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Cicero, De Natura Deorum

Liber II, 54-58 and 64-68

F-x06a

Odense, Syddansk Universitetsbibliotek, RARA Musik L 42 130

Charlotte Epple, Fragmentarium, 2026 (Born Digital)

General Information

Title Cicero, De Natura Deorum
Shelfmarks RARA Musik L 42 130
Page/Folio Reference Covers
Material Parchment
Place of Origin Italy?
Date of Origin 1301-1400
Script, Hands

Cursive book hand. Looped l, h, b; d that swings out to the left and then to the right; single-story a.

Original Condition

Number of Columns 2

Current Condition

Extent 1 partial leaf
Dimensions 157 x 404 mm
More about the Current Condition

The fragment is cut form the bottom half of a bifolium, preserving four partial columns of text. The text is faded and damaged from handling. 

Content

  • Content Item
    • Persons
    • Title De Natura Deorum
    • Content Description

      Liber Secundus, 54-58 (front cover).
    • Front cover r
    • Glosses and Additions "Quinta" added in the 17th century to refer to the content of the part book host volume.
    • Edition O. Plasberg, De Natura Deorum. Leipzig/Teubner, 1917. pp. 70-71.
    • Remarks

      Some text is missing due to the way the fragment was cut and folded.
  • Content Item
    • Persons
    • Text Language Latin
    • Title De Natura Deorum
    • Content Description

      Liber Secundus, 64-66 (back cover).
    • Back cover v
    • Edition O. Plasberg, De Natura Deorum. Leipzig/Teubner, 1917. pp. 74-75.
    • Remarks

      Some text is missing due to the way the fragment was cut and folded.

History

Origin

This manuscript exhibits a linguistic feature that suggests it was written in Italy (consistently using deoro for deorum; occasionally altero for alterum).
Provenance

The pre-Reformation ownership of the L 42 fragments is uncertain. Given that the gradual fragment used for vol. 127 was printed for a Danish diocese, one might surmise a Danish monastic or ecclesiastical provenance for the other medieval parchment fragments of the set, too. The codices was likely dismantled and reused by a provincial stationer-bookseller in the late 16th or early 17th century.

Host Volume

Title Collection of balletti by various composers, 21 by Thomas Morley, the others by anonymous composers (Quinta Vox)
Date of Origin/Publication ca. 1600
Place of Origin/Publication Italy?
Shelfmark RARA Musik L 42 130
Page/Folio Reference: Covers
Remarks

The host volume, along with the other volumes kept under this shelfmark, was part of the book collection of Herlufsholm Skole in Næstved, Denmark (est. 1565). Herlufsholm was founded on the grounds of a Benedictine abbey, St Peders Kloster (also known as Skovkloster), that was secularised after the Reformation in 1536/37.

RARA Musik L 42 is a set of four booklets bound in waste parchment. The booklets are paper manuscripts containing polyphonic music in Italian, Latin, German, and Danish copied around 1600. They were used by the school choir in the first half of the 17th century. The set originally comprised of five voices (soprano, alto, tenor, bass, and fifth voice), but the soprano booklet is no longer extant. They are numbered 127-130 according to the Répertoire International des Sources Musicales database. 127 is bound in a fragment of an early printed gradual of Scandinavian origin, whereas 128 is bound in a fragment of a missal. 129 and 130 are bound in pieces of the same manuscript, a copy of Cicero’s De Natura Deorum written in a cursive book hand.

The host volumes underwent conservation interventions sometime in the 20th century, during which they were disbound and the paste-laminate boards were removed and taken apart. The boards were made up of waste paper, mostly sheets from 16th century printed books as well as manuscript ephemera. The waste paper is now kept loose in envelopes under the shelfmark RARA Musik L 46. The outer parchment fragments were put back on the host volumes, restoring the original appearance. 

The bindings are laced-case bindings, made from a single continuous piece of parchment folded around the boards and attached to the spine with three visible laced-in endbands. The L 42 volumes were probably bound before they arrived at the school.

Bibliography

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