Florence, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Plut. 34.49

Shelf mark of the Parva libraria of Santo Spirito: II.6

Material: parchment

Dimensions: 219 x 147 mm (165 x 80 mm)

Leaves: I + 57 + I’

Script: 12th-century Carolingian, with glosses in contemporary and later hands

Place of origin: Italy

Date: 12th century

Contents:

Iuvenalis, Decimus Iunius, Saturae (fols. 1r-57r)

Vita Iuvenalis (fol. 57r-v)

Accessus Satirarum (fol. 57v)

Statius, Publius Papinius, Thebais, IX 280 (fol. 57v)

Link to the reproduction: https://tecabml.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/plutei/id/711260/rec/1

Bibliography: Boccaccio autore e copista, pp. 359-360 (S. Durante); Autografi, p. 54 (M. Fiorilla-M. Cursi).

Description:

Identified by Oskar Hecker amongst the manuscripts catalogued in the Parva libraria of Santo Spirito, this manuscript bears rare traces of Boccaccio’s reading. As identified by Filippo Di Benedetto, only two maniculae by Boccaccio can be identified, featuring a particularly elegant design with sleeves adorned with small buttons. The first is on fol. 22r, corresponding to the line «Intolerabilius nichil est quam femina dives» (Sat. 6, 460). Juvenal’s sententia on the unbearable nature of the rich woman is taken up on several occasions by the Certaldese: Corbaccio 167: «Niuna cosa è più grave a comportare che una femina ricca»; Esposizioni sopra la Commedia, XVI 31: «E, ancora, il nudrire quella che è povera è molto difficile cosa, e il sostenere i modi e i costumi della ricca è grandissimo tormento». In the latter case, Juvenal’s motif finds a counterpart and is complemented by St Jerome’s reflection on the risks of taking a wife, expressed in the Adversus Iovinianum, 1, 47: «Pauperem alere difficile est; divitem ferre, tormentum». This work is copied in the Zibaldone Laurenziano, the manuscript Florence, BML, 29.8, fol. 52v, where the passage has no annotations by Boccaccio. The second marginal note, concerning the fleeting nature of time and the sudden onset of old age, is on fol. 34v, corresponding to the passage: “obrepit non intellecta senectus” (Sat. 9, 129). A Boccaccio manicula highlights a couplet from Ovid’s Fasti on the same theme of the passing of time and the unexpected arrival of old age in the manuscript Florence, Bibl. Riccardiana, 489, fol. 43ra: «Tempora labuntur, tacitisque senescimus annis / et fugiunt freno non remorante dies» (Fasti 6, 771–72).