c. 295 x 200mm, ii (contemporary) + I + 140 + i leaves, collation: 1 10 (lacking i, f.1 a 17th-century replacement), 2–13 10 , 14 10 (of 12, xi–xii cancelled blanks), vertical catchwords throughout, 29 lines written in Humanistic script, space: c. 180 x 105 mm; incipits in majuscules, rubrics in red, decorated with a large 6–9-line initials in blue or red, with red or purple foliate ornament and a pale yellow-green wash, at the beginnings of books on ff.13, 25v, 39, 53, 67, 81v, 96v, 111v and 131 (f.1 and part of f.39 ?17th-century replacements. 19th century three-quarter pale brown cloth and mid brown polished leather over pasteboards, sewn on three double bands, the spine with a label inscribed in capitals ‘M. A. Lucanus Pharsalia Cod. MSC. Ital. 1469’, edges a little rubbed. Marginal thumbing and light damp-staining, with wide margins.

Lucan (AD 39–65) was a stoic poet born in Cordoba, Spain, and educated in Rome and Athens. This, his magnum opus, generally known as Pharsalia, is an epic based on the civil war between Julius Caesar and Pompey, in 62 or 63 A.D. The work analyses the causes of the war, Caesar's actions in Egypt, including his affair with Cleopatra, and the relation with the Senate; written in ten books in hexameter verse range. ‘The Pharsalia is the greatest Latin epic after the Aeneid, and Lucan’s brilliant style won him the admiration of his contemporaries.’ (Oxford Companion to Classical Literature).

“Lucan expounds history in accordance with the demands of his epic. He is a poet: these demands are often literary. But they are not all so. Others, didactic and political, are discernible from the poet's manipulation of his material. When we examine Book Seven of the Pharsalia, it becomes clear that Lucan is pleading a case, a case composed directly out of the political situation and moral predicament in which he found himself during the last months of his life. Book Seven is a lawyer's brief. Its methods are two: exoneration and glorification, opposite means dovetailing into the same purpose. Its clients are likewise two: the Senate (and the larger political and moral forces of which it is the embodiment) and Pompey.” (Lounsbury, Richard C. “History and Motive in Book Seven of Lucan’s Pharsalia.” Hermes 104, no. 2 (1976): 210–39).

The text commences ‘Mannæi Lucani Civilis belli sive Pharsaliæ Liber primus incipit. Bella per Emathios plus quam civilia campos [...] tui natura relinquet’ f.1r–v (17th century); ‘Quis deus esse velis [...] Obsedit muris calcantem mœnia Magnum. Finis. Deo Gratias Amen’, ff.2–160; most of the text on the last page is obscured by pasted-on strips of paper, leaving just four lines and a date visible (see Provenance above), f.160v.

A diagram of the port of Brindisi, headed ‘Topographia, with captions ‘Insula’, 'Portus’, ‘Lingua’, ‘Insula’, ‘Brondusium’, and ‘Latus hesperie’ f.23v; a city, f.53v; a diagram headed ‘Topographia’, in the form of five mountains around a circle, with captions ‘Ossa’, ‘Pelion’, ‘Otris’, ‘Pindus’, and ‘Olympus’, in the middle a caption ‘Emathia’ and a note ‘Ibi facta fuerunt maxima bella civilia inter Cæsarem et Pompeum Magnum’, f.73; a tau-map of the world with continents labelled ‘Asia’, ‘Europa’, and ‘Affrica’, f.118v.

Provenance:
(1) Apparently written in, or before, 1469: date on f.160v: 'Optatos tandem tetigerunt carbasa portus / Et sedet in tuto littore fessa ratis / Quo deus emeritas peragam tibi carmine grates / Quo tibi nunc placido virgo Maria sono / 1469'.

(2) Brother Pius of Cremona: left by him in 1529 to the Franciscan convent of the Holy Cross, Mantua, according to an inscription on f.i verso: ‘Frater Pius de Cremona fecit fecit [sic] hanc librum Lucanum ?meriae seu relinquendum ad monasterium Sancte Crucis Mantue ordinis minorum fratrum et sepelliri in eodem conventu in capitulo fratris Sancti Augustini Observatie et reliquit saus cosas [sic] monasterio suprascripto et obiit milesimo [1]529 die 4 setenbris [sic] in eodem conventus nostre congregationis Sancte Marie de Populo’. 'Frater Pius de Cremona' is repeated on f.ii. Numerous other early quotations in Latin and one in Greek appear on ff.i-ii verso.

(3) G. Hess, Munich, Katalog, 33: Manuscripte XI–XV. S., incunabeln, holzschnittbücher, einbände, varia, 1929, no 12.

(4) Anonymous owner: sold at Sotheby’s, 3–5 April 1939, lot 268.

(5) Howard Lehman Goodhart (1884-1951), stockbroker and bibliophile: his leather book label inside upper cover. By descent to his daughter:

(6) Phyllis Goodhart Gordan (1913-1994): her leather book label inside upper cover, MS 156. On deposit at Bryn Mawr, BMC 35. De Ricci, Census, II, p. 1683 no 35 describes a different copy of Lucan’s Pharsalia.

S. De Ricci, Census of Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts in the United States and Canada, II, 1961, p.1683, no 35.