Medieval and Early Modern Greek Manuscripts : Proclus

Medieval and Early Modern Greek Manuscripts

<p style='text-align: justify;'> This manuscript contains a part (books 1-4) of the <i> Commentary to Plato's Parmenides</i> by <i> Proclus</i>. It was copied in 1695 from <a target='_blank' class='externalLink' href='https://medieval.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/catalog/manuscript_643'>Oxford, Bodleian Library, Auct. F.3.23</a> (Misc. gr. 97) by the librarian and antiquary Humfrey Wanley (1672-1726), later librarian of Robert Harley, Earl of Oxford, and of his son Edward. The copy had been commissioned by the Cambridge scholar and antiquarian Thomas Gale. Within the manuscript has been bound a letter from Wanley to Gale (<a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(9);return false;'> f. [iv]</a>): Wanley informed him that he had completed his work, and that the task required him much more that he had expected, and asked therefore for £2 more than the agreed remuneration of £4. The letter informs us also that this was the first Greek manuscript copied by Humfrey Wanley. A payment receipt, also bound into the manuscript (<a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(11);return false;'> f. [v]</a>), shows that the request was not accepted by Gale. Two years later, Thomas Gale had the remaining books of the commentary, 5-7, copied by an anonymous scribe, which copy is now <a target='_blank' class='externalLink' href='https://cudl.lib.cam.ac.uk/view/MS-TRINITY-O-00005-00011/1'> Trinity College, MS O.5.11</a>, which was transcribed from what is now <a target='_blank' class='externalLink' href='https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b10723198x'> Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, gr. 1836.</a></p><p style='text-align: justify;'> Another letter to Gale bound in the manuscript (<a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(13);return false;'> f. [vi]</a>) also attests to his keen interest in Proclus: it is a letter from John Mill, who was engaged in collating Proclus.</p><p style='text-align: justify;'> Dr Erika Elia</p>