1. ZENO, JACOPO. Vitæ, morum, rerumque gestarum Caroli Zeni libri X.
1458.
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.