Otto Ege's Terence

 

Private collection, California

Leaves from some of Otto Ege's manuscripts are very easily recognised. He did not sell many leaves of manuscripts written in Humanistic script, for example, and among these, his copy of Terence's Comedies is distinctive (an example is shown above).

We saw in a previous blogpost that Ege's acquisition of the manuscript from Dawson's Book Shop in 1935 (as recorded in de Ricci's Census) can be pinned-down to their Catalogue 101 (January 1935), no. 249:

Ernest Dawson or a member of his staff probably bought it on one of their many buying trips to London. (Later the same year, for example, the Foreword to Catalogue 107, issued in October, begins "All summer loong our Miss Shaffer has been abroad, searching the shops of Europe for some new books with which to tease the fancy of the collector ... from the thriving bustle of London-town to the out-of-the-way musty little villages ...")

The Terence manuscirpt was doubtless acquired from the London bookseller E.P. Goldschmidt. He was probably willing to pass it to a fellow-dealer at a steep discount if, as seems likely, it had remained unsold in his stock during the years of the Great Depression, since he offered it his undated [June?, 1930] Catalogue 23, priced 18 guineas:

 

Goldschmidt had, in turn, bought it some months earlier at auction in Milan in December 1929. This part of the provenance was not unknown -- the  auction is recorded in Scott Gwara's Otto Ege's Manuscripts, for example -- but it provides the most detailed description of the manuscript. And yet seems never to have been fully examined for what it tells us.

For the benefit of anyone who may not have access to this catalogue, and who might wish to work on the manuscript in future (it might make a good online reconstruction, for example), here are the relevant images and the description, reformatted, edited, and partially translated into English:

Ulrico Hoepli, Milan, Manoscritti dal secolo IX al XVI ..., 3–4 December 1929, p. 74 (no lot no.) and pl. XXXVI:

 

TERENCE
COMEDIES. 15TH-CENTURY MANUSCRIPT ON PARCHMENT

In-4^o, 25×18 cm, 103 unnumbered leaves; Humanistic script, titles in red, initials in blue.

• (fols. 1r-18r) Andria. "Natus in excelsis rectis cartaginis alte ... Argumentum. Sororem falso creditam meretricule ... Liber Primus. [Prologue] Poeta cum primum appulit animum ad scribendum ... [fol. 1v, Act I] Simo Sosia Servus. Vos isthoc intro anforte abite soscia ... Intus spondetur transigetur si quid est quod restas plaudite calliopius recensuy. Andria finit"
• (fols. 18r-35r) Eunuchus. "Incipit Eunuchus P. T. AF. Acta ludis megalensibus ... Vos ualete. plaudite. Caliopius recensui. Terentii Afri Eunuchus Explicit."
• (fols. 35r-53v) Heauton Timorumenos. "Incipit Eauton Tvmerumenos Teren. Acta ludis megalensibus ... Que mea causa fecit Ch. fiat. Caliopius o uos ualete et plaudite. Caliopius recensui. Heauton. Tvmerumenos Explicit."
• (fols. 53v-69v) Adelphoe. "Incipit Adelphe. Acta Ludis funeralibus ... Habeat. inistac finem faciat Hes istuc recte. O uos plaudite, caliopius recensui Terentii Afri Poete Celeberrimi Adelphe finiunt"
• (fols. 70r-84v) Hecyra. "Incipit Echira. Acta Ludis romanis sex Iulio cesare ... Diem inquam. Et uos ualete et plaudite. Caliopius recensui. Terentii Afri Hechira explicit."
• (fols. 84v-103v) Phormio. "Incipit Phormio. Acta Ludis romanis L. postumio ... Iam hic saxo aderit, et uos ualete et plaudite Caliopius recensvj. Publii Terentii Afri Poete Comici Phormio Comediarum Ultima Finit Feliciter."

Good condition. Lacking the initials on fols. 1, 19, 36, 71, and 85, which were cut out and rewritten after a crude restoration; the margins of fols. 1, 25, and 85 also repaired. Interesting binding of leather over wood boards with rich blind-stamped decoration. Pl. XXXVI.

And here is the reproduction of the binding:

Among other things, we learn some details of the decoration and layout of the book from this description. While the later Dawson's description stated that "several" initials had been cut out, for example, the 1929 description specifies that five of the six books had lost their initial, leaving only that to Adelphoe, probably on fol. 54r