Cheery Again

After my grumble over the impractical index page for Vat.lat. manuscripts at the Vatican Library portal, two kind and very computer-savvy readers of this blog suggested solutions. That generosity cheered me (as did the removal of a post-surgery splint on my wrist). It now looks as if a nifty script will be scraping this current week's updates from the DigiVatLib website, but more on that in my next post.

Grateful, I decided to seek -- by hand -- the newly issued Vat.lat. items from the still-missing second week of January. It turns out there are 45, plus three codices newly upgraded from murky microfilm to high quality. They are listed below, only lightly commented.

1. Vat.lat.168,
2. Vat.lat.315,
3. Vat.lat.427.pt.1,
4. Vat.lat.636.pt.1,
5. Vat.lat.636.pt.2,
6. Vat.lat.788,
7. Vat.lat.1316,
8. Vat.lat.1503,
9. Vat.lat.2057,
10. Vat.lat.2086,
11. Vat.lat.2087,

    Aristotelian competitors from the 15th c. now back to back in the BAV.
    "De Anima" in the Latin versions by Argyropoulos & Trapezuntius. HT @JBPiggin https://t.co/jZQkPS31Kzhttps://t.co/1aogx3dQH3 pic.twitter.com/3S71tJiGe7

    — Pieter Beullens (@LatinAristotle) January 28, 2018

12. Vat.lat.2091,

    Thanks to @JBPiggin's list this MS with Aristotelian texts @DigitaVaticana. Here the end of the Parva naturalia and the beginning of the Physionomia.https://t.co/xACjs5lACP pic.twitter.com/o5Zo0cVIIg

    — Pieter Beullens (@LatinAristotle) January 24, 2018

13. Vat.lat.2187,

    Commentary on Aristotle's "De anima" in @JBPiggin's list of MS @DigitaVaticana. Bought in 1444 in Padua for 4.5 ducats by friar Franciscus de Rovere de Saona, who later became Pope Sixtus IV. Autograph note.https://t.co/aXYRQYu1JI pic.twitter.com/YCiaLcHiCW

    — Pieter Beullens (@LatinAristotle) January 25, 2018

14. Vat.lat.2219,
15. Vat.lat.2227,
16. Vat.lat.2309,
17. Vat.lat.2312,
18. Vat.lat.2320,
19. Vat.lat.2323,
20. Vat.lat.2367, Hippocrates: Ad discipulum suum Actonem longis petitionibus (14th century copy); see eTK
21. Vat.lat.2368,
22. Vat.lat.2374, Cornelius Celsus: Ut alimenta sanis corporibus agricultura; see eTK
23. Vat.lat.2386,

    Thanks to @JBPiggin's list this MS with Aristotelian texts @DigitaVaticana. Here the end of the Parva naturalia and the beginning of the Physionomia.https://t.co/xACjs5lACP pic.twitter.com/o5Zo0cVIIg

    — Pieter Beullens (@LatinAristotle) January 24, 2018

24. Vat.lat.2397,
25. Vat.lat.2401,
26. Vat.lat.2419,
27. Vat.lat.2420,
28. Vat.lat.2423, Acatia est sucus alchati; .te Synonyms
29. Vat.lat.2428, Liberet te deus fili amantissime a via errorum (14c-15c); see eTK
30. Vat.lat.2432,
31. Vat.lat.2446, Avicenna: Medicina est conservatio sanitatis et curatio egritudinis; see eTK
32. Vat.lat.2450,
33. Vat.lat.2472,
34. Vat.lat.2496, the Liber Sextus Decretalium with Iohannis Andreae kinship diagrams. Magnificent!
    
35. Vat.lat.2518,
36. Vat.lat.2626,
37. Vat.lat.2644,
38. Vat.lat.2645,
39. Vat.lat.2649,
40. Vat.lat.2657,
41. Vat.lat.2668,
42. Vat.lat.2672,
43. Vat.lat.2696,
44. Vat.lat.2697,
45. Vat.lat.2752,

Newly in high-quality:

1. Vat.lat.2146, Walter Burley,  Nota quod in homine sunt quinque sensus; see eTK
2. Vat.lat.2186, Dominicus Gundissalinus, Cum omnes homines eque constent ex anima et corpore; see eTK
3. Vat.lat.2426 , Urina alba in colore tenuis in substantia (14th century codex); see eTK

This is Piggin's Unofficial List number 146. If you have corrections or additions, please use the comments box below. Follow me on Twitter (@JBPiggin) for news of more additions to DigiVatLib.

Grumbling

This post begins with a grumble.The famous Vat.lat. collection of the pope's Latin books in Rome numbers about 15,000, of which 4,026 or well over a quarter are so far online. The Vat.lat. series forms about one sixth of the entire Vatican manuscript library. That progress in digitization would be a cause for great celebration if it were not for the architecture of the online portal.

I have now reached the state where my fairly good computer and my high-speed internet connection can no longer reliably download and compare the Vat.lat. index page with its absurdly long list of 4,026 items, even when I block the images. Loading the index page takes up to a minute.

The solution ought not to be difficult. The series needs to be listed in 1000-manuscript chunks:  1-999, 1000-1999, 2000-2999 and so on. Until our technical friends at the Vatican realize that no one on the internet nowadays serves single pages with 4,026 images and reorganizes the indices in a more rational fashion, I am not going to be able to monitor for updates.

As a result, all that I have this week for you are 10 items from the other Vatican sub-collections:

1. Reg.lat.101 contains keys to bible study, including Brito de vocabulis byblie secundum ordinem alphabeti
2. Reg.lat.1424, an 8th or 9th century compilation of the classics starting with the famous forged exchange of letters between Seneca and St Paul, and including a poetic bit of the De Consolatione Philosophiae of Boethius
   
   Check out the tweet by @ParvaVox with more details.
3. Reg.lat.1464, Cicero, De Officiis and other works
4. Reg.lat.1643, Solinus, De mirabilibus mundi
5. Reg.lat.1660, poetry, Italian
6. Reg.lat.1662, begins with Caecus in limine, a whodunnit from Pseudo-Quintilian
7. Reg.lat.1679, Vergil, Eclogae, with a flyleaf reused from an old uncial missal, here the words "et presta ut sacrificium"
   
8. Reg.lat.1680, Plautus, Comedies
9. Sbath.34, an Arabic manuscript from the collection of the famed Father Paul Sbath
10. Urb.lat.1101, letters, first date 1631, in Italian

This is Piggin's Unofficial List number 145. If you have corrections or additions, please use the comments box below. Follow me on Twitter (@JBPiggin) for news of more additions to DigiVatLib.

Felice Squares

A monument in the history of typography has just arrived online: the original manuscript of the first book demonstrating how to create Roman square capital letters geometrically. This is the work of Felice Feliciano, and as you can see in this extract for K and L, the letter proportion is based on the square or half-square:

Vat.lat.6852 is the original copy of Alphabetum Romanum, his treatise on the geometrical construction of Roman capital letters using the square and circle. It was digitized and issued online a few days ago. It is part of the Renaissance movement that created Antiqua, the new lettering based on Roman models.

Of course we do not now like to see a square K as wide as it is high, but it is part of the slow process of experimentation that brought microtypography to where it is today. Enjoy.

Here is my full list of new releases. eTK refers you to the Thorndike and Kibre index. I must remain brief, as my left hand is still in a cast after surgery, and typing is difficult.

1. S.Maria.in.Via.Lata.I.45, the Evangeliary of S. Maria in Via Lata, battered, mouldy and a thousand years old. The canon tables pages are classic in style.

   New uploads from @DigitaVaticana HT @JBPiggin and among them a true jewel: the 9thC evangeliary of Santa Maria in Via Lata is one of the very few manuscripts we can locate in early #medieval Rome and it's even more exceptional because we know it was used by a female community pic.twitter.com/Hc4s5lmhN5

   — GiorgiaV (@ParvaVox) January 15, 2018

2. S.Maria.in.Via.Lata.I.45.pt.A, jewelled cover and bookmarks of above, some items seemingly even older
3. Vat.lat.168
4. Vat.lat.207 homilies of Origen in Latin translation; NB: error in Trismegistos: not TM 67902 = Lowe, CLA Suppl. 1769 = Rome, "Vatican, Biblioteca del Vaticano Lat. 207" which is in fact Pal.lat.207 (Lorsch; 750-825).
5. Vat.lat.339
6. Vat.lat.434.pt.1
7. Vat.lat.434.pt.2
8. Vat.lat.435.pt.1
9. Vat.lat.454.pt.2
10. Vat.lat.527.pt.1
11. Vat.lat.527.pt.2
12. Vat.lat.618
13. Vat.lat.765
14. Vat.lat.771

    A less spectacular presentation of Aquinas' commentary on Aristotle's "De Anima". HT @JBPiggin as often.https://t.co/bYUv7uWUzb pic.twitter.com/KiCom7osLL

    — Pieter Beullens (@LatinAristotle) January 14, 2018

15. Vat.lat.788

    All out Thomas Aquinas in @JBPiggin latest release of MSS from @DigitaVaticana. Thread of various MSS containing the "Summa contra Gentiles"https://t.co/6LidAO73rj pic.twitter.com/CO0JzOP1ku

    — Pieter Beullens (@LatinAristotle) January 14, 2018

16. Vat.lat.790
17. Vat.lat.791
18. Vat.lat.851
19. Vat.lat.1008.pt.1
20. Vat.lat.1008.pt.2
21. Vat.lat.1101
22. Vat.lat.1162.pt.1
23. Vat.lat.1162.pt.2
24. Vat.lat.1162.pt.3
25. Vat.lat.1175.pt.1, a great 12th-century work that uses stemmata to organize the teaching material: Radulfus Ardens, Speculum universale
    
26. Vat.lat.1232
27. Vat.lat.1250.pt.2
28. Vat.lat.1304
29. Vat.lat.1306
30. Vat.lat.1314
31. Vat.lat.1315
32. Vat.lat.1568
33. Vat.lat.1626
34. Vat.lat.1898
35. Vat.lat.1951.pt.1
36. Vat.lat.1953
37. Vat.lat.1961
38. Vat.lat.1973
39. Vat.lat.1985
40. Vat.lat.1988
41. Vat.lat.2009
42. Vat.lat.2051
43. Vat.lat.2053
44. Vat.lat.2061
45. Vat.lat.2076
46. Vat.lat.2081
47. Vat.lat.2116
48. Vat.lat.2144
49. Vat.lat.2156

    Another popular medieval commentary on the same treatise "De Anima" was written in the early 14th c. by John of Jandun.https://t.co/ghr5MKzTGb pic.twitter.com/IfyDSK65X8

    — Pieter Beullens (@LatinAristotle) January 14, 2018

50. Vat.lat.2157 HT to @LatinAristotle: second copy of the above commentary by John of Jandun
51. Vat.lat.2161 eTK
52. Vat.lat.2164

    Also online @DigitaVaticana & in @JBPiggin's latest list. Anonymous commentary (ignore the caption in the top margin) on Aristotle's zoological books.https://t.co/MEOIhTFkHJ pic.twitter.com/68jj2ROh3n

    — Pieter Beullens (@LatinAristotle) January 14, 2018

53. Vat.lat.2174

    To conclude an afternoon on the playground of @JBPiggin's list of @DigitaVaticana MSS: Peter of Abano's commentary on the Aristotelian "Problemata".https://t.co/QejpexSgD2 pic.twitter.com/Qlf7A0Q7WM

    — Pieter Beullens (@LatinAristotle) January 14, 2018

54. Vat.lat.2197
55. Vat.lat.2200
56. Vat.lat.2220
57. Vat.lat.2223
58. Vat.lat.2270
59. Vat.lat.2301
60. Vat.lat.2310
61. Vat.lat.2327
62. Vat.lat.2329
63. Vat.lat.2371 eTK
64. Vat.lat.2372 eTK
65. Vat.lat.2373 eTK
66. Vat.lat.2387
67. Vat.lat.2391
68. Vat.lat.2404
69. Vat.lat.2457, Constantine the African: Pantegni

    Ah, this is a sight to behold: the earliest copy of @EgoConstantinus's #Pantegni in the @DigitaVaticana collection. (H/t @JBPiggin for notice: https://t.co/FZYNkMG8HM.) The #Pantegni is translation of 'Ali ibn al-'Abbas al-Majusi's 2-part encyclopedia of medicine. Here's incipit. pic.twitter.com/0EWewsYsls

    — Monica H Green (@monicaMedHist) January 14, 2018

70. Vat.lat.5309
71. Vat.lat.5699, a de luxe version of Ptolemy's Cosmography, dated 1469, translated from Greek to Latin by Iacobo Angelo. In the maps section, here is the Gulf of Athens. Note how each of the islands is a different colour, like confetti:
    
    There are wonderful idealized town views, like this of Florence: pick out the Ponte Vecchio and try to find the Duomo: in fact it is marked in historicizing fashion as Santa Reparata:
    
    Anthony Grafton noted for the Rome Reborn exhibition how the view on the next page showed Rome with the Castel Sant'Angelo, the Borgo and Saint Peter's at bottom right, separated from the city by the Tiber: "Within the city proper, the ancient monuments rise, without modern buildings and urban sprawl. The Pantheon, the Forum, the Capitoline and Palatine hills, and the Colosseum dominate the central space."

    Fascinating! I was moved to see Ognisancti abbey, the church favored by the Vespucci family. Amerigo was 15 when this map was drawn, and probably still attended mass there from time to time. Thanks! pic.twitter.com/pYgtjGWgTq

    — Historia y Mapas (@LRoblesMacias) January 25, 2018

72. Vat.lat.5845, the late antique Collectio Dionysiana and Collection of Cresconius in an important 10th-century South Italian composite manuscript in a Beneventan hand

    Another fascinating early #medieval #manuscript online thanks to @DigitaVaticana HT @JBPiggin: a canon law collection (Dionysiana&more) copied by Montecassino monks in exile (Capua 915-934) also integrating vestiges of a debate between the pope & #Carolingian missi (pic no. 4) pic.twitter.com/MVgLgCeLta

    — GiorgiaV (@ParvaVox) January 16, 2018

73. Vat.lat.6852, the original copy of the Alphabetum Romanum (above).
74. Vat.lat.13152.pt.2
75. Vat.lat.14936

    https://t.co/nvxFdwgGFC.14936 - Book of hours from 1561. Use of Rome and most likely Parisian calendar, it announces that it was made for Catherine de Medici on f.1v

    — AaronM (@gundormr) January 16, 2018

76. Vat.lat.14937
77. Vat.lat.15294.pt.2

This is Piggin's Unofficial List number 144. If you have corrections or additions, please use the comments box below. Follow me on Twitter (@JBPiggin) for news of more additions to DigiVatLib.

All the Palatine

The digitization of the Palatine Latin collection at the Vatican Library seems to now be as good as complete. But wait for the official announcement.

This is a pretty big deal, because it means the former Latin section of the University of Heidelberg Library as of 1622 has been recreated as an online avatar at Bibliotheca Palatina. The prestigious library was hauled off to Rome as war booty and only the German and Greek books later returned.

The 2,030-book collection will also constitute the first complete large collection or sublibrary at the 80,000-codex Vatican Library to be available online. (Though not at the Vatican itself, where only half of the items are so far available in the Pal.lat. online collection.)

The collection is being digitized at the University in Germany with funding from the benefactor Manfred Lautenschläger. Presumably for contractual reasons the Vatican itself can only show the digital images online after a certain delay. Here are the last 11 items I have logged:

1. Pal. lat. 1819 [Juristische Sammelhandschrift]
2. Pal. lat. 2006 Schreibkalender, Tagebuch Pfalzgraf Johann Kasimirs; Abschussliste 1582 (1582)
3. Pal. lat. 2020 Schreibkalender, Desiderata der Palatina
4. Pal. lat. 2021 Indices zu Handschriften und Drucken der Palatina
5. Pal. lat. 2022 Gebetbuch in deutscher Sprache, genealogische Notizen (16. Jh.)
6. Pal. lat. 2023 Schreibkalender, Tagebuch Kf. Friedrichs III. von der Pfalz/Pfalzgraf Johann Casimirs (1569)
7. Pal. lat. 2024 Schreibkalender, Tagebuch Kf. Ludwigs VI. von der Pfalz (1581)
8. Pal. lat. 2027 Schreibkalender, Tagebuch Kf. Ludwigs VI. von der Pfalz (1579)
9. Pal. lat. 2028 Mappe mit Einbandfragmenten (14./ 15. Jh.) (14./ 15. Jh.)
10. Pal. lat. 2029 Inventarium manuscriptorum Latinorum Bibliothecae Palatinae (17. Jh.)
11. Pal. lat. 2030 Codicum manuscriptorum Latinorum Vaticanae Palatinae Bibliothecae Index (Vatikanstadt, 1678)

Meanwhile work continues to digitize the other Vatican collections, with these 11 items arriving online in the past week:

1. Reg.lat.1521: La Bugia, Rime del Marchese M. Palombara
2. Reg.lat.1646: classics, signed by scribe William in 1270 on the last page
3. Reg.lat.1648
4. Reg.lat.1657, Cicero, Ad Familiares
5. Reg.lat.1667, Quintus Serenus Sammonicus (died 212): De medicina praecepta saluberrima, a didactic medical poem, with this lovely opening initial:
   
6. Reg.lat.1690, genealogy in German
7. Reg.lat.1694, Evrard de Bethune's Latin grammar, Graecismus
8. Reg.lat.1696, Cicero, fine Renaissance initials like this:
   
9. Urb.lat.371, Sebastiani Maccii Durantini ... Soteridos
10. Urb.lat.1061, letters and reports of 1593
11. Urb.lat.1108, letters and reports of 1639-40

This is Piggin's Unofficial List number 143. If you have corrections or additions, please use the comments box below. Follow me on Twitter (@JBPiggin) for news of more additions to DigiVatLib.

Quick Click

Before I list the latest 26 manuscripts digitized at the Vatican Library, I want to draw your attention to one of the helpful new features added this year to the digital portal. It is a means, omitted in the early days of the new portal, to link to individual pages. Here is how the feature works.

If you are looking at a codex page and need to quote it, click on the "i" in a white circle in the left navigation pane:

Scroll down to and down to "Page URL":

From here you only need to click the "COPY" button to get a usable link in your clipboard.

And now, the list of 26 new additions:

1. Borg.copt.109.cass.XXV.fasc.123, page of a gospel?
2. Borg.copt.109.cass.XXV.fasc.124,
3. Borg.copt.109.cass.XXV.fasc.125,
4. Borg.copt.109.cass.XXVI.fasc.126,
5. Borg.copt.109.cass.XXVI.fasc.127,
6. Borg.copt.109.cass.XXVI.fasc.128,
7. Borg.copt.109.cass.XXVI.fasc.129,
8. Reg.lat.203,

   https://t.co/mSJy2B0TQo.203 is a Brevarium (Cistercian?), starting with the service for dedication of a churchhttps://t.co/mSJy2B0TQo.1647 seems to be Macrobius’ Saturnalia

   — AaronM (@gundormr) December 28, 2017

9. Reg.lat.1120, Justinian Code, glossed, 13th century
10. Reg.lat.1271, commentary on Avicenna's canon (HT to @monicaMedHist)
11. Reg.lat.1291, Renaissance commentary on Aristotelean mechanics
12. Reg.lat.1410, 10th-century classics manuscript with Virgil, Horace, Juvenal

    new manuscripts uploaded @DigitaVaticana among which this fascinating 10thC copy of classical poetry (Horace, Virgil, Persius & Juvenal) conceived and designed to accommodate a substantial corpus of interlinear and marginal annotations. HT @JBPiggin https://t.co/DE0if6bWV5 pic.twitter.com/JnYipjozDV

    — GiorgiaV (@ParvaVox) December 28, 2017

13. Reg.lat.1454, Seneca, Letters to Lucillium
14. Reg.lat.1489, Lancelot du Lac, French
15. Reg.lat.1559, early Renaissance compilation of Latin classics
16. Reg.lat.1608,
17. Reg.lat.1645.pt.1,
18. Reg.lat.1645.pt.2,
19. Reg.lat.1647,
20. Reg.lat.1655, early Priscian, Institutiones grammaticae
21. Reg.lat.1656,
22. Reg.lat.1661,
23. Reg.lat.1663,
24. Reg.lat.1668,
25. Reg.lat.1675, Horace, 11th-century?
26. Urb.lat.1402, Fiore delle medicine, 15th-century Italian medical treatise (HT to @monicaMedHist)

This is Piggin's Unofficial List number 142. If you have corrections or additions, please use the comments box below. Follow me on Twitter (@JBPiggin) for news of more additions to DigiVatLib.

Divorce Manual

A handbook of marriage and divorce by Raymundus de Pennaforte (1175/85-1275) is one of the stars of the latest swathe of Vatican manuscript digitizations. The Summa Matrimonio is the classic remix, lightly adapted by Ramon from a previous textbook and itself modified soon enough.

Vincentius Hispanus of Bologna University is apparently the professor who contributed a compound diagram of incestuous marriages at 61r, introducing it as: "Hec conpositio arboris sanguitatis ..."

Of course it does not look like a wood-and-leaves tree. The top part looks like an arrow, the bottom part (glimpse it above) like a plinth, and the mid part (below) designed to somehow connect everything into one big confusing infographic, resembles too many stir-spoons spoiling a pot of broth:

As I have pointed out in the past: arbor should be taken simply as a medieval term for a recursive diagram.

Here is my list of digitizations noticed in the past seven days.

1. Borg.arm.10
2. Reg.lat.1261, 14th-century science and maths with Jordanus de Nemore, De Ponderis, and other authors. eTK lists De cometis, incipit: Occasione comete que nuper apparuit
   
3. Reg.lat.1351
4. Reg.lat.1482
5. Reg.lat.1544
6. Reg.lat.1567
7. Reg.lat.1601
8. Reg.lat.1607
9. Reg.lat.1626
10. Reg.lat.1627
11. Reg.lat.1683
12. Reg.lat.1697
13. Vat.estr.or.109, in Japanese. Look at this spectacular binding cloth:
    
14. Vat.lat.640.pt.1
15. Vat.lat.640.pt.2
16. Vat.lat.780
17. Vat.lat.1250.pt.1
18. Vat.lat.1262
19. Vat.lat.2058, Commentary on the Almagest by George Trebizond. Anthony Grafton notes in his Rome Reborn catalog: Trebizond wrote a commentary as long as [his own Latin translation of the Almagest]. The commentary was severely criticized, which resulted in a falling out with Pope Nicholas V. This opulent manuscript was dedicated to Pope Sixtus IV along with Vat.lat.2055 of the translation. [Below is] a large figure of the model for the planet Mercury, shown at its least distance from the earth, with a list of Mercury's parameters and distances:
    

    How to be a devoted son? Andreas Trapezuntius writes a dedication to pope Sixtus IV for his father's translation of Ptolemy's Almagest. MS @DigitaVaticana https://t.co/PCdHx0j6us pic.twitter.com/Cbsbz4woF2

    — Pieter Beullens (@LatinAristotle) May 10, 2018

20. Vat.lat.2229
21. Vat.lat.2300 (above)
22. Vat.lat.7228

This is Piggin's Unofficial List number 141. If you have corrections or additions, please use the comments box below. Follow me on Twitter (@JBPiggin) for news of more additions to DigiVatLib.

Marshal GT

I've often wondered how many medieval people actually introduced themselves by their place of origin, for example: "Hello, I'm John of Auckland."

One of the Vatican Library manuscripts which I spotted this week newly digitized in color is Vat.lat.933 containing works by Gervase of Tilbury (c. 1150s–c. 1222) and marked up by the great man himself with corrections. On the opening page he is described as Gervasius Tilberiensis (the obscure West Tilbury in Essex).

So it does appear he went by that name in his lifetime, even when he held titles like Marshal of the Kingdom of Arles or Provost of Ebstorf. Gervase is famed for writing the Otia Imperialia ("Recreation for an Emperor") for his patron, Holy Roman Emperor Otto IV. It describes many wonders of the distant world such as headless men (also known as akephaloi or blemmyes).

Also new in color is Reg.lat.1260, a binding of two manuscripts believed to be associated with the monastery of Fleury-sur-Loire in France (HT to @monicaMedHist for pointing this out and imaging Beccaria's description). A 10th-century manuscript includes scientific texts such as a glossary of Greek disease names (Incipit: Antrax id est rubor in superficie cutis (see eTK)). And here is its handy tabulation of phases of the moon:

Additionally now available in color is a 14th-century scientific manuscript with works of Boethius, Vat.lat.2114 with Categoriae 12v-32r; De Interpretatione 42r-53r; translation of Aristotle, Prior Analytics 162r-218v; of Aristotle, De Sophisticis Elenchis 53r-81v; of Aristotle, Topica 81v-162r. It also contains a commentary on Euclid, a great many marginal glosses, and diagrams:

Here is the list of completely new digitizations I have detected in the past week:

1. Ott.lat.3384
2. Reg.lat.1321
3. Reg.lat.1542
4. Reg.lat.1562

   A fascinating early #medieval copy of Persius's Satires among the latest digitisations @DigitaVaticana HT @JBPiggin : a late 10th/early 11thC #manuscript feat. Persius with scholia, glosses, a short life of the author and explanation of the literary genre https://t.co/Rh0FDEm4gV pic.twitter.com/1wLu7kfCXx

   — GiorgiaV (@ParvaVox) December 11, 2017

5. Reg.lat.1564
6. Reg.lat.1565
7. Reg.lat.1566
8. Reg.lat.1578
9. Reg.lat.1590
10. Reg.lat.1635
11. Ross.40
12. Vat.lat.1967
13. Vat.lat.2114
14. Vat.lat.2120
15. Vat.lat.2195, a 14th-century manuscript of the Latin novel Metamorphoses by the 2nd-century Numidian writer Apuleius.
16. Vat.lat.2221
17. Vat.lat.2265
18. Vat.lat.2281
19. Vat.lat.3360

This is Piggin's Unofficial List number 140. If you have corrections or additions, please use the comments box below. Follow me on Twitter (@JBPiggin) for news of more additions to DigiVatLib.

Riddle me ree

At long last, the Vatican Library has digitized in color Reg.lat.1553, a fine Carolingian manuscript containing the late antique riddle collection known as the Berne Riddles. Previously only a murky grey scan was online.

Here's a sample:

Glorie edits this to:

Mortua maiorem uiuens quam porto laborem.
Dum iaceo, multos seruo; sistetero, paucos.
Viscera si [mihi] foris detracta patescant,
Vitam fero cunctis uictumque confero multis.
Bestia defunctam auisque nulla me mordit,
Et onusta currens uiam nec planta depingo

The translation quoted by Paul Sorrell:

Dead, I bear a greater labor than when living. When I lie dead, I preserve many; if I remain standing, few. If my insides are exposed, pulled away outside, I bring life to all and collect sustenance for many.  No beast or bird bites me when I am dead, and running along loaded down, I do  not mark the way with my foot.

The answer is: an oak made into a ship. This collection's only connection to Berne, Switzerland is that that is the current location of a slightly older manuscript. The compilation was apparently made in northern Italy, based on far older riddle books, perhaps the work of an insular (Irish) monk at Bobbio. This early-9th-century codex also contains music. For a discussion, see Chauncey E Finch (below).

Here are the manuscripts that have just arrived online for the very first time.

1. Legat.Pal.lat.930, an ornate binding (without the book) of 1548
2. Reg.lat.1235, geometry and arithmetic
   
3. Reg.lat.1270
4. Reg.lat.1280
5. Reg.lat.1284
6. Reg.lat.1303
7. Reg.lat.1328, Vitruvius, On Architecture, HT to @gundormr
8. Reg.lat.1404
9. Reg.lat.1568
10. Reg.lat.1574
11. Reg.lat.1587
12. Reg.lat.1625
13. Reg.lat.1674, Servius' commentary on the Aeneid, book 6, HT to @gundormr
14. Vat.lat.1824
15. Vat.lat.2059, with the episcopal coat of arms of Domenico Dominici
    
16. Vat.lat.2189
17. Vat.lat.2196
18. Vat.lat.2209
19. Vat.lat.2226
20. Vat.lat.3964, a list of library borrowings from the 1470s

    From the Vatican Library register in 1480's: Carolus Valgulius, translator of Plutarch, Arrian and Isocrates, wrote in his own hand that he borrowed three volumes of Aristotelian commentaries... and he later even returned them! HT @JBPiggin https://t.co/lmWjRIUff1 pic.twitter.com/zB7oimHB6n

    — Pieter Beullens (@LatinAristotle) December 3, 2017

Additionally, the Pal.lat. collection at the Vatican seems to within weeks of loud and merry celebration as the first complete section online. It is being digitized by Heidelberg University Library and will be fully in place when all 2,030 items are digitized. Still missing are 2,018-24 and 2,027-30 as well as earlier items which I have not had time to survey. Here are the new additions:

1. Pal. lat. 1960 Doctrines des Pères, französisch nach den Vitae patrum
2. Pal. lat. 1961 Legrand, Jacques (?): Jacques le Grant, Livre des bonnes meours (15. Jh.)
3. Pal. lat. 1968 Martin : Le champion des dames (2. Hälfte 15. Jh.)
4. Pal. lat. 1973 Seuse, Heinrich: Horloge de sapience (15. Jh.)
5. Pal. lat. 1974 Historiographische Notizen, Briefabschriften (1505-1520)
6. Pal. lat. 1984 Französische Gedichte des 16. Jhs. (16. Jh.)
7. Pal. lat. 1985 Allegorische Darstellungen, Nachzeichnungen (?) zu Tapisserien (?) (16. Jh.)
8. Pal. lat. 1987 Johannes a Breda (?): Lateinische Psalmenkommentare
9. Pal. lat. 1991 Seuse, Heinrich: Vertu de la messe ; Horloge de sapience (15. Jh.)
10. Pal. lat. 1992 Jehan Dupin: Livre de Mandevie (15. Jh.)
11. Pal. lat. 1996 Schreibkalender, Tagebuch Pfalzgraf Johann Casimirs (1567)
12. Pal. lat. 1997 Schreibkalender, Tagebuch Pfalzgraf Johann Casimirs (1570)
13. Pal. lat. 1998 Schreibkalender, Eintragungen Friedrichs III. (1571)
14. Pal. lat. 1999 Schreibkalender, Tagebuch Pfalzgraf Johann Casimirs (1571)
15. Pal. lat. 2001 Schreibkalender, Tagebuch Pfalzgraf Johann Casimirs (1577)
16. Pal. lat. 2003 Schreibkalender, keine Eintragungen (1579)
17. Pal. lat. 2007 Schreibkalender, Tagebuch Pfalzgraf Johann Casimirs (1583)
18. Pal. lat. 2008 Schreibkalender, Tagebuch Pfalzgraf Johann Casimirs (1584)
19. Pal. lat. 2009 Schreibkalender, Tagebuch Pfalzgraf Johann Casimirs (1585)
20. Pal. lat. 2010 Schreibkalender, Tagebuch Pfalzgraf Johann Casimirs (1586)
21. Pal. lat. 2011 Schreibkalender, Tagebuch Pfalzgraf Johann Casimirs (1587)
22. Pal. lat. 2012 Schreibkalender, Tagebuch Pfalzgraf Johann Casimirs (1588)
23. Pal. lat. 2013 Schreibkalender mit handschriftlichen Notizen (Friedrich IV.?) (1606)
24. Pal. lat. 2014 Schreibkalender, Tagebuch Kf. Ludwigs VI. von der Pfalz (1572)

This is Piggin's Unofficial List number 139. If you have corrections or additions, please use the comments box below. Follow me on Twitter (@JBPiggin) for news of more additions to DigiVatLib.

Finch, Chauncey E. "The Bern Riddles in Codex Vat. Reg. Lat. 1553." Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association 92 (1961): 145-55. doi:10.2307/283806.

Charlemagne's Daughter

The Vatican Library continues to re-scan codices in color to replace the dire black and white microfilms it previously had online. I just noticed the arrival of a fine old 9th-century codex from Faremoutiers Abbey where at one point Ruothild, an illegitimate daughter of Charlemagne, was abbess. Reg.lat.141 begins with a Latin translation from Basil the Great, apparently with some unique glosses:

Esteemed @ParvaVox points out in response on Twitter that it's a "quite extraordinary #Carolingian witness of a late antique doctrinal controversy ... containing glosses dating back to the fight against Pelagianism and Julian of Eclanum".

For those interested in Carolingian science, the eTK lists a tract in the codex beginning De mundi principio quomodo factus est ... At the back are paschal tables from 804 to 873 (a note marks Ruothild's death), as well as fine diagrams including this one of the phases of the moon:

Also new in color is Reg.lat.1140, a packed tome of 557 folios containing Fons memorabilium universi of Domenico Bandini of Arezzo, but what caught my eye was this amazing diagrammatic table of contents:

The last new color item of note is Vat.lat.2190, a 14th-century text by the Spanish Franciscan philosophy teacher and early Scotist, Peter Thomae (c.1280-c.1350), Ista convertuntur proprie videlicet esse et reytas, ens et res, entale et reale, entalitas et realitas, also listed in eTK.

There are of course completely new items online, of which I have spotted 26:

1. Pal.gr.205
2. Reg.lat.196
3. Reg.lat.1206
4. Reg.lat.1227
5. Reg.lat.1239
6. Reg.lat.1247
7. Reg.lat.1293
8. Reg.lat.1330, eTK: Astrologia est beneficio deorum nobis revelata
9. Reg.lat.1548
10. Reg.lat.1576
11. Reg.lat.1614
12. Reg.lat.1628
13. Reg.lat.1629
14. Reg.lat.1634, HT to @LatinAristotle, who points out this is Lucan's Civil War with a diagram laying out the topographical situation
15. Reg.lat.1639
16. Reg.lat.1651
17. Reg.lat.1862

    Fenix on its nest, in a digitized Bestiary from @DigitaVaticana as seen on the list by @JBPiggin.https://t.co/4Yg4NzHOHz pic.twitter.com/QjUUh56ZI7

    — Pieter Beullens (@LatinAristotle) November 26, 2017

18. Vat.lat.1417
19. Vat.lat.2022
20. Vat.lat.2049
21. Vat.lat.2099
22. Vat.lat.2172
23. Vat.lat.2181
24. Vat.lat.2184, a 14th-century collection on Aristotlean philosophy: the catalog lists commentators Averroes, Michael Scot and Étienne de Provins. eTK says contents include De Intensione et Remissione Formarum, an essay on the philosophy of Aristotle by Walter Burley: Incipit: In hoc tractatu intendo perscrutari de causa intrinseca.
25. Vat.lat.2199
26. Vat.lat.15372 seems to be a Renaissance book of hours, which according to notes on the endpapers was an heirloom and repeated family gift by legacy until it entered the Vatican collection in 2008. Browse it for the delicate images:
    

    https://t.co/nvxFdwgGFC.15372 might be from Arras, or passed through there. The same Thomas de Parent(i/y) owned a Pontifical that is still there BM Arras MS 702 - https://t.co/SLBnqezU97

    — AaronM (@gundormr) November 26, 2017

This is Piggin's Unofficial List number 138. If you have corrections or additions, please use the comments box below. Follow me on Twitter (@JBPiggin) for news of more additions to DigiVatLib.

Troubadours

The Vatican's copy of a treasured book of old French troubadour love songs has just been re-scanned in color and high resolution and placed online. Reg.lat.1490 contains the collection known as the Chansonnier cangé and is of especial interest because some of the works in it are by trobairises, the female troubadours of the 12th and 13th centuries in the Occitan region.

From the Wikipedia article Trobairitz, which I recommend you read, it would seem only four manuscripts of this work survive. The Vatican version was previously only online in a murky black and white copy.

Another fascinating manuscript just out in color is Reg.lat.1391 containing De Verecundia by one of the most famous humanists of the early Renaissance, Coluccio Salutati (1331-1406). Transcript. Read Mirabile for a summary. This was scribed by the Fifth Scribe in the tabulation of Ullman and Ceccherini, possibly in Coluccio's lifetime.

Also new online in color is Reg.lat.1446, dated about 1300, a collection of works on falconry and keeping birds healthy. eTK lists it as containing a translation of the Arabic-speaking falconer Moamyn's Sollicitudo nature gubernans.

Aside from these, 21 other manuscripts arrived online in the past week for the first time.

1. Reg.lat.1136,
2. Reg.lat.1491,
3. Reg.lat.1533,
4. Reg.lat.1539,
5. Reg.lat.1586,
6. Reg.lat.1594,
7. Reg.lat.1597,
8. Reg.lat.1609,
9. Reg.lat.1619,
10. Reg.lat.1632,
11. Vat.lat.1412,
12. Vat.lat.2060

    Gorgeous first page of Plato's "Republic" in the Latin version by Antonius Cassarinus. Coat of arms of Pius II. HT @JBPiggin https://t.co/a4zIxLhgl4 pic.twitter.com/v0H8KiFRq0

    — Pieter Beullens (@LatinAristotle) November 20, 2017

13. Vat.lat.2182,
14. Vat.lat.2203,
15. Vat.lat.2204,
16. Vat.lat.2205,
17. Vat.lat.2206,
18. Vat.lat.2208,
19. Vat.lat.2210,
20. Vat.lat.2211, Seneca and Cicero
21. Vat.lat.2272,

This list nearly failed to appear after Firefox 56 and its handy extensions, including Distill, essentially disappeared from the face of the earth late in the week. The browser has been reincarnated as Firefox Quantum and most old extensions don't work with this new generation or cannot automatically import their settings and logs.

As a temporary fix I have installed a time-lagged version, Firefox ESR, which recovered last week's state of the DigiVatLib portal. These snapshots of the past are logged in Distill, an extension which monitors DigiVatiLib for changes, and are of course essential in figuring out what changes every seven days.


Extension writers worldwide are going through hell this month as they attempt to migrate their software to meet Mozilla's ridiculous demands or just retire defeated.

Lightshot which used to have a lovely workflow for manuscript scholars is now buggy (and no longer does snips outside the Firefox window). Alpheios, a super-dictionary of Latin and Greek which every scholar should have installed and which was developed with grant money, is not compatible with Quantum. There must be a special place in hell for the Mozilla Foundation software developers who have taken down these solid running systems in the name of self-aggrandizing innovation.

This is Piggin's Unofficial List number 137. If you have corrections or additions, please use the comments box below. Follow me on Twitter (@JBPiggin) for news of more additions to DigiVatLib.

Panorama of Rome in 1457

Postcards of Rome are two a penny, but panoramic views of the city in the early Renaissance are special. This week's surprise digitization at the Vatican Library is a miniature painted from near the Vatican in or just before 1457. Arnold Esch captions it as below (my translation):

An unusual perspective on Rome, more or less the view that would be seen from Pope Pius II's apartment. Until this period, it had been usual to do landscapes from Monte Mario, and these tended to be idealized rather than actual views. This is the first realistic panorama of Rome, a miniature for a manuscript of Euclid completed in 1457 that had been commissioned by Francesco del Borgo, Pius II's architect.

The view is from the Vatican garden above the papal palace, with, at center, the Cortile del Maresciallo (with the Capella Magna in front, the small tower of the east facade behind) and the Campanile of St Peter's, towards the city in the curve of the Tiber River. At left is a footpath to the Castell San Angelo and the Tiber, in the center the dome of the Pantheon, with the trees of the Capitol on both sides and St Maria in Ara Coeli and the Senatorial Palace; at right in foreground the northern slope of the Gianicolo.

Anthony Grafton adds in the Rome Reborn catalog that the image may have been the first view of Rome to use new methods by Leon Battista Alberti to plot positions of buildings accurately. For a comparison, check out this reconstruction on Tomaso Paynim's blog: I think the miniature is from a standpoint on the high ground at left. San Angelo is at right.

Here are the newly digitized manuscripts, including tweeted annotations from the eagle-eyed @LatinAristotle

1. Ott.lat.3385.pt.1
2. Reg.lat.1452, eTK incipits: A philosophis astronomiam sic diffinitam accepimus (14C); Philosophis astronomiam sic diffinitam accepimus
3. Reg.lat.1494
4. Reg.lat.1508
5. Reg.lat.1514
6. Reg.lat.1518
7. Reg.lat.1534
8. Reg.lat.1536
9. Reg.lat.1538
10. Reg.lat.1543
11. Reg.lat.1615 ,

    Geoffrey of Vinsauf, "Poetria nova", medieval didactic poetry in hexameters.
    HT @JBPiggin (again!)https://t.co/8proPSE8Nv pic.twitter.com/qkzHjulg8t

    — Pieter Beullens (@LatinAristotle) November 12, 2017

12. Reg.lat.1640
13. Urb.lat.1104
14. Urb.lat.1106
15. Vat.lat.1420
16. Vat.lat.1884
17. Vat.lat.1950
18. Vat.lat.2019
19. Vat.lat.2112 , Aristotle, Problemata (tr. Bartholomew of Messina), HT to @LatinAristotle

    "Iste liber, non obstante dicto aliquorum in oppositionem, compilatus fuit ab Aristotele". Glossator defends authenticity in copy of "Problemata" (tr. Bartholomew of Messina).
    HT @JBPigginhttps://t.co/Lhv9zCIZyH pic.twitter.com/LrS9ra1XVG

    — Pieter Beullens (@LatinAristotle) November 12, 2017

20. Vat.lat.2155
21. Vat.lat.2178 ,

    Moerbeke's version of Alexander of Aphrodisias' "Meteora" commentary, "translata de greco in latinum apud niceam urbem grecie anno christi 1260". HT @JBPigginhttps://t.co/0RqsZrK3N3 pic.twitter.com/rYcoRjjHMa

    — Pieter Beullens (@LatinAristotle) November 12, 2017

22. Vat.lat.2180
23. Vat.lat.2207
24. Vat.lat.2218
25. Vat.lat.2224, panoramic view of Rome (above) in Euclid Geometry
26. Vat.lat.2225, eTK incipit: Circa dictum Campani in quo dicitur quod magnitudo (15C) (Nicole Oresme)
27. Vat.lat.2230, HT to @gundormr: Vitruvius, On Architecture
28. Vat.lat.10293

    https://t.co/nvxFdwgGFC.10293 - very small (105x75mm) late 15th-early 16th C BoH from Ghent-Bruges area. Similar to @britishlibrary MS Add 18852, the _Hours of Joanna the Mad_https://t.co/XSZPIMkVSU

    — AaronM (@gundormr) November 14, 2017

New in color (previously online in black and white only): Vat.lat.2185, eTK incipit: Cum in singulis scientiis secundum by 14th century author English mathematician Richard Suiseth, also known as The Calculator. Another manuscript of the same work arrived online last week.

In Heidelberg eight Vatican manuscripts of the Pal.lat. series are newly online:

1.  Vatikan, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Pal. lat. 1947 Katalog der Privatbibliothek Ludwigs VI. (1584)
2. Vatikan, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Pal. lat. 1948 Katalog der Palatina in Rom, lateinische (sowie griech., hebr. und arabische) Handschriften
3. Vatikan, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Pal. lat. 1952 Sammelband: Verzeichnis lat. und griech. Autoren, Alexander de Villa Dei, Pflanzenglossar, Rezepte, Metrik (Fragm.), de iure naturali, tituli decretalium (12.-16. Jh.)
4. Vatikan, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Pal. lat. 1953 Luther, Martin: Apophtegmata etc. (Johannes Aurifaber?)
5. Vatikan, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Pal. lat. 1954 Luther, Martin: Opera diversa (Schülerabschrift?)
6. Vatikan, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Pal. lat. 1955 Luther, Martin: Diverses lat. und deutsch ; Briefabschriften
7. Vatikan, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Pal. lat. 1956 Katalog der Palatina (1581). Geschichte (1581)
8. Vatikan, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Pal. lat. 1959 Theologische Sammelhandschrift (1. Hälfte 15. Jh.)

This is Piggin's Unofficial List number 136. If you have corrections or additions, please use the comments box below. Follow me on Twitter (@JBPiggin) for news of more additions to DigiVatLib.

Soothe the Eyes

A great book should soothe the eyes, or that's what a subscription in one of this week's codices digitized at the Vatican Library suggests.

Vat.lat.5949, a 12th century martyrology from the Abbey of Monte Cassino (see also last week's post), contains two lines (above) transcribed and translated by Francis Newton:

Mulcet visum litteras / nodos et colores
Ingerens optutibus excellentiores

It (the book) soothes the eye, setting before the gaze
Letters, knots and colors quite outstanding

The Martyrdom of Eustasius with Regula S. Benedicti, Kalendarium and Homiliae Capitulares is one of 22 items placed newly online, and this book is indeed full of wonderful colored knot patterns:

1. Ott.lat.3385.pt.2, listed in eTK with these two incipits: Cum a primo tanquam ab optimo (14c); Hec sunt verba que
2. Reg.lat.198
3. Reg.lat.1107

   Nice provenance for this Calcidius MS: owner's mark from the library of St-Victor in Paris.
   HT @JBPigginhttps://t.co/Ki0t5fiIuf pic.twitter.com/sfRKF621s5

   — Pieter Beullens (@LatinAristotle) November 4, 2017

4. Reg.lat.1377
5. Reg.lat.1393 Vergil's Aeneid, HT to @LatinAristotle
6. Reg.lat.1402
7. Reg.lat.1420
8. Reg.lat.1423
9. Reg.lat.1437
10. Reg.lat.1440
11. Reg.lat.1458
12. Reg.lat.1470
13. Reg.lat.1473
14. Reg.lat.1488
15. Reg.lat.1499
16. Reg.lat.1612
17. Vat.lat.2129
18. Vat.lat.2130, logic and mathematics. eTK lists: Cum in singulis scientiis secundum by 14th century author English mathematician Richard Suiseth, also known as The Calculator. Here is the librarian's contents list:
    
    
19. Vat.lat.2152

    Guess what lines up in @JBPiggin's newest list @DigitaVaticana:
    Walter Burley's commentary on Aristotle's Politica.https://t.co/uLmROt3qtc pic.twitter.com/eIbnqaX06F

    — Pieter Beullens (@LatinAristotle) November 4, 2017

20. Vat.lat.5949, see above and Lowe p. 68.
21. Vat.lat.11253
22. Vat.lat.13152.pt.1

This is Piggin's Unofficial List number 135. If you have corrections or additions, please use the comments box below. Follow me on Twitter (@JBPiggin) for news of more additions to DigiVatLib.