Textmanuscripts - Les Enluminures
iii+144+iii folios in parchment, incomplete, lacking one or more quires after ff. 30v, 74v, 144v, foliated in pencil in the middle of the outer margin, boxed catchwords at bottom gutter of lower margin, (collation: i2, ii4, iii-iv12, v10, vi-vii12, viii10, ix-x12, xi10, xii-xiv12), ruled in ink, mostly erased, 47-49 lines in two columns (justification 212 x 162 mm), in several semitextualis libraria and cursive hands, single-line paraphs in red and blue, single-line ink initials in red or blue, 2-3-line initials in red or blue with alternating-color ink flourishing, one 5-line puzzle initial and partial ink border in red, and dark and light blue (f. 7.), section cut from lower margins of ff.49-50, some original holes and repairs in vellum, final quire parchment rumpled, marginal notes in ink and drypoint throughout. Bound in eighteenth-century Italian leather half-covered with patterned paper over pasteboards, scuffed, the spine lettered in gilt "IX D THOM I. II. P. MS," top pastedown labeled in modern pencil B2717, (Thomas Aquinas), 13156, 132717, torn paper loose inside front pastedown reading "un folio, pai/ XIVe siècle/ de S. Thoma/ Le fin ma," rear pastedown labeled "foglie a. 142 Segnato N. A P." Dimensions 320 x 240 mm.
Widely recognized as one of the great Christian thinkers, Thomas Aquinas is famous for his masterful assimilation of Aristotelian philosophy with Christian theology. Aquinas's new emphasis on human reason and the validity of the material world profoundly shaped western European philosophy and culture to the present day. Indeed, even the history of modern science traces the influence of Aquinas's firm belief that the material world was knowable through the application of reason. The present manuscript offers a glimpse of the swift spread of his philosophy across Europe within decades of Aquinas's death, and the marginalia and added index demonstrate the continued use of these texts for hundreds of years.
1. The script and decoration suggest that the manuscript was made in France c. 1300. Thomas Aquinas completed this part of the Summa in 1269. Aquinas is referred to as "frater" in the incipits to both the table of chapters and the text, and so these pre-date his canonization in 1323. Marginal annotations, including one on f. 3, refer to the saint, however, and therefore demonstrate use over time.
2. Most likely from the Dominican convent of San Domenico, Gaeta. The present volume is bound in a similar fashion to a group of eleven manuscripts, including Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Library, MS Oversize Codex 1271 and New Haven, Beinecke, MS 1207. Beinecke 1207 shows a fifteenth-century ownership inscription: f. 1, "Iste liber est conventus sancti dominici de gayeta ordinis predicatorum," [This book is [owned by] the convent of the Order of Preachers of St. Dominic in Gaeta]." In addition to uniform bindings, the manuscripts in this group share at least one of the following features: an inscription with a brief title and shelfmark, an inscription on the back pastedown of the number of leaves ending "Segnato N. A P," a loose slip of paper with an inscription similar to the title on the spine, probably instructions to the binder, and finally, a loose slip of paper with a 19th-century description in French. These eleven manuscripts were acquired by the Hispanic Society of America in the early twentieth century. This present manuscript includes most of the notable physical features of the manuscripts from this group.
3. New York, Hispanic Society of America B2717 until 2008. The Hispanic Society of America owned a number of San Domenico manuscripts.
4. Christie's, London, "Valuable Manuscripts and Printed Books," 12 November 2008, lot 19. This sale sold a number of Hispanic Society of America manuscripts. San Domenico seems to have owned multiple copies of the Prima secundae, as another was sold in the same auction as lot 21.
5. Private continental collection.
ff. 1-2, added alphabetical index to the Summa prima secundae in a fifteenth-century cursive hand. This bifolium is either written on palimpsestic parchment, scraped and reused, or substantial amounts of marginalia have been erased, or both;
ff. 3-6, capitula list for the Summa theologica, prima secunda, Incipiunt capitula prime partis secundi libri summe edite a fratre thoma de aquino ordinis pre [sic] fratrum predicatorum ... Expliciunt capitula prime partis secundi libri, f. 6v blank;
ff. 7-144v, Aquinas, Thomas, Summa theologica, prima secundae; Incipit, "secunda pars summe de theologia,"; "Quia sunt damacenus dicit"..."Praeterea consentire est simul sentire" (Questio XV, art. 1, f. 30v), "et brutis. Ergo non est nisi in parte" (Questio XXXI, art. 4, f. 31)..."Oculus non vidit et auris non audivit" (Questio LXII, art. 3, f. 74v), "ut scilicet ferventi desiderio iustitiae opera (Questio LXIX, art. 3, f. 75),..."quia frater tuus est nec egipcium quia advena fuisti in terra eius" (Questio CV, art. 5, f. 144v), incomplete.
The Dominican St. Thomas Aquinas (1225-74), assimilated Aristotelian ideas into Christian theology and for this is recognized as one of the greatest theologians of the Christian faith. From Ibn Rushd (Averroes) and other Arab philosophers, Aquinas developed a revolutionary, Aristotelian emphasis on human reason and the validity of the material world. In a great theological debate that shook Europe for some time, such thinking was greeted with suspicion by those who accepted Augustinian beliefs in the exclusive power of divine illumination. Dominicans took up Aquinas' position, whilst Franciscans championed the Augustinian worldview, and only gradually did Thomist theology attain wider acceptance. In 1567 Aquinas's feast was ranked with those of the Four Fathers of the Church, and in 1879 the Pope declared him the pre-eminent teacher of the Church.
Thomas Aquina's greatest work, his Summa theologica, was enormously influential and became the foundation of an entire branch of learning known as Thomist philosophy and theology. Aquinas claimed that the Summa's three parts treat "first of God, secondly of the rational creature's journey to God, thirdly of Christ who, as man, is our path to God," (ST1, Q2, pro). Expanding each of these into debate form extends the work into over 3,000 discrete sections. Indeed, the project was so compendious that Aquinas left the third part unfinished shortly before his death.
Part of the enduring power of the Summa was its clear, engaging structure. Each Question turned into a series of related questions and their debated arguments and counter-arguments before a conclusion was presented. The first part concerning God was itself divided in two, so that the Prima secundae, completed in in 1269, opens by proving that God is indeed the goal of man (Questiones 1-5), then continues by considering human action and its causes and consequences (Questiones 6-21), including the passions (Questiones 22-48), habits (Questiones 49-70), vice and sin (Questiones 71-89), human and divine law (Questiones 90-108), and Gospel and grace (Questiones 109-114). Even the decoration of the present volume elegantly highlights this structure. A fine puzzle initial opens the work; each question and article begins with a flourished initial; each objection and counter-argument is distinguished by a paragraph mark. The running headings give the number of the question and it is then easy to find the article followed by objection and counter-argument, which are all numbered within the text. Even the compiler of the index did not need to foliate the volume, given such clear internal signposting. The present copy lacks parts of three sections, concerning human actions and passions (15.1-31.4), vice and sin (62.3-69.3) and the new law of the Gospel and grace (105.5-onward).
Although copies of the Summa theologica, and the Prima secundae on its own,remain difficult to count due to the limitations of library catalogs, none of the other San Domenico manuscripts that have reached North America include this text, and the Di Ricci manuscript census and its Supplement by Bond and Faye show little Aquinas in North America at all, at least before the latest update in the 1960s.
Bond, W. H., and C. U. Faye. Supplement to the Census of Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts in the United States and Canada, New York, 1962.
Chenu, M.-D. Introduction à l'étude de saint Thomas d'Aquin, Montreal, 1948.
De Ricci, Seymour. Census of Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts in the United States and Canada, New York, 1935-1940; reprint edition, New York, 1961.
Dondaine, Hyacinthe François, and Huges V. Shooner. Codices manuscripti operum Thomae de Aquino, Rome, 1967-
Faulhaber, Charles B. Medieval Manuscripts in the Library of The Hispanic Society of America: Religious, Legal, Scientific, Historical, and Literary Manuscripts, 2 vols, New York, 1983.
Shapcote, OP, Fr. Laurence, ed. Summa Theologiae: Complete Set (Latin-English Opera Omnia), Steubenville, OH, 2018.
Torrell, Jean-Pierre. Saint Thomas Aquinas, Volume 1: The Person and His Work, tr. Robert Royal, rev. ed., Washington, D. C., 2005.
Aquinas, Thomas. Summa Theologiae, translated, in English
Corpus Thomisticum: S. Thomae de Aquino Opera omnia (in Latin) http://www.corpusthomisticum.org/iopera.html
New Haven, Beinecke Library, MS 1207
https://digital.library.yale.edu/catalog/14624487
Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Library, MS Oversize Codex 1271 https://bibliophilly.library.upenn.edu/viewer.php?id=Oversize%20Ms.%20Codex%201271#page/1/mode/2up
Schoenberg Database of Manuscripts,
https://sdbm.library.upenn.edu
TM 1416
