MANUSCRIPTS

1.  Zeno, Jacopo.  Vitae, 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 x 7 in., text-page 7 x 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 vitae 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.