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This leaf has been excised from a manuscript copy of Francis Petrarch’s epic Latin poem Africa. Petrarch’s text recounts the Carthaginian general Hannibal’s invasion of Italy during the Second Punic War. The Romans prevailed under the leadership of Scipio Africanus (236–183 BC) to eventually defeat the Carthaginians. The initial, showing Scipio in a triumphal chariot, begins Book IX of the poem, which describes the Roman general’s heroic triumph. Scipio is shown crowned with a laurel wreath and carrying a scepter crowned with an eagle.The full manuscript was at one point owned by the early humanist Adoardo da Thiene of Vicenza, as confirmed by the presence of the coat of arms of the Thiene family.

The vogue for vernacular translations of classical epics, whether in prose or in rhyme, intensified throughout the fifteenth century as bibliophiles became less comfortable reading the original Latin or Greek texts. Among the more successful French translators was Octavien de Saint-Gelais (1468–1502), whose ecclesiastical career as bishop of Angoulême (as of 1494) brought him into contact with Louise of Savoy, mother of the future king of France, Francis I (r. 1515–47). The present manuscript is a fine copy of Octavien’s verse translation of the Aeneid, written in decasyllabic couplets. Like many such manuscript copies, the volume was intended from the start to accommodate large introductory miniatures for each book, but these remain blank.

This miscellany contains the Historia romana, a reworking by Paul the Deacon (ca. 720–99) of the classic Breviarium ab urbe condita written by Eutropius (fl. ca. 360 AD), which itself drew heavily from classical Roman authors. The next section contains excerpts of speeches that purport to be by the Greek orators Aeschines, Demades, and Demosthenes, translated into Latin. In reality, these consist of fifteenth-century satirical forgeries, usually attributed to Pietro Marcello. Finally, two short exhortative epistles on the value of studying ancient texts, Leonardo Bruni’s letter of 1424 to the poetess Battista Malatesta (De studiis et litteris), and Basil of Caesarea’s De legendis libris gentilium, originally written in Greek in the fourth century, but newly translated into Latin by Bruni, are included. Bruni’s missive is noted for its insistence that women as well as men were suited to reading a classical cursus.

Horace’s Ars poetica (Art of Poetry) became a foundational text for Renaissance poetics and prompted numerous responses. Petrarch addressed a letter to the ancient author in the form of an Ode and felt a strong attachment to the Roman poet’s simplicity of life and love of friendship. The inhabited initial P shows a Roman soldier seated between a tree and the base of a column, which has been attributed to the anonymous Venetian illuminator known as the Master of the Putti. The precise dating of this illuminator’s work allows for a fairly precise estimated date of production for the book as a whole. On the same page, in the lower margin, is the coat of arms of the Tirelta or Tiretta family of Treviso.

Around 1405, Leonardo Bruni (ca. 1370–1444) translated Basil of Caesarea’s thousand-year-old Address to Young Men on the Right Use of Greek Literature into Latin. Saint Basil’s careful call for the appreciation of pagan Greek literature by a youthful Christian audience would become increasingly popular in the 1440s as the Council of Ferrara-Florence brought Greek intellectuals to Italy in droves. Saint Basil’s pithy, ten-chapter tract begins with a justification for the offering of advice for adolescents, originally intended for members of his family. The author then gradually introduces the reader to the reasons why the reading of profane literature might be profitable for the soul. The manuscript can be dated precisely to 19 November 1442; a colophon names the scribe as a certain “Franciscus Tuisanus.” From an early date, the book was owned by members of the Martinotius (Martinozzi) family of Fano, on the Adriatic coast.

This manuscript contains four texts united on cosmography. The first is Plato’s Timaeus, in the canonical fourth-century translation with commentary by Calcidius. This remained the only text by Plato known in the Latin West until Henry Aristippus’s translation of the Meno and the Phaedo in the twelfth century. The second text is a unique translation of the pseudo-Aristotelian On the Universe, produced by John Argyropoulos (ca. 1415–87). The third work is Philo of Alexandria’s De incorruptione mundi, probably translated by the Umbrian humanist Lilio Libelli Tifernate (1417/18–86). The final text is the sole known work by the Greek astronomer Cleomedes, De contemplatione orbium excelsorum, translated and dedicated to the condottiere Cesare Borgia by his humanist secretary, Carlo Valgulio (ca. 1440–98). The geometric diagrams for the Timaeus are annotated in Latin, while those for the Cleomedes are in Greek, suggesting an early user fluent in both.

Impressed by lectures on Neoplatonism given by the Byzantine intellectual Gemisthus Pletho during the Council of Florence, Cosimo de’ Medici installed Marsilio Ficino (1433–99) as the head of a newly founded Platonic Academy in 1462. The Academy’s goal was the promotion of Plato over Aristotle as the philosopher of choice for modern Christians. To achieve this end, Ficino translated the known corpus of Platonic and Neoplatonic works. This manuscript likely belonged to an early member of the Academy. The first section consists of works by Ficino, all produced in the 1460s and 1470s and closely linked to the activities of the Academy. Ficino dedicated four of these translations to his close friend, Giovanni Cavalcanti (1444–1509) and composed a short letter addressed to Cavalcanti on the subject of friendship and the proper use of Plato’s teachings. The manuscript predates the first edition of Plato’s works in Latin by Ficino.

The emblem book genre, in which images and mottoes are accompanied by brief explanatory texts, was a late development of Renaissance humanism, instigated by the Milanese jurist Andrea Alciato’s Emblemata. This unusual paper manuscript is a unique derivation of the arcane emblem books that became enormously popular in sixteenth-century France. The otherwise unrecorded text, primarily in Latin but with some sections in Greek, consists of a dialogue in the form of short riddles posed by the Sphinx and answered at greater length by Oedipus. Fifty-eight watercolor scenes, one per dialogue, offer allegorical illustrations of the relevant riddle. Occasionally, the figures represent recognizable personages from antiquity, while others are manifestly Christian. The book’s text and illustrations are of an obscure genre and not readily linked to other printed or manuscript works.

While the study of the Medieval trivium and quadrivium continued throughout the Renaissance, the arrival in Italy of previously lost or forgotten texts by philosophers of antiquity challenged these entrenched categories. The writings of Sextus Empiricus (ca. 160–ca. 210 BC), whose Pros mathēmatikous (Against the Professors) attacked all branches of the standard curriculum, would exert a strong influence on Western thinkers. This copy of Sextus’s text was written in Italy by the Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Russia, Isidore of Kiev (1385–1463). Isidore had traveled to the Council of Ferrara-Florence (1438–45), where he worked alongside Basilios Bessarion (1403–72) to secure the ultimately unsuccessful union of the Eastern and Western churches. Upon returning to Russia, Isidore was imprisoned by a hostile Grand Prince and clergy, and escaped once more to Rome, where he was charged with defending Constantinople and was named its Latin Patriarch by Pope Pius II.