The illustrations to the early manuscripts of Jean Corbechon's French translation of Bartholomaeus Anglicus' De Proprietatibus rerum, 1372-c.1420

• Main Author: Byrne, Donal Leo Paul
• Published: University of Cambridge 1981
• Subjects: 708
• Online Access: https://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.597204

In 1372 King Charles V of France received Le livre des propriétés des choses, the translation of Bartholomaeus Anglicus' De proprietatibus rerum. The dissertation is a study of the illustrations of the manuscripts of this text in the period up to c.1420. In Chapter 1 the documentary evidence for copies of the Propriétés in the above period is reviewed, and this is related to the surviving copies. The result is used, along with the evidence of style which will be discussed in Chapter 5, to establish the "First Generation" of manuscripts (the original does not survive) in the period up to c.1410. Chapter 2 discusses the role of the encyclopedia and translation in the circle of Charles V, and relates this to the iconography of the Frontispieces of the First Generation copies. The rest of the iconographical cycles is the subject of Chapter 3, in which it is considered both in relation to the text and to other standard imagery. Chapter 4 offers a reconstruction of the pictorial cycle of the lost original, and looks at some sub-groupings within the First Generation copies. The style and date of the ten early copies is the subject of Chapter 5. Between c.1414 and 1420 five interrelated manuscripts were made which mark a new phase in the illustration of the text. These stem from the circles of the Boucicaut, Egerton, Rohan, and Berry Apocalypse Masters, and form the "Second Generation". They are treated in Chapter 6, whose main themes are patronage, the effects of patronage on iconography, now subjects, and the relationships between "workshops". The final chapter discusses a semi-independent manuscript made before 1420, and this is followed by a detailed Catalogue of the sixteen copies of the Propriétés discussed in the text.