Fine white vellum, 192 leaves, in 19 quires of ten leaves each and two additional leaves at the end, the last of which is blank. Signed on the lower inner angle of the last page of each quire by a letter (A-T) which is repeated at the point directly facing it on the first page of the next quire. Leaves four to seven of the first quire and all of quires three to eight, a total of sixty-four leaves, have 28 lines to the page, the rest 27 lines. Ruled on one side only with a hard point. Leaf 10 1/2 × 7 in., text-page 7 × 3 3/4 in.
Written in regular Italian minuscules of the 15th century, formed on the models of the 11th and 12th centuries.
The subject of the memoir is the distinguished Venetian Admiral Carlo Zeno (1334-1418), brother of Nicolo and Antonio, reputed discoverers of America. His biographer, Jacopo Zeno (1417-1481), Bishop of Feltre and Belluno, and later of Padua, was his grandson. The work is dedicated to Pius II. in honor of his recent elevation to the papal throne, and since this is evidently the dedication copy, the accession of Enea Silvio Piccolomini in August, 1458, fixes approximately the date of the MS. In April, 1460, Jacopo Zeno was translated to the see of Padua.
The execution and the decoration of the MS. are in keeping with its special use. The gratulatory preface occupying ten pages is introduced by the following heading in letters of burnished gold:
IN LIBROS VITÆ MORVM RERVMQ: GESTARVM CAROLI ZENI VENETI. AD PIVM SECVNDVM PONTIFICEM MAXIMVM. IACOBI FELTRENSIS ET BELLVNENSIS ANTISTITIS PRAEFATIO: [G]LORIOSA.... The ornamentation of the ten-line illuminated initial G is of the interlaced style, and a border of similar pattern surrounds the entire page, enclosing on the front margin vignettes—a vase, two rabbits and a stork—and at the foot the Piccolomini arms, supported by kneeling angels and surmounted by the papal keys and tiara. Each of the ten books has a heading in burnished gold in which the dedication to Pius II. is repeated, and an initial of like character to that of the preface, with a marginal ornament. The occasional marginal subject-headings and the book-number at the top of each leaf are likewise in gold.
The Latin text has thus far been printed only in Muratori's Rerum Italicarum Scriptores (of which a new edition is now in progress), vol. xix, Milan, 1731, from a MS. then, and still, preserved in the library of the Episcopal Seminary at Padua. This MS., the only one which he was able to discover, Muratori describes in the following language: "Codex autem Patavinus quamquam pervetustus a non satis docto Librario profectus est ac proinde occurrunt ibi quaedam parum castigata, quaedam etiam plane vitiata. Mutilus praeterea est in fine, ubi non multa quidem sed tamen aliqua desiderantur." Muratori's text breaks off in the middle of a sentence at the end of the nineteenth (i.e. the last full) quire of our MS., and accordingly lacks only the seventeen lines contained on the next leaf, which is the last. If, as seems quite possible, the quiring of the two MSS. is the same, the loss of the single unprotected leaf at the end is the more readily explained.
In 1591 there was published at Bergamo an abridged Italian version, made from an illuminated MS. which had once belonged to the famous library of Matthias Corvinus, but was then in the possession of Caterino Zeno, governor of Bergamo. It had been among the spoils carried to Constantinople after the capture of Buda by the Turks in 1526. There, seven years later, it had been bought and carried back to Italy by Caterino's father, the younger Nicolo, who, in 1558, first gave to the world the narrative of his ancestors' voyages. For no better reasons than that the Paduan MS. also was illuminated in gold and colors, and that it had been bought twenty-five years before (c. 1700) in Venice where this branch of the Zeno family had become extinct, Muratori was inclined to identify it with the Corvinus MS. The relations between Pius II. and the king of Hungary, who was his ally in the proposed crusade against the Turks upon which he was just embarking when overtaken by death, and to whom the 48,000 ducats which he left behind him were sent in aid of the prosecution of war, suggest another possibility. It may be safely assumed that between the present MS., given only an opportunity to acquire it, and any other copy the king's choice could not have hesitated.
The MS. is in 18th-century Italian binding, red morocco, gilt edges. Sold with other MSS. from the library of the Trivulzio family of Milan at Leavitt's auction, New York City, November, 1886.
2. LIVIUS, Titus. Historiarum Romanarum libri I-X. Late 15th century.
Vellum. 336 leaves, the last blank. 34 quires all having ten leaves, except the 17th and 34th which have eight each. 31 lines to the page; catchword placed at right angles with the last line of the quire; ruled on both sides with plummet. Leaf 14 1/2 × 10 in., text-page 9 × 6 in.