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Friday 15 December 2023, 11:00 AM • Rome

4

Manoscritto - Barberino, Andrea da

The Mean Guerrin, 1440

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€ 35.000 - 45.000

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€ 37.890

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Information

Paper code of 290 x 221 mm. datable to the first half of the 15th century, cc.142 (f.99 is missing), ancient numbering, italics influenced by Gothic elements, arranged on two columns, structured in 16 installments, browning on the first leaves, marginal halos, contemporary binding in half parchment and cypress boards, missing parts on the spine, traces of clasps, within a modern gray canvas box with title on a red leather insert.

Specialist Notes

Incipit: "Here begins the first book called El Meschino of Durazo and this name Meschino was a nickname that his first name was called Ghuerrino of the blood of the lineage of the royals of France and this vilum started (i)in eight parts and deals with all three parts of the world that is Asia, Africa, Europe (...)"
Explicit: "And Gherardo left them after his death of the King Ghuicciardo his father in which war died million son of the petty and I did not want [sic] those of Taranto of the King of Pulglia for this war and for a long time reigned that they were Royal lords and those who ruled were called duchas of Durazo. Deo Gratia Aemen [sic]. finto el librio del meschino di durazo." 


Seventeen are the codes traced so far of the Guerrin Meschino by Andrea da Barberino, all recorded by Mauro Cursietti in his critical edition prepared for the Antenore publishing house in 2005 (see pp.569-580). The description of the present codex is contained on p.580 but the philologist was unable to collate it or include this testimony in his critical edition because the report arrived late through Gloria Allaire.
"Meschino's fortune was immediate. Composed in all probability at the height of the writer's maturity at the beginning of the second decade of the fifteenth century, despite its size, which must necessarily have constituted an obstacle to its diffusion, and despite the considerable cost, in those times, of such a ponderous book, soon the copies multiplied. The manuscripts clearly testify to different successive phases: a first Florentine vulgate, already dependent on a not a little corrupt archetype, a spread to the neighboring province and then, in a second moment, the exit from the borders of Tuscany, to the north in the Emilia-Romagna-Venetian area, to the south at the Aragonese court of Naples, where it was probably exported by Florentine merchants." (Introduction, p.XIII-XIV).
The present manuscript is probably attributable, given the first linguistic-philological essays, to the very early Florentine phase, also due to its high dating. A witness to be studied for the textual contributions it could offer to the lesson defined by Cursietti's critical edition.