Thread by @TaneliPuputti

So what I have been doing in #Besançon this past week you might ask? Well, let me tell you a journey of one manuscript copy of Flavio Biondo's Decades. A thread 🧵 1/

#AbInclinatione #bookhistory #FlavioBiondo

Ms. 855 in Bibliothèque d'étude et conservation in Besançon is a copy of Biondo's first decade, i.e. it encompasses yrs c. 400-800 of the Late Roman Empire. 2/

Due to its script being southern (semi)textualis (or Rotunda), its origin is most likely in the Italian peninsula. It was made ante 1482 due to a colophon in the end, saying it once belonged to the widow of master Jean L'Orfèvre. This widow (Gillette) died in 1482. 3/

Jean L'Orfèvre (c.1410-c.1476) was a Flemish statesman. He studied law at the newly-founded University of Leuven in 1427-31, and even serving as headmaster of the UL in 1435. 4/

L'Orfèvre had good relations with Duke of Burgundy, Philip the Good and thus he was appointed as president of the council of Luxembourg in 1444. After helping Duke with many diplomatic affairs, he was awarded with an estate as well as the chancellorship of Brabant in 1463. 5/

L'Orfèvre travelled to Italy many times, possibly acquiring our Decades copy during the process. After his death in 1476, the estate in the Low Lands (and possibly his library) moved to the widow Gillette. After Gillette's death, the trace becomes cold, until... 6/

This man! Antoine Perrenot de Granvelle (1517-1586) was of newly-rich family, but grew to be one of the most powerful men in the sixteenth-century Europe. He was cardinal and archbishop of Besançon and worked as an advisor to emperor Charles V and to king Philip II of Spain! 7/

He was a bibliophile, had a talent for languages, studied at Padua and Leuven(!), and had possibly six(!) private libraries. One at his hometown Besançon, and other at Brussels, where Granvelle served the Habsburg regime until 1564. 8/

From the Low Lands (possibly Brussels or Leuven) he could have acquired our manuscript, uncounted for between 1482-1560s, for it remained there, possibly at Leuven, where L'Orfèvre had worked. 9/

After returning to Besançon in 1564, Granvelle brought a part of his library with him to his Palais Granvelle, where our manuscript also went. The palace had a massive library of over 1300 books, both manuscripts and printed copies. 10/

After Granvelle's death in 1586, his library remained in the family until its last member died in 1607. In the inventory of the same year (ms. 1627), our manusript is mentioned as Blondi Flavii decas prima (third from the bottom). 11/

Most of the Granvelle library was later bought by abbot of St. Vincent in Besançon, Jean-Baptiste Boisot (1638-1694). Our manuscript has an ex libris from his library. 12/

After Boisot died, he bequeathed his library to the abbey, on the condition that it would be open to the public, thus forming one of the first public libraries in France! This collection formed the nucleus of the Municipal library of Besançon, where ms. 855 still is today. 13/

In the ms. 855, someone has marked many events concerning the Franks and the Burgundians, therefore possibly indicating that the reader of this manuscript was of French or Burgundian (including Besançon) origin. 😉 Finis. 14/14

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