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BULLETIN OF

The New York Public Library

Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations

VOLUME 32

JUNE, 1928

NUMBER 6

T

LIVRE DU PETIT ARTUS

FILS DU BON DUC JEHAN DE BRETAIGNE

MANUSCRIPT PRESENTED BY

MR. EDWARD S. HARKNESS

HE Library has received recently, as a gift from one of its Trustees, Mr. Edward S. Harkness, an illuminated manuscript of unusual beauty, interest, and importance -the French text of the romance of "Petit Artus de Bretaigne," or Little Arthur of Brittany.

This vellum codex was written probably about the middle of the fifteenth century. It consists of 218 leaves, 12 × 84 inches (folios 1 and 2 are blank), written in double columns of 34 lines to the page. Following the two blank leaves are 27 signatures of 8 leaves each. The leaves are irregularly numbered in an 18th century hand, and have been trimmed by the binder. The binding is mottled calf of the 18th century, and is attributed to Derôme. There are 37 miniatures, most of which average 51⁄2 inches wide and from 2 to 5 inches high. The initial letters and paragraph marks are in either gold or blue.

The illuminations, or "histoires" as they were then called, are by an artist of the south Flemish school. They are of a high order of merit, well drawn with good composition, and display brilliancy and action. Of the 37 miniatures, 21 portray knights in armor at the joust or in battle, with much action and detail, and with the backgrounds such as castles, tents, pavilions, foliage, etc., in good perspective. The predominant colors are blue, red and green.

It is possible that the manuscript was executed for Jacques d'Armagnac, duc de Nemours, whose partly erased autograph is on the verso of the last leaf, the whole inscription being as follows:

"Ce livre a deaux cent quinze feuilles

histoires xxx vij.

"Ce livre du Petit Artus est du duc d[e Nemours, conte de la Marche] JAQUES Pour Carlat."

It is quite probable that this erasure was made in 1477 when he was executed and his property confiscated by Louis XI.

Jacques d'Armagnac, who has been characterized by M. Leopold Delisle, of the Bibliothèque Nationale, as "le plus grand amateur de manuscrits du temps de Louis XI," was the son of Bernard d'Armagnac, count of Pardiac, and Eleanor of Bourbon La Marche. The date of his birth is unknown. As comte de Castres he served under Charles VII, in Normandy in 1449 and 1450; and afterwards in Guienne. On the accession of Louis XI, the king gave him many honors, married him to his god-daughter, Louise of Anjou, and recognized his title to the duchy of Nemours in 1462. Sent by Louis to pacify Roussillon, Nemours felt that he had been insufficiently rewarded for the rapid success of this expedition, and joined the League of the Public Weal in 1465. He subsequently became reconciled to Louis, but soon resumed his intrigues. After twice pardoning him, the king, his patience exhausted, besieged the duke's chateau at Carlat and took him prisoner. Nemours was treated with utmost rigor, being shut up in a cage. He was finally condemned to death, and was beheaded on the 4th of August 1477.

Carlat, the chateau of the Duke of Nemours, was situated in the Department of Cantal, a few miles southeast of Aurillac. The castle was razed by Henry IV.

The ownership of this codex is unknown for over 300 years after 1477. Montfaucon in his "Bibliotheca Bibliothecarum Manuscriptorum," Paris, 1739, volume 2, page 954-B, records a manuscript: "Le Roman du Petit Artus fils du Duc Jean de Bretagne" as Codex 1986 in the Colbertine Collection. A brief history of this collection entitled: "The Library of JeanBaptiste Colbert" by Philip Aloysius Ardagh is in the Library World, London, volume 28 (November, 1925), p. 91-94. Montfaucon, volume 2, page 1329-C, also records a copy of this romance on paper, in the collection of M. le President de Mesme. This latter manuscript, without illustrations, was in the possession of E. V. Utterson in 1814 when he edited the English translation by Lord Berners. Utterson had obtained it from the collection of the Duke of Roxburghe, who in turn had received it from the Crevanna

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