Ɵ Livy, Ab Urbe Condita Libri, in Latin, humanist manuscript on parchment [Italy, c. 1450-60]

Ɵ Livy, Ab Urbe Condita Libri (on the history of Rome), from a handsome humanist manuscript, in Latin, manuscript on parchment [Italy (probably Naples), c. 1450-60] Single leaf, with single column of 24 lines of the fine and appealing humanist script of Giacomo Curlo, capitals set off in margins, outstandingly fresh condition on fine ivory-sheen parchment with wide and clean margins, 223 by 159mm., in cloth-covered card binding Provenance:1. Attributed by A.C. de la Mare in 2000 to the hand of the early and important humanist scribe Giacomo Curlo ('A Livy Copied by Giacomo Curlo Dismembered by Otto Ege', in L.L. Brownrigg and M.M. Smith, Interpreting and Collecting Fragments of Medieval Books, 2000). The scribe is recorded working for Cosimo de Medici in October 1423, and by 1425 he may have worked also in the papal curia. By 1428, he seems to have been in Milan and Venice, and later moved on to Naples, where in 1446 he was appointed chancellor and contributed greatly to the royal library there, which was growing under the influence of King Alfonso II The Aragonese royal library once had two copies of Livy, listed as M153 and 154 in their inventory (S. López-Rios, 'A New Inventory', Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 65, 2002), one of which may have been the parent manuscript of this leaf.2. The parent manuscript was obtained by the self-proclaimed biblioclast Otto Ege (1888-1951), at Sotheby s on 24 January 1950, lot 461, and gradually dismembered and dispersed (see S. Gwara, Otto Ege s Manuscripts, 2013, HL 39 and 52, with lists of recorded leaves). The remnant of 240 leaves (lacking over 170 leaves) then re-appeared at Sotheby s, 11 December 1984, lot 51, and was acquired by the Bodleian (with further leaves acquired by them in Sotheby s, 26 November 1985, lot 81, and Quaritch, cat. 1936, 1984, no. 5, and another presented to them by the University of North Carolina).3. Schøyen Collection, London and Oslo, their MS 1647, acquired from Sandra Hindman, Chicago, in December 1992. Text:Livy (or Titus Livy) turned his talents from oratory and philosophy to history in his middle age, and his work was in as high demand in his own time as in the Renaissance. Pliny the Younger reports that a devotee travelled from Cadiz to Rome just to meet him, and authors as diverse as Cassiodorus and Orosius emulated his style, while he was accorded high praise by Dante and Macchiavelli. His works were set aside during the Middle Ages in favour of Christian authors, but the fifteenth century saw a humanist 'land grab' for the last remaining manuscripts of them, with the poet Beccadelli famously selling a country home to fund the purchase of a manuscript copied by the great text-hunter Poggio Braccolini. Both Petrarch and Pope Nicholas V committed their energies to searching out the last copies.