnasi Patavini (Padua, 1922), no. 904, 1030–1, 1077, 1283 (19 July 1438: takes his doctorate), 1284, 1290, 1299, 1316, 1345, 1381, 1486Google Scholar; Bruno Johannes makes no appearance in Sottili, Studenti tedeschi e umanesimo italiano (above, n. 7).

63 Schwarz, B., ‘Die Abbreviatoren unter Eugen IV’, Quellen und Forschungen aus Italienischen Archiven und Bibliotheken 40 (1980), 200–74, at p. 257Google Scholar.

64 65.

65 22–5; 9. Other manuscripts in which he was involved are: 5, 7, 10, 13, 15–16, 18, 21, 38, 50, 53, 57, 60, 65–6.

66 Manfredi, I Codici di Niccolò V (above, n. 29), lxxvii–lxxxiv.

67 On Decembrio generally, see Dizionario biografico degli Italiani (sub nomine); on manuscripts in his hand sent to Humfrey, Duke of Gloucester, see (Bodleian exhibition catalogue), Duke Humfrey and English Humanism in the Fifteenth Century (Oxford, 1970)Google Scholar, nos. 9 and 12; de la Mare, ‘Manuscripts given to the University of Oxford by Humfrey, Duke of Gloucester’ (above, n. 57), 118–21.

68 Clark, The Text Tradition (above, n. 58), 58. For a parallel case, concerning his transcription of Bruni's Dialogi, see Rundle, ‘The two libraries’ (above, n. 21).

69 12, a manuscript copied and illuminated while del Monte was in England.

70 63, fol. 16v.

71 29, fol. 76v, where he marked this passage (Saturnalia, 6. 1, 11. 11–20), writing in the margin Fructus legendi.

72 8, 22. For a similar comment by Petrarch, see Le Familiari 1/2 (ed. Dotti, U.) (Urbino, 1974), 609 ll. 170–9Google Scholar.

73 I intend to produce, in due course, a full survey of the Barbo collections.