Funeral Oration (Cambridge, University Library, MS Nn.4.2)
This small parchment manuscript contains the Epitaphius (The Funeral Oration), for the fallen of the battle of Chaeronea (338 BCE), ascribed to the Athenian orator Demosthenes (b. 384, d. 322 BCE). The authorship of this speech is not certain, and it was first questioned by Dionysios of Halicarnassus.
The codex was written for the humanist scholar Guillaume Budé (b. 1468, d. 1540) by Georgios Hermonymos (b. c. 1430, d. c. 1511), who in addition to being a copyist, was a diplomat (he was sent to England by Pope Sixtus IV) and the first lecturer of Greek at the Collège de Sorbonne in Paris.
Hermonymos also copied CUL Kk.5.35, Kk.6.23, Ll.2.13 and Corpus Christi College, Parker Library, Cambridge, MS 224.
Dr Matteo Di Franco
Information about this document
- Physical Location: Cambridge University Library
- Classmark: Cambridge, University Library, MS Nn.4.2
- Alternative Identifier(s): Diktyon 12250
- Alternative Title(s): Epitaphius (or. 60)
- Author(s): Demosthenes
- Scribe(s): Hermonymos, Georgios, active 15th century
- Origin Place: Paris
- Date of Creation: last quarter of 15th century and the early 16th century
- Former Owner(s): Budé, Guillaume, 1468-1540; Askew, Anthony, 1722-1774
- Associated Name(s): Marnef, Geoffroy de, active 1489-1518; Baconthorpe, John, -1346
- Note(s): TLG 0014.060
- Extent: Codex 14, Leaf height: 200 mm, width: 141 mm.
- Material: Parchment (FHHF), medium thickness, good quality.
- Format: Codex
- Condition: The folios are mutilated in the lower right corner.
- Binding:
The manuscript was bound by Geoffroy de Marnef, active in Paris between 1490 and 1518. Bound in brown calfskin, stamped on both boards: a rectangle containing five rows decorated with flowers and vines. The border around the inner rectangle is decorated with vegetative motifs, birds, dragons and lettered scrolls. On the top left the legend (readable on the back cover) is par le mieulx; on the top right in deum confido. In the lower right corner the binder's name is embossed: G. De Marnef.
The cover is in poor condition, almost detached.
The pasteboards are delaminanting and made of printed waste from an edition (1484?) of the Quaestiones in quattuor libros sententiarum by Johannes Baconthorpe.
The fore-, head- and tail-edges are gilded.
Binding height: 204 mm, width: 144 mm, depth: 15 mm.
- Script:
Written by the 15th-century Greek scholar and scribe Georgios Hermonymos (RGK I 61) in a minuscule script in pale brown ink.
Slanting slightly to the right, Hermonymos' hand shows cursive-like ductus without variation in letter size. Ligatures and abbreviations are rare. His script is characterized by the minuscules gamma, eta, xi, rho. Sigma telikon is in Z-shape and is found sometimes in the middle of the word. Breathings are curved; accents do not join to letters or breathings.
For further details on Georgios Hermonymos' script, see Kalatzi 2009, p. 111-132.
- Foliation:
1-14. Modern foliation in pencil in Arabic numerals in the top right-hand corner, recto.
- Layout: ff. 1r-14v: A single column of 18 lines. Written space Written height: 135 mm, width: 75 mm. Pricking does not survive.Ruled in hardpoint, system Leroy 1, type Leroy 22D1. Text hangs mostly from the lines.
- Provenance:
It later entered into the library of Anthony Askew (b. 1722, d. 1774), physician and book collector.
- Origin:
The codex was copied by Georgios Hermonymos during his stay in Paris for Guillaume Budé (see Kalatzi 2009, p. 77) between the last quarter of 15th century and the early 16th century.
- Acquisition: After Askew's death, the manuscript was sold by G. Leigh and J. Sotheby in the auction of his library in 1785 (Nn.4.2 Lot. n. 616), and eventually bought by Richard Farmer for Cambridge University Library. The University of Cambridge general bookplate (engraved by William Jackson in 1706-1707) was added on f. 14v.
- Funding: The Polonsky Foundation
- Data Source(s): Description (2019) draws on A catalogue of the Manuscripts preserved in the Library of the University of Cambridge, vol. 4, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1861, p. 492 and on M.P. Kalatzi, Hermonymos: a study in scribal, literary and teaching activities in the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, Cultural Foundation of the National Bank of Greece, 2009, pp. 190-191.
- Author(s) of the Record: Matteo Di Franco
- Bibliography:Gamillscheg, Ernst and Dieter Harlfinger, Repertorium der griechischen Kopisten, 800-1600. I. Grossbritannien, Veröffentlichungen der Kommission für Byzantinistik ; (Wien: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1981) Bd. 3.Kalatzi, Maria P., Georgios Hermonymos, a 15th-century scribe scholar: an examination of his life, activities and manuscripts (PhD thesis London: 1998).Kalatzi, Maria P., Hermonymos: a study in scribal, literary and teaching activities in the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, Studies in palaeography (Athens: Cultural Foundation of the National Bank of Greece, 2009).A catalogue of the manuscripts preserved in the library of the University of Cambridge (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1861) 4.Canfora, Luciano, Inventario dei manoscritti greci di Demostene. (Padova: Antenore, 1968).Maillard, Jean-François and Jean-Marie Flamand, La France des humanistes. Hellénistes II (Turnhout: Brepols, 2010).
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- Physical Location: Cambridge University Library
- Classmark: Cambridge, University Library, MS Nn.4.2
- Alternative Identifier(s): Diktyon 12250
- Alternative Title(s): Epitaphius (or. 60)
- Author(s): Demosthenes
- Scribe(s): Hermonymos, Georgios, active 15th century
- Origin Place: Paris
- Date of Creation: last quarter of 15th century and the early 16th century
- Former Owner(s): Budé, Guillaume, 1468-1540; Askew, Anthony, 1722-1774
- Associated Name(s): Marnef, Geoffroy de, active 1489-1518; Baconthorpe, John, -1346
- Note(s): TLG 0014.060
- Extent: Codex 14, Leaf height: 200 mm, width: 141 mm.
- Material: Parchment (FHHF), medium thickness, good quality.
- Format: Codex
- Condition: The folios are mutilated in the lower right corner.
- Binding:
The manuscript was bound by Geoffroy de Marnef, active in Paris between 1490 and 1518. Bound in brown calfskin, stamped on both boards: a rectangle containing five rows decorated with flowers and vines. The border around the inner rectangle is decorated with vegetative motifs, birds, dragons and lettered scrolls. On the top left the legend (readable on the back cover) is par le mieulx; on the top right in deum confido. In the lower right corner the binder's name is embossed: G. De Marnef.
The cover is in poor condition, almost detached.
The pasteboards are delaminanting and made of printed waste from an edition (1484?) of the Quaestiones in quattuor libros sententiarum by Johannes Baconthorpe.
The fore-, head- and tail-edges are gilded.
Binding height: 204 mm, width: 144 mm, depth: 15 mm.
- Script:
Written by the 15th-century Greek scholar and scribe Georgios Hermonymos (RGK I 61) in a minuscule script in pale brown ink.
Slanting slightly to the right, Hermonymos' hand shows cursive-like ductus without variation in letter size. Ligatures and abbreviations are rare. His script is characterized by the minuscules gamma, eta, xi, rho. Sigma telikon is in Z-shape and is found sometimes in the middle of the word. Breathings are curved; accents do not join to letters or breathings.
For further details on Georgios Hermonymos' script, see Kalatzi 2009, p. 111-132.
- Foliation:
1-14. Modern foliation in pencil in Arabic numerals in the top right-hand corner, recto.
- Layout: ff. 1r-14v: A single column of 18 lines. Written space Written height: 135 mm, width: 75 mm. Pricking does not survive.Ruled in hardpoint, system Leroy 1, type Leroy 22D1. Text hangs mostly from the lines.
- Provenance:
It later entered into the library of Anthony Askew (b. 1722, d. 1774), physician and book collector.
- Origin:
The codex was copied by Georgios Hermonymos during his stay in Paris for Guillaume Budé (see Kalatzi 2009, p. 77) between the last quarter of 15th century and the early 16th century.
- Acquisition: After Askew's death, the manuscript was sold by G. Leigh and J. Sotheby in the auction of his library in 1785 (Nn.4.2 Lot. n. 616), and eventually bought by Richard Farmer for Cambridge University Library. The University of Cambridge general bookplate (engraved by William Jackson in 1706-1707) was added on f. 14v.
- Funding: The Polonsky Foundation
- Data Source(s): Description (2019) draws on A catalogue of the Manuscripts preserved in the Library of the University of Cambridge, vol. 4, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1861, p. 492 and on M.P. Kalatzi, Hermonymos: a study in scribal, literary and teaching activities in the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, Cultural Foundation of the National Bank of Greece, 2009, pp. 190-191.
- Author(s) of the Record: Matteo Di Franco
- Bibliography:Gamillscheg, Ernst and Dieter Harlfinger, Repertorium der griechischen Kopisten, 800-1600. I. Grossbritannien, Veröffentlichungen der Kommission für Byzantinistik ; (Wien: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1981) Bd. 3.Kalatzi, Maria P., Georgios Hermonymos, a 15th-century scribe scholar: an examination of his life, activities and manuscripts (PhD thesis London: 1998).Kalatzi, Maria P., Hermonymos: a study in scribal, literary and teaching activities in the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, Studies in palaeography (Athens: Cultural Foundation of the National Bank of Greece, 2009).A catalogue of the manuscripts preserved in the library of the University of Cambridge (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1861) 4.Canfora, Luciano, Inventario dei manoscritti greci di Demostene. (Padova: Antenore, 1968).Maillard, Jean-François and Jean-Marie Flamand, La France des humanistes. Hellénistes II (Turnhout: Brepols, 2010).
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