This imposing manuscript, the first volume of a two volume copy of Bartolo da Sassoferrato's commentary of part of the Digest of Roman Law, had been identified as being the partner of the University's Hunterian manuscript 6, which was acquired by Dr William Hunter at some time in the 1760s or 70s. Bartolo is generally recognised as the greatest legal commentator and reformer of the Fourteenth Century and perhaps of the whole pre-Modern era. He was grotesquely immortalised as the Don Bartolo of The Marriage of Figaro.
The opening page (folio 3r) of Bartolus de Sassoferrato: Commentaria in primam parted infortiati illuminated manuscript. Image courtesy of Glasgow University.