The Digital Walters is a branch of The Walters Art Museum Manuscripts Department.
This lavish manuscript copy of the Roman de la Rose features a remarkably dense iconographic cycle, containing seventy-five ornate miniatures. It was illuminated in the second half of the fifteenth century in the workshop of Maitre Francois, and the miniatures are the work of at least two artists. The program of illustrations favors the text of Guillaume de Lorris, which has forty-four illustrations versus thirty-one for the much longer text of Jean de Meun, both with an emphasis on portraiture. The text of the Roman de Ia Rose, written in Old French, is originally the work of two authors. It was begun by Guillaume de Lorris circa 1225-30 and comprises around three thousand lines. Jean de Meun, (also spelled Meung and Mehun; died 1305), a well-known scholar and translator, added an additional saga to the original poem comprised of around seventeen thousand lines sometime before 1278. The text of the Roman de la Rose in the manuscript in the Philadelphia Museum of Art also incorporates later additions and moralizing revisions made in several stages by Gui de Mori, a Picard cleric, as well as over two-hundred marginal inscriptions and commentaries on the Rose text made by a single, anonymous sixteenth-century hand. In addition to both parts of the Rose, the manuscript also contains other works attributed to, or thought to have been, the work of Jean de Meun, including the Testament of Jean de Meun (fols. 151-177v), a poem once attributed to him, provisionally entitled "Le Songe" (The Dream, fols. 178r-179v), followed by a text entitled, "Les Sept Articles de la Foi de Jean Chapuis (The Seven Articles of Faith of Jean Chapuis)" (fols. 180r-193r), ending with the "Codicille" of Jean de Meun (fols. 193r-200v), his "petit Codicille" (fols. 200v-201v), and "Miserere Defunctorum" (fols. 201v-202v).
Support: Parchment; Extent: ii+202+ii; 340 x 230 mm bound to 355 x 250 mm; Foliation: Modern foliation in pencil, upper right recto; Collation: 1-18 (8), 19 (6), 20-25 (8), 26 (4); Catchwords: Horizontal catchwords in ink, lower right last verso, several mostly trimmed away
Two columns of forty lines each with a narrow column at the left edge for initials at the beginning of lines (fols. 1r-150r), one column of forty lines (fols. 151r-202v); frame-ruled in faint red ink; written area: 230 x 160 mm (fols. 1r-150r), 225 x 155 mm (fols. 151r-202v)
Bâtarde
Two double-column miniatures with four-sided foliate marginal borders, in colors and gold (fols. 1r, 151r); one historiated initial M (fol. 1r), and seventy-four single-column miniatures (twenty-two with arched tops) on folios with partial foliate marginal borders, in colors and gold (fols. 2r [x2], 2v [x2], 3r [x2], 3v, 4r, 4v, 5r, 6r, 7r, 9r, 9v, 10r, 10v, 11r [x2], 12r, 12v, 13v, 14r, 15v, 16r, 16v, 17r, 21v, 22v, 23r, 23v, 24v [x2], 25v, 26r, 26v, 27r, 27v, 28r [x2], 28v, 29r, 30r, 30v, 32r, 33v, 38r, 43v, 47r, 47v, 49r, 49v, 50v, 54v, 62v, 63v, 72v, 73v, 74v, 75v, 76r, 79r, 79v, 87r, 89v, 91r, 92v, 95r, 105r, 107v, 108v, 117v, 135r, 143r, 143v); large (three- to five-line) and small (two-line) decorated initials, in pink, blue, and gold throughout; initial at the beginning of each line touched with yellow
For a full list of Decorations in this manuscript please see the Content and Decorations section by clicking on the [i] button in the top left corner of the image viewer above.
Outer flyleaves modern parchment, inner flyleaves paper
Middle French, with one poem in Latin (fols. 201v-202v)
These are pages that we pulled aside that disrupted the flow of the manuscript reader. These may be bindings, inserts, bookmarks, and various other oddities.
Paris, France
Between 1450 and 1480
French velvet, circa 1900; gilded monograms, ornamental clasps and corner pieces on both covers, silver plaque engraved with title on upper cover
Middle French (ca. 1400-1600); Latin
François César Le Tellier, marquis de Courtanvaux (1718-1781), late 18th century (armorial book stamp on first and last pages); sale, Paris, July 7, 1783, lot 1258; Joseph-Louis, baron d'Heiss; sale, De Bure fils aîné, Paris, March 8, 1785, lot 223; M. and Mme. Paignon-Dijonval, Paris; Charles Gilbert Terray, vicomte Morel-Vindé (1759-1842), Paris; sale, De Bure frères, Paris, March 17, 1823, lot 1379; Henry Perkins (1788-1855), Springfield, Surrey, England, ca. 1825; Algernon Perkins (d. 1872); sale, Gadsden, Ellis and Co. (London booksellers), Hanworth Park, Catalogue of the…Library Formed by the late Henry Perkins, Esq., June 3-6, 1873, lot 637, illus.; Thomas Shadford Walker (1834-1885), Liverpool; sale, Sotheby's, London, June 23-24, 1886, lot 277; Bernard Quaritch (bookseller), London, cat. 369, 1886, no. 35727; cat. 103, 1890, no. 362; cat. 138, 1893, no. 104; Henri Bordes, Bourdeaux (bookplate); sale, Paris, June 10, 1899, lot 6; Robert Hoe (1839-1909), New York; sale, Anderson Auction Company, New York, January 8, 1912, II, lot 2491, illus.; James F. Drake (bookseller), New York; Cortlandt Field Bishop, New York (bookplate); his sale, American Art Association, Anderson Galleries, New York, April 25-27, 1938, II, lot 1364, illus.; Philip S. Collins, Philadelphia (bookplate); given by his wife, Mary Schell Collins, to the Philadelphia Museum of Art in 1945 in memory of her husband
Paris, France
Between 1450 and 1480
Middle French (ca. 1400-1600); Latin
François César Le Tellier, marquis de Courtanvaux
This lavish manuscript copy of the Roman de la Rose features a remarkably dense iconographic cycle, containing seventy-five ornate miniatures. It was illuminated in the second half of the fifteenth century in the workshop of Maitre Francois, and the miniatures are the work of at least two artists. The program of illustrations favors the text of Guillaume de Lorris, which has forty-four illustrations versus thirty-one for the much longer text of Jean de Meun, both with an emphasis on portraiture. The text of the Roman de Ia Rose, written in Old French, is originally the work of two authors. It was begun by Guillaume de Lorris circa 1225-30 and comprises around three thousand lines. Jean de Meun, (also spelled Meung and Mehun; died 1305), a well-known scholar and translator, added an additional saga to the original poem comprised of around seventeen thousand lines sometime before 1278. The text of the Roman de la Rose in the manuscript in the Philadelphia Museum of Art also incorporates later additions and moralizing revisions made in several stages by Gui de Mori, a Picard cleric, as well as over two-hundred marginal inscriptions and commentaries on the Rose text made by a single, anonymous sixteenth-century hand. In addition to both parts of the Rose, the manuscript also contains other works attributed to, or thought to have been, the work of Jean de Meun, including the Testament of Jean de Meun (fols. 151-177v), a poem once attributed to him, provisionally entitled "Le Songe" (The Dream, fols. 178r-179v), followed by a text entitled, "Les Sept Articles de la Foi de Jean Chapuis (The Seven Articles of Faith of Jean Chapuis)" (fols. 180r-193r), ending with the "Codicille" of Jean de Meun (fols. 193r-200v), his "petit Codicille" (fols. 200v-201v), and "Miserere Defunctorum" (fols. 201v-202v).
Outer flyleaves modern parchment, inner flyleaves paper
Middle French, with one poem in Latin (fols. 201v-202v)
Bâtarde
Two double-column miniatures with four-sided foliate marginal borders, in colors and gold (fols. 1r, 151r); one historiated initial M (fol. 1r), and seventy-four single-column miniatures (twenty-two with arched tops) on folios with partial foliate marginal borders, in colors and gold (fols. 2r [x2], 2v [x2], 3r [x2], 3v, 4r, 4v, 5r, 6r, 7r, 9r, 9v, 10r, 10v, 11r [x2], 12r, 12v, 13v, 14r, 15v, 16r, 16v, 17r, 21v, 22v, 23r, 23v, 24v [x2], 25v, 26r, 26v, 27r, 27v, 28r [x2], 28v, 29r, 30r, 30v, 32r, 33v, 38r, 43v, 47r, 47v, 49r, 49v, 50v, 54v, 62v, 63v, 72v, 73v, 74v, 75v, 76r, 79r, 79v, 87r, 89v, 91r, 92v, 95r, 105r, 107v, 108v, 117v, 135r, 143r, 143v); large (three- to five-line) and small (two-line) decorated initials, in pink, blue, and gold throughout; initial at the beginning of each line touched with yellow
For a full list of Decorations in this manuscript please see the Content and Decorations section by clicking on the [i] button in the top left corner of the image viewer above.
These are pages that we pulled aside that disrupted the flow of the manuscript reader. These may be bindings, inserts, bookmarks, and various other oddities.
Clear All
