Lectura super prima parte Infortiati: illuminated manuscript

Item author: Bartolo da Sassoferrato
Item date: c. 1400
Grant Value: 10,000
Item cost: 67,000
Item cost pre-decimal: NULL
Item date acquired: 2004
Item institution: Glasgow University Library
Town/City: Glasgow

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.

Item Provenance
Heinrich Kannengiesser c. 1500; … sold by Art Ancien, Zurich in 1957 to H. P. Kraus; sold to Dr. Peter Ludwig of Aachen; J. Paul Getty Museum in 1983; sold to J.E. and E. J. Ferrell, Houston, Texas; their sale at Sotheby's 22 June 2004, lot 65.
The opening page (folio 3r) of Bartolus de Sassoferrato: Commentaria in primam parted infortiati illuminated manuscript. Image courtesy of Glasgow University.
The opening page (folio 3r) of Bartolus de Sassoferrato: Commentaria in primam parted infortiati illuminated manuscript. Image courtesy of Glasgow University.