Provenance and Owners' Notes
CRRS's copy of the first volume of Histoire de Fl. Iosephe (Lyons, 1558) contains multiple owners' signatures, some of which are illegible and one of which presents a mystery!
The copy also contains one owner's note and marginalia.
Owners' signatures:
The Mystery
The front fly leaf contains what appears to be a christogram at the top.
In the middle appears to be an owner's signature, which is regrettably partially illegible: [.]oldess[....]
Underneath that signature there clearly appear to be the words: "Budapest 1598". This presents a mystery, given that the city Budapest was only first formed in 1873, with the unification of the formerly separate towns of Buda, Óbuda, and Pest.
Owner's notes:
There are marginalia notes found on various pages of CRRS's copy. These notes all appear to be in the same pen and hand as the signature in the verso of the title page (C(?)laude Rine(?) de Vaugirard).
The first manuscript note is a long note at the end of Josephus' preface to Antiquities (on leaf ***4 verso). In it the owner notes the dating of the completion of Josephus' Antiquities by Cardinal Baronius. The reference is certainly to Cardinal Caesar Baronius' (1538-1607) Annales Ecclesiastici 1:729, where he dates it to the year 96 of Jesus, year 13 of the Emperor Domitian, and year 4 of Pope Clement I (see here: https://archive.org/details/A204053/page/n781).
The note is not entirely legible and at least one line was cut off when the page was trimmed. It reads: "“Le cardinal Baronius dans ses analle eclesiastique dit que l'an 96 de nostre seigneur jesus christ, l'an 12eyieme [sic. should be 13] de l'empire de Domitian, St. Clemen et tan (??) pape l'an 4 deson pontifical, josephe juif achev a son histoire des entiquites judaiques distingue en ving livre etan a nome âgée de cinquanta sisc; an insi depuis le temp marque si desue jusqua l’anee presante de 1743 selafait d’anee quil liat que selivre est conposee seyes een quarante…
Thus, this note was composed in 1743.
Other marginalia are much shorter and appear on a number of pages, in two distinct sections: several pages in books 3 and 4 of Antiquities and a few pages in Against Apion. Both those sections, and the marginalia notes themselves, are all concerened with Moses and the laws of Moses. The marginalia notes are, in fact, simply, bullet points of the main content of the sections they are written next to. Thus, for example, the marginalia on p. 88 notes that Josephus' text (Ant. 3 ch. 11.) describes the laws ordained my Moses pertaining to sacrifices and purification. The marginalia (though trimmed) on the pp. 114-121 are repetitive: "les loise de Moyse pour le tamporel," although the marginalia on p. 115, where the text of Josephus discusses the laws of giving witness, also says: "des témoin.” Marginalia on p. 122, where the text of Josephus retells the biblical laws concering warfare, says: "Les loise DeMoyse pour la guerre." And, on page 125, where Josephus rewrites the end of the life of Moses, eulogizes him, and summarizes his life, so does the marginal note: “mors demoys[e] alage de six vingt ans apres a voir gouvernec le people quara[nte] ans.”
The marginalia on the pages of Against Apion, are a little more varied, but still mainly concerned with the laws of Moses. Thus, they say: “dela croyance des juiffe” = the beliefs of the Jews (706a; Apion 2 sec. 23 about the basic laws not to make a graven image of God etc..); “… la divinite” (706b); “de leur sacrifi[ce] (707a); “…du marriage par moyse” (707b); “la punision des adulterer et “ (707c).
Consequently, it seems clear that the author of these marginalia, probably the owner from Vaugirard, had a particular interest in Moses and his laws.
Lastly, the margins of one page of this copy contain a drawing, perhaps of a face (p. 469).