The Digital Walters is a branch of The Walters Art Museum Manuscripts Department.
This manuscript is a humanistic emblem book made in France in the late sixteenth century. The text, written in Latin and Greek, relates enigmas offered by the Sphinx and interpreted by Oedipus, with some French translations added later. The watercolor illustrations are allegorical scenes incorporating both Christian and classical imagery. A leaf with a rough draft of an eighteenth-century French translation of the first enigma is bound in as the fourth front flyleaf. The first two leaves (pages 3-6) are replacements for a missing first leaf, supplying the Latin text of the first dialogue accompanied by a French translation, with the original first watercolor illustration of the manuscript cut out and pasted to the first of the newer leaves (page 3). The extant original text begins on the third leaf (page 7), in the middle of the first dialogue. Leaves may also be missing within volume, such as before page 37, which is a single leaf from the end of a Latin dialogue (or the leaf may be out of place). Eighteenth-century children have written letters of the alphabet, calculations, names (including Morelloet, page 73), and an inscription (page 157) in the margins.
Support: Paper; Extent: v+97+iv; 270 x 190 mm bound to 275 x 205 mm; Foliation: Modern pagination in pencil, upper right recto; Collation: 1 (2), 2 (8, -1), 3 (8), 4 (8, +1 +2), 5-8 (8), 9 (7, +1), 10 (7, +7), 11 (8), 12 (8, -1), 13 (11, +11); Signatures: Quires 1-11 signed A-I, K-L, with roman numeral for leaf of quire, in the form AI-AIIII, lower right recto of leaves 1-4 in quire
One column of varying line counts; frame-ruled in lead; written area: 225 x 115 mm
Humanistic Cursive
Fifty-eight watercolor illustrations of allegorical scenes, one at the beginning of each dialogue
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.
Five front flyleaves, all late nineteenth- or early twentieth-century except for the fourth, which is eighteenth-century, with French text on the Sphinx and Oedipus; four end flyleaves, all late nineteenth or early twentieth-century
Leaves at the end of the volume have been repaired; the end of the book is damaged and the last leaves are missing
Quire 11 is an artificial quire consisting of the leaves at the end of the volume where the collation cannot be determined
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.
France
Late 16th century
Late nineteenth- or early twentieth-century green morocco, gilt-tooled, Lakeside Press, Chicago (inside front cover, lower edge); gilt spine title, Oedipus Manuscript
Latin; Ancient Greek (to 1453); Middle French (ca. 1400-1600)
Final illustration is of a coat of arms, damaged so that all that remains is the hind legs of three animals such as wolves or wolfhounds (page 196); De Foudras family, Bayère, 1747 (child's inscription, "J'aimerois bien ma petite soeur si elle n'etoit pas si sotte, 20 8bre 1747, de foudras, bayere," page 157); John Frederick Lewis, Philadelphia; given by his widow, Anne Baker Lewis, to the Free Library of Philadelphia in 1936
France
Late 16th century
Latin; Ancient Greek (to 1453); Middle French (ca. 1400-1600)
Final illustration is of a coat of arms, damaged so that all that remains is the hind legs of three animals such as wolves or wolfhounds
This manuscript is a humanistic emblem book made in France in the late sixteenth century. The text, written in Latin and Greek, relates enigmas offered by the Sphinx and interpreted by Oedipus, with some French translations added later. The watercolor illustrations are allegorical scenes incorporating both Christian and classical imagery. A leaf with a rough draft of an eighteenth-century French translation of the first enigma is bound in as the fourth front flyleaf. The first two leaves (pages 3-6) are replacements for a missing first leaf, supplying the Latin text of the first dialogue accompanied by a French translation, with the original first watercolor illustration of the manuscript cut out and pasted to the first of the newer leaves (page 3). The extant original text begins on the third leaf (page 7), in the middle of the first dialogue. Leaves may also be missing within volume, such as before page 37, which is a single leaf from the end of a Latin dialogue (or the leaf may be out of place). Eighteenth-century children have written letters of the alphabet, calculations, names (including Morelloet, page 73), and an inscription (page 157) in the margins.
Five front flyleaves, all late nineteenth- or early twentieth-century except for the fourth, which is eighteenth-century, with French text on the Sphinx and Oedipus; four end flyleaves, all late nineteenth or early twentieth-century
Leaves at the end of the volume have been repaired; the end of the book is damaged and the last leaves are missing
Quire 11 is an artificial quire consisting of the leaves at the end of the volume where the collation cannot be determined
Humanistic Cursive
Fifty-eight watercolor illustrations of allegorical scenes, one at the beginning of each dialogue
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.
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