Libro fortune.

Format:

Book

Manuscript

Standardized Title:

Liber fortunae.

Language:

French, Middle (ca. 1300-1600)

Subjects (All):

Fortuna (Roman deity).

Fortuna.

Fortune.

Christian poetry, French--15th century.

Christian poetry, French.

Genre:

allegories (literary genre)

codices (bound manuscripts)

Manuscripts, French.

Manuscripts, Renaissance.

Penn Provenance:

Coat of arms of the Vicomte de Villiers du Terrage on binding (Grigsby).

Sold by Laurence Witten, 1955.

Physical Description:

98 leaves : paper ; 174 x 125 (128-136 x 67-80) mm bound to 178 x 127 mm

Production:

[France], [1450?]

Language Note:

Middle French.

Summary:

A poem in couplets set in 1345 in which Fortuna appears to a prisoner in a dream and introduces herself; interprets the vision of Fortune's wheel; discusses tangible and intangible wealth; and refers to the author's name in an unsolved riddle.

Notes:

Ms. codex.

Title from explicit (p. 192).

Page 1-192: "[prologue beginning is damaged; text] En l'an de l'incarnacion Que Jhesus suffrit passion ... Et dont me vint si grant merveille Atant fut jour et je m'esveille. [rubr.] Deo gracias explicit libro fortune."

Watermark: Letter N topped with a cross resembles the mark of paper made in Dijon as early as 1390 (Briquet, vol. 3, watermark no. (N)8427, similar to watermarks on paper manufactured at Pisa, Rodez, Toulouse, and Turin).

Pagination: Paper, xii (modern paper) + 98 + xii (modern paper); 1-2¹⁶, 3¹⁸, 4-6¹⁶; 1-51, 50-83, 82-192; near contemporary pagination in ink, upper outer corners. Catchwords on last verso of each gathering.

Layout: Written in 21-27 long lines; ruled in drypoint.

Script: Written in a cursive bastarda hand (Grigsby).

Decoration: 2-line initials in red ink, decorations in red and yellow ink on initials and flourishes.

Binding: 18th-century calf stamped with coat of arms and decorated with gold.

Origin: Written in central France in the middle of the 15th century (Grigsby).

Cited in:

Described in Zacour, Norman P. and Hirsch, Rudolf. Catalogue of Manuscripts in the Libraries of the University of Pennsylvania to 1800 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1965), p. 57 (Ms. French 16).

Publications about:

Grigsby, John L. "A New Manuscript of the French Liber Fortunae," Romania LXXX (1959), 447-460.

Grigsby, John L. The Middle French Liber Fortunae: A Critical Edition (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1967).

Cited as:

UPenn Ms. Codex 735

OCLC:

155925495