Barocci Manuscripts

Greek manuscripts, 10th-17th century, collected by Francesco and Iacopo Barocci.

Francesco Barozzi (Barocci) (1537-1604), was a mathematician, scientist, and magician. His nephew, Iacopo Barozzi (1562-1617) inherited and added to his collection of manuscripts. They were both members of a Venetian noble family on Crete.

Entry to read in the Library is permitted only on presentation of a valid reader's card (for admissions procedures see http://www.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/specialcollections).

The manuscripts were presented to the University, through Laud, by William Herbert on May 25 1629.

Collection level description created by Emily Tarrant, Department of Special Collections and Western Manuscripts.

Full descriptions, in Latin, are in Henry O. Coxe, Catalogi codicum manuscriptorum Bibliothecae Bodleianae pars prima recensionem codicum Graecorum continens (Oxford, 1853; reprinted with corrections, 1969).

Brief one-line descriptions, with shelfmarks and short titles, are in Falconer Madan, et al., A summary catalogue of western manuscripts in the Bodleian Library at Oxford which have not hitherto been catalogued in the Quarto series (7 vols. in 8 [vol. II in 2 parts], Oxford, 1895-1953; reprinted, with corrections in vols. I and VII, Munich, 1980), vol. II, nos. 1-244.

The illuminated manuscripts in this collection are described in detail in I. Hutter, Corpus der Byzantinischen Miniaturenhandschriften. Oxford Bodleian Library, 4 vols. (Stuttgart, 1977-82).

In 1628 the manuscripts were 'brought into England by Mr [Henry] Featherstone the stationer', according to Ussher (quoted in W.D. Macray's Annals of the Bodleian, 2nd ed., p. 68). On the 26th January, 1629, they were deposited with Laud at London House. At his instigation they were purchased by William Herbert, 3rd Earl of Pembroke, Chancellor of the University of Oxford (d 1630), for 700.