Manuscript Description USA, New York, NY, Columbia University, Rare Book and Manuscript Library MS Plimpton 254 | |
Title: | Astrolabe |
Author: | Chaucer |
Contents: | Three separate texts. A calendar on ff1-11 was a separate booklet; the Astrolabe begins on f12r; an astrological treatise begins on f24v. |
Language: | English |
Date Range: | 1425-1450 |
Scribal Hands: | Examples of the hand. Click on the link above for full details and images of individual letter forms. |
Material: | Parchment |
No of Folios: | 27 + i |
Pagination: | Fairly recent foliation in pencil in top right corner of rectos. |
Quiring: | 1(2), 2(9 i missing), 3(8), 4(8) and i |
Signatures: | Traces of 'b' followed by Roman numerals in the second quire of the Astrolabe suggesting that the text was originally a separate item. |
Catchwords: | No catchwords. |
Page Size: | 200 x 150 |
Frame: | Ruled in ink with 2 x vertical and 4 x horizontal with double ruling enclosing the first and last lines of text. |
Writing Space: | 170 x 120 |
Incipits and Explicits: | 'Explicit tractatus Astrolabij' in red ink on f24v. |
Paragraph Marks: | Red paraphs. Red uderlining and red tipping of upper case letters. |
Flourished Initials: | Blue 4-line initial with red ink flourishing on f12r to begin the text. 2-3-line blue initials flourished for section divisions. Red unflourished initial on f24v. |
Other Names (not owners): | On f27v 'This booke was given me by my louing and good seruant Mr. Robert Abdy one of the most learned men of the age in the knowledge of tongues Kenelme Digby'. At some stage the manuscript passed to the Earl of Ashburnham and then to Yates Thompson in 1897. Bought at his sale by Quaritch in 1899, it went to a G. Dunn of Maidenhead, then via Sotheby and Maggs to Plimpton and from him to the Library. |
Further Information: | Digital Scriptorium. Seymour I: 112-113. |