Les Institutes au seint empereeur Iustinien.
Contributors: Nicolaus, de Cathalano, fl. ca. 1280.
Published: 1280
Language: fro
Subjects: Roman law.
Other titles: Institutes au seint empereur Iustinien; Institutes de l'empereur Justinien; Pour ce que len puit tot trouer
Notes: Ricci, S. de.  Medieval and Renaissance mss. (suppl.), p. 115, I 71
Annual report of the Librarian of Congress, 1942 p. 74-75
Dobbs & Haun.  Law Library of LC, p. 26
Ms.
An anonymous translation into (Old) French of the Institutiones, made in the 13th century; cf. the edition made (from other mss.) by F. Olivier-Martin: Les Institutes de Justinien en franc̨ais, traduction anonyme du XIIIe siècle. Paris : Recueil Sirey, 1935.
Title from colophon, f. l of last group/212r ("Ci finissent les institutes ...")
The group of [4] leaves at the beginning contains the list of titles (rubrics) of the Institutes in Latin and in French; it begins: "Pour ce que len puit tot trouer ce que le[n] querra en cest liure ..."
Beginning of the Institutions (the initial and ca. 35 column lines) is lost due to early loss of the leaf following the list of titles.
Besides the roman foliation in three sequences, the leaves carry also a continuous numbering in modern pencil, 1-212, with the beginning of the list of titles counted as leaf 1 (the leaf is preceded by free endleaf of the binding and by a ruled leaf of uncertain pedigree with what may be scribal practice on recto and an inscription on verso)
One leaf lost immediately preceding the leaf numbered ".i." (in pencil, 5); offset on the preceding verso shows it included an illustration (ca. 70 x 54 mm) in the first column and a vertical decoration in the central space; another leaf, also with an illustration, lost at the beginning of book 4 (preceding ".ii."/164); neither foliation would show this.
Decoration: Preserved are two major illuminated illustrations (not initials), at the beginning of books 2 and 3: on leaf xxxvi/39, in a horizontally split 67 x 51 mm window, two scenes related to joint property; on leaf i of the 2nd sequence (penciled 108), a 76 x 60 mm frame contains a scene in which a woman and children are made a man's heirs. True initials are throughout of the scribal type, alternatingly red or blue or (those starting the books 2 and 3) both; red or blue are also the very numerous flourished paragraph signs and the headers (L/I, L/II, L/III, L/IIII)
Leaves 230 x 155 mm; written area 140-143 x ca. 105 mm; 2 columns (as ruled, 48+9+48 mm); 24 lines.
Binding: Fifteenth-cent. covers, decorated in blind with stamps and rolls; rebacked in modern times.
"Nicolaus de Cathalano [ = of Châlons-sur Marne?] scripxit librum istu[m]" (f. l of last group/212r).
Provenance: Sold at Toulouse by Johannes Bonsani to Andreas de Valle Viridi in 1384; sold/bought at Poitiers in 1751; purchased by the Law Library of the Library of Congress from H. P. Kraus in 1941.