David Laing, eminent historian, antiquary and bibliographer, was the second son of the Edinburgh bookseller William Laing (1764-1832) and his wife Helen Kirk, and was born on 20 April 1793. He was educated at the Canongate Grammar School and later on attended Greek classes at the University of Edinburgh. At the age of fourteen, he became apprenticed to his father who, at the time, was the only bookseller in Edinburgh dealing in foreign literature. Laing was able, occasionally, to travel abroad in search of rare or curious books. In 1821, he became a partner in his father's business and throughout his life he was an avid collector of manuscripts and rescued many from destruction. The first published work of his own was Auctarium Bibliothecae Edinburgenae sive Catalogus Librorum quos Gulielmus Drummondus ab Hawthornden D.D.Q. Anno 1627 (1815). Among other works, Laing also reprinted Thomas Craig's Epithalamium on the marriage of Darnley and Mary Stuart (1821). When Sir Walter Scott founded the Bannatyne Club in 1823 for the printing of material and tracts relating to Scottish history and literature, Laing - a friend of Scott's - became Secretary of the Club and chief organiser until its dissolution in the 1860s. Laing was also associated with the Abbotsford Club, the Spalding Club, and the Wodrow Society, each of which had been set up for the publication of manuscripts and for the revival of old texts. When the keepership of the Advocates' Library fell vacant in 1818, Laing was a candidate but was not elected. He became Keeper of the Library to the Society of Writers to Her Majesty's Signet, a post which he occupied from 1837 until his death. On his appointment to the post, he gave up his business as a bookseller and disposed of the stock in a public sale. Laing died at Portobello, in Edinburgh, on 18 October 1878.
Contents
This 15th century manuscript is a copy of an astronomical text known as the Theorica Planetarum, which was incredibly popular in the medieval period, and survives in over 200 manuscript copies. There has been much debate on the authorship of this text, and it has been attributed to Robert Grosseteste, and also Gerard of Cremona. However, it seems most likely that this text, of which MS 128 is a copy, is the work of an anonymous teacher of astronomy from about...
Contents
MS 133 is intriguing, as it seems to be the unique surviving manuscript of Leonini of Padua's Decas Loyca, although it is still only a part of the full text. Augustinian friar Leonino of Padua is first mentioned in 1332, holding a post at an annual meeting of the Augustinian Order in Venice. By 1360 he had become a Doctor of Theology as was teaching in Padua. His Decas Loyca was written probably in the late 1350s, in which he...
Contents
MS 144 contains the texts by early Christian monk and theologian, John Cassian, in the same hand.ff. 1r-45v: 'De institutis coenobiorum', by Johannus Cassianus [John Cassian]ff. 45v-103v: incomplete 'Collationes patrum in scetica eremo', by Johannus Cassianus [John Cassian]The texts are described separately, under MS 144/ff. 1r-45v; MS 144/ff. 45v-103v. Writing Written in a clear Gothic hand. There are...
Contents
MS 145 contains one of only thirteen known extant copies of a 14th-century text by William of Pagula [Paull], a theologian, writer, and English parish priest. This massive text containing five books is a manual on canon law and theology, composed sometime in or around 1318-22. The text in nearly complete in MS 145, although the final book, Liber v wants three chapters.f. 1r: Prologue, beginning with the words Incipit Prologus. Ad...
Contents
Contains nine texts bound together, in different hands.Of note, the endpaper at the beginning of the manuscript is an interesting fragment from an Antiphoner of the 9th or 10th century. The other endpaper is a textual fragment too, although from later that the 9th/10th centuries.ff. 1r-8v: Bull of Pope Honorius III to Saint Francis and the brothers of the Orderff. 9r-13r: Bull of Pope Gregory IXff. 14r-50r: Bull of Pope Nicholas III from 1279,...
Scope and Contents
A composite manuscript connected with the Benedictine Monastery of San Lorenzo, in the Castello neighbourhood of Venice. The first text was commissioned by the Abbess Cipriana Michiel. The texts are preceded by a table of contents which appears to be an addition and which includes detailed heading for the first four texts (all written by the same hand). The table of contents starts on f. iiir. It is introduced by the rubric Al nome del nostro Signore Jesu Chisto....
Contents
La Cedola del Terzo Monte dei Poveri della magnifica Città di Perugia ('The ordinances of the third Mount of Piety of the magnificent city of Perugia') is a document relating to the establishment of a Mount of Piety founded in Perugia in 1467. A Mount of Piety was a pawnbroking establishment run by the Church as a charity and intended to benefit the poors by lending small sums of money in exchange for an object which belonged to the client. One of the first...
Contents
MS 176 is a short volume with only a small abount of text combined with large, half-page illustrations. It contains sections VI-XXI of Peter of Eboli's thirty-five sectional didactic poem on the medicinal thermal baths in the region of Campania. Peter wrote his poem on bathing in the last years of the 12th century, and dedicated it to the emperor, probably the Holy Roman Emperor at the time, Henry VI.The text begins with the sixth section of Peter of Eboli's text, on f. 1r: ...
Contents
MS 191 contains two texts by the fifteenth-century Italian, Aeneas Silvius Piccolomini (Pope Pius II from 1458-1464). The volume is divided into two parts, the first containing letters by Piccolimini, and the second, the text De miseria curialium. These will be described separately, under 'MS 191/ff. 1-97' and 'MS 191/ff. 99-115'. Writing A fine, uniform minuscule, written on fine vellum, with wide margins....
Scope and Contents
La Guerra Punica is a retelling of the first Punic War (264-241 BC) between Romans and Carthaginians. The author is Leonardo Bruni (c. 1370 - 1444), Italian humanist and historian, and one of the most prominent figures of the early Renaissance. He claims to have followed the account of ancient Latin and Greek authors; his story is particularly indebted to the Histories of the Greek historian Polybius....
