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Detail from BL Eg 1865, f. 81v - Public domain medieval manuscript

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Detail from BL Eg 1865, f. 81v - Public domain medieval manuscript

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Summary

Detail of historiated initial of a man holding an open book. Image taken from f. 81v of Genealogia deorum gentilium. Written in Latin.

The Egerton Manuscript Collection is named after its founder, Sir Thomas Egerton (1540-1617), 1st Viscount Brackley, was a lawyer, statesman, and patron of the arts during the reigns of Queen Elizabeth I and King James I of England. He served as Lord Keeper of the Great Seal and later as Lord Chancellor of England, holding high positions in the legal and political realms.

Sir Thomas Egerton acquired a substantial number of historical and literary manuscripts. In 1617, shortly before his death, Sir Thomas Egerton bequeathed his collection of manuscripts to the British Museum, which was the precursor to the British Library.

Giovanni Boccaccio, 1313 – 1375, was an Italian writer and poet and an important Renaissance humanist. He wrote mostly in the Italian vernacular, as well as some works in Latin, and is particularly noted for his realistic dialogue which differed from that of his contemporaries. Boccaccio spent his childhood in Florence. His father had no sympathy for Boccaccio’s literature inclinations and sent him to Naples, to an office of the Bardi, who were money lenders, to learn business. In Naples, Boccaccio became a consul (or senior officer) of the Arte del Cambio (the Guild of the moneychangers and money lenders) and met with the learned men of the court and the friends and admirers of Petrarch. It was about 1340 when Boccaccio returned to Florence due to the bankruptcy of the Bardi and brought in a store of literary work already he already completed. After 10 years and financial challenges, in 1350 he became a Florentine ambassador and visited Rome, Ravenna, Avignon and Brandenburg. During this period he formed a lasting friendship with Francesco Petrarch. In 1358 he completed his main work, the Decameron. During the plague at Florence in 1348, seven ladies and three gentlemen left the city for a country villa and over a period of ten days told one hundred stories. Boccaccio selected the plots of his stories mostly from the fabliaux which had passed into Italy from France, medieval stories that had classical form. The influence of the Decameron on European literature is enormous. Chaucer and Shakespeare both borrowed from it.

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Date

1388
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Source

British Library
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Copyright info

Public Domain

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