Duke's Cookbook

Among the treasures of the library of the dukes of Urbino was a manuscript of the greatest cookbook of Imperial Rome, De re coquinaria ("On the Subject of Cooking"), attributed to a certain Apicius. It contains some 450 recipes, including 138 sauce recipes. The book will be familiar to the many fans of Neill George's Pass the Garum blog as our principal surviving guide to Roman epicureanism.

Only two manuscripts of this work exist. The other, from Fulda, is at the New York Academy of Medicine and was rebound nine years ago. The Vatican's manuscript, Urb. lat. 1146, has been reproduced by an Italian publisher as a facsimile costing 1,560 euros, but since June 1, it has been possible to read it for free at Digita Vaticana. Here is one of the illuminations, showing a couple of birds destined for the pot:

Unlike a modern cookbook, De re coquinaria skimps on essential information about ingredient quantities and cooking times. It lacks the glossy photographs of calamari balls in beds of salad which we would now consider obligatory in a cookbook. It is easiest to enjoy it in the 1926 translation to English by Joseph Dommers Vehling, which has been lovingly digitized for your tablet computer at Project Gutenberg. Vehling's edition is enriched with line drawings adapted from other Roman sources.

Apicius is refreshingly blunt in his views on food purity: taste was what mattered, not the 21st-century obsession with avoiding adulteration. Ut mel malum bonum facias (spoiled honey made good) is one of his straightforward counsels: How bad honey may be turned into a saleable article is to mix one part of the spoiled honey with two parts of good honey. Quite. Where's the problem?

The other major arrival in the June 1 batch of digitizations is the sole oldest surviving manuscript, Reg. lat. 1024, of the Liber Judiciorum, the code of laws of Visigothic Spain.

When the Goths conquered Spain, they initially barred intermarriage between their own people and their Roman subjects and maintained separate legal systems for the two populations. But in time, the legal systems were merged and the Liber is the resulting synthesis, a masterwork of jurisprudence which was drawn up in about 654 under King Recceswinth.

This copy, which once belonged to Queen Christina of Sweden, was penned in the early 8th century [probably: see comment below] in Urgell, Spain and is number 287 in Ainoa Castro's survey & blog of Visigothic-script manuscripts.

Here is the full list of 58  manuscripts added June 1, raising the posted total to 2,077:

1. Arch.Cap.S.Pietro.D.172
2. Arch.Cap.S.Pietro.D.178
3. Barb.gr.310
4. Barb.gr.549, book of hours, 1480
5. Barb.lat.393
6. Barb.lat.2154.pt.A, Roman antiquities, in the codex that also contains the Chronograph of 354 drawings
7. Barb.or.136
8. Barb.or.149, eight-part cosmological map by Adam Schall von Bell, the first European in the court bureaucracy in Beijing, featured in Rome Reborn
9. Borgh.237
10. Borg.ar.71
11. Cappon.9, psalter
12. Cappon.12, history of Florence
13. Cappon.18
14. Cappon.27.pt.2
15. Cappon.27.pt.3
16. Cappon.28.pt.1, compilation of Italian proverbs including the following: Pena patire per bella parere. Delle femmine quando per apparire belle s'acconciano, e strappano, o, sbarbano i peluzzi, che hanno pel viso, e soffrono dolori in acconciature di testa e simili frascherie. Dicesi anche Per bella parere pena convien' patire. Which translates as, "Suffering pain to look beautiful." This item is now being used as a fundraiser (see below for link)
17. Cappon.30
18. Cappon.31
19. Cappon.33
20. Cappon.34, Istoria del Sacco di Roma
21. Cappon.42
22. Cappon.45
23. Cappon.46
24. Cappon.47
25. Cappon.50, copy (1661) of Del Reggimento e dei Costumi delle Donne by Francesco da Barberino, now featured as a fund-raiser (see below)
26. Cappon.71, Diario: Pietro Aldobrandini
27. Cappon.74
28. Cappon.82
29. Cappon.88, Geomantia di Pietro d'Abano
30. Cappon.121
31. Cappon.122
32. Cappon.124
33. Cappon.135
34. Cappon.136
35. Cappon.137
36. Cappon.141
37. Ott.gr.470
38. Ott.lat.2453.pt.1, includes 16th-century book title pages
39. Ott.lat.2453.pt.2
40. Ott.lat.2867
41. Ott.lat.2977
42. Pal.gr.232
43. Reg.lat.689.pt.1
44. Reg.lat.1024, the Liber Judiciorum, an early-8th-century code of Visigothic law (probably) copied in Urgell, Spain (above)
45. Urb.lat.585, Diurnale Benedictinum: Psalter Romanum, Beuron number 344
46. Urb.lat.899, the wedding events of Costanzo Sforza and Camilla d'Aragona Sforza, 1475: relive a Renaissance wedding! The image below may be of Camilla herself. More details from its Rome Reborn file
47. Urb.lat.1146, De re coquinaria ("On the Subject of Cooking"), a 4th-century cookbook (above)
48. Vat.ebr.274
49. Vat.estr.or.147.pt.13
50. Vat.estr.or.147.pt.15
51. Vat.estr.or.147.pt.17
52. Vat.estr.or.147.pt.19
53. Vat.estr.or.147.pt.20
54. Vat.lat.49, Renaissance bible
55. Vat.lat.55
56. Vat.lat.76
57. Vat.lat.90
58. Vat.lat.93

Digita Vaticana is using Cappon.28.pt.1 and Cappon.50 above for a fundraiser project, so consider donating a few dollars for this worthy cause:

Mss copy (1661) of "Del Reggimento e dei Costumi delle Donne" by Francesco da Barberino. http://t.co/JG38UjExgp pic.twitter.com/DRaodd1Y8S

— Digita Vaticana (@DigitaVaticana) July 8, 2015

If you can add more information about any of these, please use the comments box below. [This is Piggin's Unofficial List 14.]

Arabic Treasures

While the bulk of the manuscripts at the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana (BAV) are in Latin, there are also extensive collections in Arabic and other West Asian languages.

Since I do not read Arabic -- apart from having a rusty ability, obtained in journalism work 30 years ago, to transliterate from the script -- I will rely here on notes provided at Rome Reborn, an exhibition of Vatican manuscripts in 1992 at the US Library of Congress in Washington.

One of the great treasures highlighted at that show was the Memoir on Astronomy or Tadhkira fi'ilm al'haya written by Nasir ad-Din at-Tusi, who was among the first of several Arabic-language astronomers who modified Ptolemy's models based on mechanical principles in order to preserve the uniform rotation of spheres.

The Vatican has a 14th-century Arabic manuscript of it, Vat. ar. 319. The Rome Reborn exhibition notes (online at the St. Louis University Library) say that the figure above is his ingenious device for generating rectilinear motion along the diameter of the outer circle from two circular motions. In simple terms: the black dot goes up and down only.

This page, now digitized, to be zoomed in and enjoyed, is 28v. There is some biographical data on the astronomer at Musicologie.org.in French, and an extensive discussion of Tusi's discoveries in Frederick Starr's Lost Enlightenment, published 2013 and partly readable on Google Books.

Should you be wondering why the opening shown at Rome Reborn, fols. 29 recto and 28 verso, seems to be in backwards order, blame a long-ago Vatican librarian. Most of the BAV manuscripts seem to be numbered next-page-to-the-right regardless of language, though most oriental manuscripts are read right to left and turned next page to the left.

Vat. ar. 319 has been online for some time, and is not one of the newest batch, but it makes a suitable introduction to the May 26 uploads at Digita Vaticana comprising 14 manuscripts, all non-Latin. With their publication on the portal, the front-page total rises to 2,022. (Since reduced to 2,019, seemingly by withdrawing Ott.gr.326 and by consolidating duplicates.)

1. Barb.or.104, poem Timurmaneh by Persian poet Hatifi (died 1522)
2. Borg.ebr.11
3. Vat.ar.1411
4. Vat.ar.1551
5. Vat.ar.1614
6. Vat.pers.12
7. Vat.pers.76
8. Vat.pers.155
9. Vat.turc.214
10. Vat.turc.316
11. Vat.turc.420
12. Vat.turc.430, contains a story of the "Muslim" Jesus (also known as Prophet Isa) according to a Turkish tradition. For a translation to English (large PDF!), see a 2011 article by Delio V. Proverbio.
13. Vat.turc.432
14. Vat.turc.433

If you can further identify any of these, please add a comment below. [This is Piggin's Unofficial List 13.]

Memories of Old St Peter's

The 4th-century Old Saint Peter's Basilica in Rome and nearby buildings were gradually demolished in the 16th century to make way for the grand St. Peter's which opened in 1626 and which we know today. What had been there previously was far less grand: here is St. Peter's Square and the entrance to the old forecourt:

The Vatican archivist, Giacomo Grimaldi, was charged with recording what had been destroyed. Among the losses was a huge wall mosaic by the Renaissance artist Giotto, the Navicella (literally "little ship"), which showed Christ walking on water. Grimaldi sketched it at it was then, rather different from the restoration that now exists:

Much of his documentation, together with drawings, is to be found in a codex at the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Barb. lat. 2733, which dates from 1620. You can now leaf through it online. The St Peter's exterior is shown at folio 152v (although I screen-shotted above an enhanced composite from the Met guide to the Vatican) and the Navicella is at folio 147r.

This compendium is among the most interesting items to be digitized and uploaded on May 21. Here is the full list:

1. Barb.lat.2154.pt.B, the important manuscript R1 of the celebrated Chronograph of 354, an illustrated late antique calendar or almanac (image below). This is one of the greatest treasures in book history: a copy of a lost copy of the lost book that is the earliest western title known to have had full-page illustrations. See Roger Pearse's online edition of the Chronograph, where the pages of R1 are transcribed. Jeremy Norman has written a brief  note on its place in book history. For more detail, read Richard W. Burgess's survey of the manuscripts, where he writes: R1 [was] made in 1620 for de Peiresc and sent to Rome to Girolamo Aleandro.
2. Barb.lat.2733.pt.1, description with sketches of Old St Peter's in Rome, completed by Grimaldi in 1620
3. Barb.lat.4434, Città e castella (1626): hand-coloured engravings of Italian walled towns
4. Barb.or.157.pt.B
5. Borgh.60
6. Borgh.61
7. Borgh.182, Ricceri, Muzio, Carmen de sacello Exquilino
8. Borgh.191, Opera quaedam de pauperitate et ordine Franciscano
9. Borgh.303, Henricus Gandavensis (1217-1293), Godefridi de Fontibus et anonymi: Scripta de re philosophica et theologica
10. Borgh.342
11. Chig.M.IV.l
12. Ott.lat.3116.pt.bis, single engraving, scene with money-counter
13. Reg.lat.189, papal register
14. Urb.lat.1057, bound book of papal records
15. Vat.ar.1507
16. Vat.lat.1612, Renaissance text of the first-century Latin elegiac poet Propertius
17. Vat.lat.10295  
18. Vat.lat.14208, portolan chart on the verge of legibility (when will they learn to scan these at higher resolution?)
19. Vat.turc.169
20. Vat.turc.275
21. Vat.turc.395
22. Vat.turc.434

Above is October from the Chronograph of 354 (Barb.lat.2154 above).

Also released earlier in the week:

• Ott.gr.469.pt.B, a 1492 letter from Sultan Bayezid II to King Viadislaus of Bohemia and Hungary, according to Erwin Koschmieder

As always, if you know more about any of these items, please add a note in the comment box below. [This is Piggin's Unofficial List 12.]

Souvenirs of the Sinai

One of the manuscripts digitized this week by Digita Vaticana is Ott. gr. 424, Rome's bit of a Greek-language codex that is now dispersed in three places. The curious story of how it came to be thus dismembered was related a few months ago in an article by Pasquale Orsini. (Follow the link to read it on Academia.edu. The text is in Italian.)

The Vatican codex was part of the second volume of a collection of homilies by the patristic author Gregory of Nazianzen. It seems to have been copied in the ninth century, possibly in Constantinople, and it later entered the library at the monastery of St. Catherine on Mount Sinai in Egypt.

A large chunk of it was taken from there between 1718 and 1721 by a Maronite priest, Andrea Scandar. In Rome, Scandar deposited five books he had taken from St Catherine's including this item.

One very much doubts this was a legitimate removal (there's now a project to trace purloined Sinai manuscripts). A couple more folios were souvenired from Sinai in 1844 by the German Lutheran scholar Konstantin von Tischendorf, who is best known for spiriting away much of the Codex Sinaiticus Greek Bible from the same library. Tischendorf's folios of Gregory's Homilies are now in Leipzig, Germany. "His" folios are bound in Cod. gr. 69 there, but have not yet been digitized.

In an interesting piece of scholarly detective work, on which I rely for the account above, Orsini has now identified more folios that are still at St Catherine's. We might see them digitized some day too.

The full list of five digitizations on May 11 and 13, which brings the front-page total to 1,985:

1. Barb.lat.387: Orationes septem sancti Gregorii papae with fine 15th-century illuminations. The picture above shows John the Evangelist on Patros. The eagle (John's symbol) is holding his ink supply. It's your guess as to why this Italianate John needs to tickle one nostril with a feather. Perhaps the artist just meant that hand to be held to John's ear, waiting for the word of God to arrive, ready to stab quill-pen to papyrus to take dictation, but the composition is unfortunate.
2. Barb.lat.4295: shows coats of arms, from the library of Federico da Montefeltro
3. Borg.ill.1: this seems to be a bilingual Croatian-Latin text with glossary containing a church history and scriptures in Croatian (in a form of Cyrillic script) by the 17th-century Croatian archbishop Andrea Zmaievich
4. Ott.gr.424: Gregory of Nazianzen, as described above
5. Ott.lat.66: the Codex Ottobonianus, copied in North Italy in the 7th or 8th century: it contains the Heptateuch in the Vulgate version interspersed with portions in the older Vetus Latina text. See the next post.

If you have corrections or additions, please use the comments box below. Follow me on Twitter (@JBPiggin) for news of more additions to Digita Vaticana. [This is Piggin's Unofficial List 11.]

Bath Time at Pozzuoli

Among the 21 manuscripts uploaded May 4 to the Digita Vaticana library portal is a codex, Ross. 379, with images of group visits to the various thermal baths at Pozzuoli in southern Italy.

These illustrate a didactic poem, De Balneis Puteolanis by Peter of Eboli. This was a widely read guidebook in Latin verse to medicinal bathing written in about 1220. The information about the alleged health benefits of the various waters in the volcanic zone is probably Late Antique and the poem continues to be of interest to historians of medicine.

The pictures supposedly describe the experience of visiting a spa in the High Middle Ages (replete with ribald scenes of men who have somehow managed to gatecrash ladies' pools). I have no prior knowledge of this, but presume De Balneis was often purchased by the wealthy on account of its explicit images of nude people rather than for its scientific knowledge.

A rapid web search informs me that Ross. 379 is one of ten or more extant illuminated manuscripts of this poem. Gallica has a Parisian manuscript, BNF Lat. 8161, of the same, while e-Codices has the Bodmer's. Raymond J. Clark's 1989 article in Traditio on the poem is unfortunately behind a firewall. Of interest to mystery fans: there has been a claim that bathing images in the Voynich Manuscript, a strange fantasy book which no one has ever managed to decode, resemble those in De Balneis.

Here is the full list of releases:

1. Borg.pers.12
2. Borg.turc.34
3. Ross.379, De Balneis Puteolanis, on medieval thermal baths
4. Urb.lat.1, a magnificently illuminated Renaissance Old Testament of the Bible
5. Urb.lat.2, another outstanding 15th-century Bible
6. Vat.ar.351
7. Vat.lat.841, De Regimine Principum, a guide book for princes, by Giles of Rome (Aegidius Romanus)
8. Vat.lat.869, philosophical miscellany, with various works by Duns Scotus (c. 1265-1308), plus a few folios of Peter Abelard
9. Vat.pers.27
10. Vat.pers.32
11. Vat.pers.85
12. Vat.slav.4
13. Vat.slav.5
14. Vat.slav.9
15. Vat.slav.10
16. Vat.slav.13
17. Vat.slav.49
18. Vat.slav.63
19. Vat.turc.4
20. Vat.turc.428
21. Vat.turc.431

From Urb.lat.2, a fine Florentine painting of Solomon pretending to have a baby chopped in half as a way to determine a dispute between two mothers:

The BAV site now has 1,980 manuscripts online. There are often no descriptions at all. As always, if you can contribute information about any of these manuscripts, use the comments pane below. [This is Piggin's Unofficial List 10.]

Pliny's Natural History

Among the new arrivals online at the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana on April 29 is a fine Renaissance copy of Pliny's Natural History, Borgh. 369. This fifteenth-century copy is not one of the ancient manuscripts used to establish the critical editions of Pliny (see a list by Roger Pearse), but it is evidence of the humanist enthusiasm to rediscover the great classical Latin authors.

Here is how the artist fancied Pliny in expository mode:

Also new is Vatican Vat. lat. 3375, a late sixth-century Neapolitan codex excerpting the works of Augustine of Hippo. It is acopy in half-uncial of an anthology that had been composed just a generation earlier by Eugippius of Naples and is an important link to Christian culture at the end of late antiquity.

We also have what looks like a couple of chaps with paunches, receding hippie hairlines, and glass steins in the hand. But I am guessing they are actually sirens. They appear in Barb.lat.409, which is a liturgical office for the feast day of King Louis of France (1214-1270), after he had been made a saint.

A further portolan chart, Borg. Carte. naut. V, is in this batch, but sadly the resolution is so low that it is impossible to read the text. Reader Jens Finke points out that a just-about-readable black-and-white image of this appeared in Heinrich Winter, "The Fra Mauro Portolan chart in the Vatican" (Imago Mundi, 16 (1962), pp. 17-28, http://www.jstor.org/stable/1150299.)

Here is the full list:

1. Arch.Cap.S.Pietro.A.32
2. Arch.Cap.S.Pietro.C.98
3. Arch.Cap.S.Pietro.D.157
4. Arch.Cap.S.Pietro.D.169
5. Arch.Cap.S.Pietro.D.193
6. Arch.Cap.S.Pietro.E.33
7. Arch.Cap.S.Pietro.F.27
8. Arch.Cap.S.Pietro.G.3
9. Arch.Cap.S.Pietro.G.54
10. Arch.Cap.S.Pietro.H.52
11. Arch.Cap.S.Pietro.K.1
12. Arch.Cap.S.Pietro.K.2
13. Barb.lat.409, liturgical office for feast of Louis IX of France, image above
14. Barb.lat.679, a compilation of canon law, with a folio about the Council of Carthage of 390 CE  (summary)
15. Borg.Carte.naut.V, illegibly digitized portolan chart, see above
16. Borgh.22
17. Borgh.43
18. Borgh.53
19. Borgh.91
20. Borgh.93
21. Borgh.99
22. Borgh.104, 14th century codex of Petrus de Ilperinis, Tractatus de praedestinatione
23. Borgh.113
24. Borgh.127
25. Borgh.143.pt.1
26. Borgh.145
27. Borgh.155
28. Borgh.168
29. Borgh.176
30. Borgh.180
31. Borgh.201
32. Borgh.207
33. Borgh.215
34. Borgh.238
35. Borgh.251
36. Borgh.257
37. Borgh.281
38. Borgh.301
39. Borgh.305
40. Borgh.310
41. Borgh.313
42. Borgh.334
43. Borgh.369, Pliny's Natural History
44. Borgh.384
45. Borgh.387, anonymous compilation of rules and figures of geometry (ff. 1-27)
46. Cappon.1
47. Cappon.2
48. Cappon.3
49. Cappon.8
50. Cappon.10
51. Cappon.11
52. Cappon.16
53. Cappon.19
54. Cappon.20
55. Cappon.21
56. Cappon.22
57. Cappon.23
58. Cappon.25
59. Cappon.36
60. Cappon.37
61. Cappon.38
62. Cappon.40
63. Cappon.49
64. Ott.lat.356
65. Reg.lat.1484
66. Vat.ebr.119
67. Vat.ebr.130
68. Vat.ebr.143
69. Vat.estr.or.4, Latin-Chinese dictionary
70. Vat.estr.or.8,
71. Vat.estr.or.40, panorama painting of qinqming festival
72. Vat.estr.or.64.pt.2,waterfall drawing
73. Vat.estr.or.83,
74. Vat.estr.or.85, Sinhalese
75. Vat.estr.or.86,
76. Vat.estr.or.97,
77. Vat.estr.or.99,
78. Vat.estr.or.101,
79. Vat.estr.or.114,
80. Vat.estr.or.117,"Cahier siamois", only the container!
81. Vat.estr.or.118, ditto
82. Vat.estr.or.147.pt.1.2,
83. Vat.estr.or.147.pt.6,
84. Vat.estr.or.156, folder of ink sketches, whereby Twitter user @MareNostrum2 points out that Digita Vaticana has (inadvertently) digitized a page from a 1909 Japanese newspaper with it: was this used as wrapping material to send the item to Rome?
85. Vat.estr.or.159, 19th century (?) Japanese drawings
86. Vat.gr.180
87. Vat.lat.3375, excerpts from Augustine (see above)
88. Vat.turc.50

Here is a detail, sadly darkened, from the qingming festival scroll above. It might reveal more with some photoshopping:

That makes 88 in all. Please add any contributions by way of the comments pane below. [This is Piggin's Unofficial List 9.]

Military technology at the Vatican

The seven manuscripts digitized and released April 1 by Digita Vaticana include an important 11th-century codex explaining and illustrating contemporary Byzantine military technology, Vat. gr. 1164 (link below). Here is an armoured vehicle that let attackers approach a wall, presumably to work to undermine it, defying boiling oil and stones from above.

Twitter follower Mare Nostrum offers an image from it showing the framework used to swing a battering ram to break a heavy stone wall. It would have been slow, thump-thump work, as he comments:

むかしの兵器はどんな動きをしたのだろうなぁと思いつつ。おやすみなさいませ。11世紀 BAV Vat.gr.1164 f.97v-98r pic.twitter.com/bQrNb8auAT
— mare nostrum (@marenostrum2) April 1, 2015

• Vat.gr.747, one of the six known illustrated Byzantine Octateuchs, full of strange and extraordinary pictures. It also contains the Letter of Aristeas, the earliest text to mention the Library of Alexandria. Here is a scene in which a mortar and pestle are used as a painter is at work, folio 114r
  
• Vat.gr.752.pt.2, magificent golden illuminations.
• Vat.gr.1156, Lectionary 120, designated by siglum ℓ 120 in the Gregory-Aland numbering (Wikipedia).
• Vat.gr.1164 (above), Byzantine military tactics and technology, see Pinakes.
• Vat.gr.1513, Gennadius Scholarius, Pinakes, quite short
• Vat.gr.2195, Leontius of Byzantium.
• Vat.lat.39, 13th-century New Testament from Verona, apparently with the newly modern chapter divisions devised by the English scholar Stephen Langton

If you know more about these volumes, let us know through the comments box below. [This is Piggin's Unofficial List 8.]

Ladder to Heaven at the BAV

Among the more remarkable items to be admire in the 13 codices placed online March 23 by Digita Vaticana is Ross.251 containing the Ladder of Divine Ascent by the 7th-century Greek-speaking monk John Climacus.

I am told this is Lenten reading among Greek-speaking Christians. There are some vivid illuminations in this Greek manuscript giving you a good idea of how medieval readers imagined the long steady climb through 30 steps of the ladder, assisted by angels if you were doing it right:

This crop of releases takes the tally of Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana (BAV) digitizations so far to 1,865. After this Lenten issue, I wonder if they are planning any Easter presents for us?

1. Arch.Cap.S.Pietro.H.56, possibly from the collection of Cardinal Jacopo Stefaneschi (c.1270–1343).
2. Ott.lat.3119, engravings of Roman personalities of the 18th century.
3. Reg.lat.321: a fine old 10th-century manuscript of the poems of the Latin author Prudentius (348-405).
4. Ross.251, with the ladder to heaven (above). Pinakes tells you which folios to consult for the Scala Paradisi of Iohannes Climacus.
5. Ross.555, a beautiful Hebrew codex with four fine Italian miniatures. From Evelyn Cohen I read that this is Jacob ben Asher's legal treatise, the Arba'ah Turim, and that the images depict a synagogue scene, animals being slaughtered according to Jewish ritual, a wedding and a courtroom scene. Here is the synagogue, where men and women seem to be mixed:
   
6. Urb.gr.2, the Urbino Gospels in Greek with gold-leaf illuminations. Here is a most unusual Nativity composition and washing of the newborn, both at folio 20v:
   
   
7. Urb.gr.162
8. Urb.lat.346, Commentary on the Aeneid, 15th-century copy, attributed to Tiberius Claudius Donatus, but believed in fact to be the work of Suetonius.
9. Urb.lat.508, poetry from Duke Federico's collection. This item figured in the Rome Reborn exhibition at the US Library of Congress and St Louis University, where the catalogue identified it as the Camaldulensian Disputations by Cristoforo Landino and Anthony Grafton noted of the image below: "This portrait on the inside cover shows Federigo, duke of Urbino, standing behind a parapet holding a book, gazing intently at his companion, who is probably to be identified with Cristoforo Landino."
   
   Federico always appeared thus: check another image at his old home.
10. Vat.gr.344
11. Vat.gr.699, the Christian Topography of Cosmas Indicopleustes, one of the believers in a flat earth in the face of majority educated opinion in even his own day. This is a 9th-century illuminated copy with copious imagery.
12. Vat.gr.746.pt.1
13. Vat.lat.14933, Carlo Labruzzi vedute, possibly a volume inadvertently missed last week.

 If you have corrections or additions, please use the comments box below. Follow me on Twitter (@JBPiggin) for news of more additions to Digita Vaticana. [This is Piggin's Unofficial List 7.]