Layout: 32 lines Script: Humanistic characters in red and brown ink Decoration: Nineteen initials in red, green, blue, and gold with white interlacing. Numerous painted initials throughout. Three gold bosses on the first page outlined in black and each surrounded by an ornamental wreath of pen and ink work. Binding: Original limp parchment. Brown calf portfolio in brown morocco case. Label on spine marked “856”. Spine also marked “A / 4 / 27.” A few annotations, two in Greek, in a later hand. Some leaves stained. Bottom edges jagged. Provenance: Paper slip pasted on verso of parchment of flyleaf bears the number 67 in pencil, and in ink, in an 18th century Italian hand, the words: “Codex nitidissimus. Sec: XV. exharatus continent Ovidij nasonis Fastorum Libros, et alia ejusdem Opuscula.” Provenance: Sale at Sotheby’s, December 23, 1852, No. 67; Sotheby's sale of the books of G. Libri (1859), No. 751; Phillipps sale (1897), No. 575; Phillipps MS. 23620. Gift of Alfred Clark Chapin. Purchased on behalf of the Chapin Library from Lathrop C. Harper. Paleographer Arnold Bank characterized the script as a "sloping Italian bookhand, semi-current, a very early cancelleresca bastarda." Much of the contents of this volume, including "De nuce," "De philomena," "De cuculo," "De pulice," and "De medicamine aurium" cannot be attributed to Ovid and are considered "pseudo-Ovidian" works.
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