British Library, Stowe MS 54 is a French illuminated manuscript from the first quarter of the fifteenth century of the ''

Histoire ancienne jusqu'à César The ''Histoire ancienne jusqu'à César'' ("Ancient history until Caesar") is the first medieval French prose compilation of stories of antiquity, mostly consisting of the so-called Matter of Troy and of Rome, besides text from the Bible and oth ...

'' ("Ancient History up to Caesar"), a medieval historical compilation recounting tales of the ancient world, especially the

Trojan War In Greek mythology, the Trojan War was waged against the city of Troy by the Achaeans (Greeks) after Paris of Troy took Helen from her husband Menelaus, king of Sparta. The war is one of the most important events in Greek mythology and ...

, the conquests of

Alexander the Great Alexander III of Macedon ( grc, Ἀλέξανδρος, Alexandros; 20/21 July 356 BC – 10/11 June 323 BC), commonly known as Alexander the Great, was a king of the ancient Greek kingdom of Macedon. He succeeded his father Philip II to ...

(particularly the Fall of Thebes), and the greatness of

ancient Rome In modern historiography, ancient Rome refers to Roman civilisation from the founding of the city of Rome in the 8th century BC to the collapse of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century AD. It encompasses the Roman Kingdom (753–509 BC ...

. The manuscript was copied in Paris from an earlier

Neapolitan Neapolitan means of or pertaining to Naples, a city in Italy; or to: Geography and history * Province of Naples, a province in the Campania region of southern Italy that includes the city * Duchy of Naples, in existence during the Early and Hig ...

exemplar illuminated by

Cristoforo Orimina Cristoforo Orimina was an Italian illuminator of the 14th century. He was a painter at the court of Robert of Naples and of Joan I of Naples. The Orimini were a patrician family of Naples, belonging to the noble '' seggio'' of Capuana. The fami ...

, also held by the British Library (Royal 20 D I). The illustrations in this copy were provided by an unidentified illuminator from the Low Countries, working in Paris. The manuscript forms part of the Stowe manuscripts in the

British Library The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom and is one of the largest libraries in the world. It is estimated to contain between 170 and 200 million items from many countries. As a legal deposit library, the British ...

Sources

*Pamela Porter, ''Medieval Warfare in Manuscripts'' (London: British Library, 2000), p. 42.

External links

British Library catalogue recordEncampment of the Greeks, and battle outside Troy
from Stowe 54, folio 83, at the Bridgeman Art Library. 15th-century illuminated manuscripts 54 (Histoire ancienne) Illuminated histories {{British-Library-stub