Wonders in China

Some time between 1620 and 1640, a Chinese book publisher issued an extraordinary illustrated compendium about the exotic creatures and travel opportunities of the far western world. The project was overseen by Giulio Aleni, the Italian leader of the Jesuit community in China. The wood-block printing was entitled K`un-yü t`u-shuo (An Illustrated Explanation of Geography).

Its especial charm resides in the unknown artist's conceptions of sea monsters and the Wonders of the Ancient World. To the fanciful western pictures of the wonders which he would have used as his model, he added his own perspective. Neither he nor we know what most of these monuments really looked like, so it is interesting to see how an Asian sensibility envisaged these fabled places.

Digita Vaticana has just digitized the book, which it stocks as Borg. cin. 350, fasc. 30. I have no idea how rare this printing was. The wood-block engraving is not of a very high quality, suggesting the book was priced for the mass market in China. Here are the seven wonders, to which an eighth was of course added in the time-honoured fashion at the discretion of the compiler.

The Hanging Gardens of Babylon are depicted as great blocks of inclined stone leaning alarmingly off a pine-clad mountainside over an architectural garden with a bridge as a walkway. Full page.

The Colossus of Rhodes, with a contemporary European merchant ship sailing between its knees, guards the entrance to its Mediterranean harbour and is shown with boylike, notably Asian facial features. Full page.

The Great Pyramid of Giza, which was the only one of the wonders to still exist in 1620, is greatly heightened and shown amid mountains. Full page.

The Mausoleum at Halicarnassus is visualized as a ziggurat. Full page.

The Temple of Artemis at Ephesus is depicted as a long hall in a style that is more Renaissance than classical. Full page.

The Statue of Zeus at Olympia is a round-shouldered senior clutching some rather limp looking thunderbolts. The artist may have puzzled over what on earth these were meant to be. With his left hand, Zeus pats his eagle. Full page.

The Lighthouse of Alexandria has a very smoky fire going on top. Full page.

The eighth wonder is the Roman Colosseum, for which the artist clearly had a fairly accurate model to draw from. Full page.

There are more details about this book in the catalog to the Rome Reborn exhibition held 20 years ago in the United States.

This is one of 19 items brought online on September 21, bringing the published Digita Vaticana tally to 2,744. Here is the full list:

1. Barb.gr.350, 12th/13th century. Aristotle? Pinakes
2. Barb.lat.610, missal of the Baptistery in Florence, an ornately decorated Renaissance prayerbook, illuminated by Monte in 1507. Here's a detail showing a Florentine garden:
   
   
3. Barb.lat.671, in 8th-century uncial, a wide variety of patristic writings, comprehensively listed by Hill
4. Barb.lat.3695, Anonymous, L'alta divina maiestate eterna
5. Barb.lat.3974, Dante
6. Barb.lat.4096, with a commentary on Dante's Divine Comedy
7. Barb.lat.4112, illuminated Divine Comedy, detail below from 141r
   
   
8. Borg.cin.350, multiple Chinese printed books, some by Aleni, bound into a single codex
9. Borg.copt.109.cass.XIII.fasc.42, Gospel of Matthew, ch. 16-20
10. Borg.copt.109.cass.XIII.fasc.43, Gospels of Matthew 18-19, 25-26 and Mark 2-9
11. Cappon.269
12. Cappon.281.pt.1,
13. Cappon.283.pt.2,
14. Urb.lat.26, Thomas Aquinas, catena aurea, Gospels of Mark and John, 15th century, ornate initials
15. Urb.lat.35, John Chrysostom, Catalog
16. Urb.lat.47, Athanasius and John Climacus, Catalog
17. Urb.lat.50, Jerome on Jeremias, Catalog
18. Urb.lat.53, Jerome on Isaiah, Catalog
19. Urb.lat.65, Leo the Great, sermons and letters, Catalog

There is also a remarkable Chinese line drawing of Matteo Ricci here in another book (fasc. 3) bound into Borg.cin.350, Ta-hsi Hsi-t'ai Li hsien-sheng hsing-chi. This is a 1616 biography of Ricci (1552 – 1610), the greatest of all the Jesuit scholars studying Chinese culture, by Aleni, a successor. The Rome Reborn exhibition catalog describes the drawing as follows:

This rare and beautifully executed portrait of Matteo Ricci reveals how European and Chinese pictorial methods contrast. Chinese portraits developed out of centuries of brushed calligraphy and the subdued treatment of human figures, on one hand, and Buddhist and Taoist depictions of humans and divinities on the other.

I wonder do wonder if the line drawing it is not drawn directly from the 1610 painting of Ricci by Yu Wen-hui (later Emmanuel Pereira) that has been in Rome since 1616.

Follow me on Twitter (@JBPiggin) for more news. Write comments in the box below if you can add details, or correct my notes. Thanks to @TuomasLevanen for filling in Coptic collection details! [This is Piggin's Unofficial List 25.]

Luke in Arabic

Among the old treasures just digitized is a 96-folio Gospel of Luke in Arabic translation. This little codex in a more-or-less square format can be precisely dated to the year 993. Here is a detail of Luke 20 from folio 79r:

At the Rome Reborn exhibition 20 years ago, the display note said, "This 10th-century Egyptian codex was donated to Pope Eugene IV by the Egyptian delegates at the Council of Florence. Translated from a Coptic original, it is one of the earliest Arabic versions of any part of the New Testament, none of which can be dated before the late eighth or ninth centuries."

Here is the full list of 54 items brought online on September 17, 2015. The stated total on the index page is now 2,725.

1. Urb.lat.5, Giannozzo Manetti, Latin of Psalms
2. Urb.lat.6, Giannozzo Manetti, Latin translation of NT
3. Urb.lat.20, Acts, Catholic Epistles, Revelations, with commentary
4. Urb.lat.22,
5. Urb.lat.33, John Chrystostom, homilies
6. Urb.lat.42, Ambrose of Milan, homilies
7. Urb.lat.43, Eusebius of Caesarea, Praeparatio Evangelica
8. Urb.lat.44, Rufinus
9. Urb.lat.46, Athanasius and Isidorus Mercator
10. Urb.lat.48, Athanasius, plus anti-pope Anastasius
11. Urb.lat.51, Damasus, Augustine of Hippo, Ambrose, letters
12. Urb.lat.61, Basil the Great and Ennodius, various writings
13. Urb.lat.67, Augustine of Hippo, De Doctrina Christiana, 12th-century manuscript
14. Vat.ar.18, Gospel of Luke, featured in exhibition Rome Reborn
15. Vat.ar.1784,
16. Vat.ar.1785,
17. Vat.ebr.127, Babylonian Talmud, Ashkenazic script
18. Vat.ebr.141,Sefer Mordecai, including riddle by Judah ha-Levi, 14th century Italian
19. Vat.ebr.142.pt.1, Halakhot Gedolot attributed to Simeon Kayyara
20. Vat.ebr.156, Babylonian Talmud
21. Vat.ebr.487, Fragments from 12 Hebrew manuscripts
22. Vat.estr.or.31, Hô-laò-pê: portrait of Giovanni Mezzafalle, head of Catholic mission in China, seated with red hat
23. Vat.et.28,
24. Vat.gr.308.pt.1,
25. Vat.gr.308.pt.2,
26. Vat.lat.115, Minor prophets, with commentary
27. Vat.lat.134, Gospel of John, with commentary
28. Vat.lat.136, ditto
29. Vat.lat.137, Acts of the Apostles, with commentary
30. Vat.lat.148, Pauline epistles, annotated
31. Vat.lat.149, Pauline epistles, annotated
32. Vat.lat.151, Peter Lombard on the Pauline epistles, with this interesting illumination of an ambidextrous Peter, seemingly working with two pens on the opening page:
    
33. Vat.lat.160, Nicholas of Lyra on the Old Testament
34. Vat.lat.164, ditto
35. Vat.lat.165, Nicholas of Lyra on the Prophets
36. Vat.lat.173, Dionysius Areopagita
37. Vat.lat.182, Lilius Tifernas on Philo
38. Vat.lat.183, ditto
39. Vat.lat.185, ditto
40. Vat.lat.186, Basil the Great, homilies, plus Polycarp and John Chyrsostom
41. Vat.lat.201, Cyprian of Carthage, 15th-century manuscript
42. Vat.lat.202, Cyprian of Carthage
43. Vat.lat.203, Cyprian of Carthage and Augustine of Hippo, minor works, 12th century
44. Vat.lat.204, Origen, in Rufinus Latin translation, 11th and 15th century
45. Vat.lat.206, Origen, in Rufinus Latin translation
46. Vat.lat.212, Origen, in Rufinus and Jerome Latin translations
47. Vat.lat.215, Lactantius
48. Vat.lat.216, Lactantius
49. Vat.lat.221, Lactantius
50. Vat.lat.222, Lactantius
51. Vat.lat.223, Lactantius
52. Vat.lat.228, Eusebius of Caesarea, Praeparatio evangelica
53. Vat.lat.245, Jerome's Latin version of the Chronological Canons of Eusebius of Caesarea: this is not one of the principal sources, for which one can consult Roger Pearse's list
54. Vat.lat.286, Ambrose of Milan, letters; this copy made in the 9th century at Vercelli, according to Zelzer, page 10

Here's a fine hunt detail from Vat.lat.151, to be found just over the portrait above of Peter Lombard:

Here's the foundation of Rome noted for Olympiad 6, as set out in the canons in Vat.lat. 245 (60r):

Follow me on Twitter for more news (@JBPiggin). If you can add details about any of these, please use the comments box below. [This is Piggin's Unofficial List 24.]

Glory of Asia

Digitizations have clearly slowed in the Roman summer, but Digita Vaticana is still making occasional releases.  The Vatican Euripides showed up September 1, and 37 more manuscripts came online September 15.

The Euripides, Vat.gr.909,  is from just after 1250 and not the the oldest by any means, but is one of the sources of nine plays by the great Greek dramatist with scholia. There is a page-by-page listing of the contents at Pinakes. For a sound text of the plays along with English translations, consult Perseus. The scholia (that is to say the glosses and stage directions and other notes) are recorded by Donald Mastronarde on his remarkable electronic scholia site.

Here is the first line of Andromache, "Glory of Asia, city of Thebe!"

As for the rest, there are several maps. The portolan charts are scanned at too low a resolution to be of any use for scholarship, since the place-names remain illegible. The map of the lagoons at Comacchio, Barb.lat.4242.pt.A, is of some interest, and I always like those figurative maps of the Mediterranean which show the River Jordan in green and the Red Sea in red. I picked out one from Cappon.56 a few weeks ago where it illustrates a poem by the humanist Lorenzo Bonincontri (1486-1488). This new example is from Chig.M.VII.146

Here is the full list. The digitizations bring the total posted so far to 2,671.

1. Arch.Cap.S.Pietro.D.189,
2. Arch.Cap.S.Pietro.D.190, letters of Pope Alexander to Bernard of Clairvaux
3. Barb.gr.596, single sheet
4. Barb.lat.1766, charter
5. Barb.lat.4242.pt.A, fine map of the wetlands at Comacchio on the Adriatic coast, drawn by Domenico Castelli (the 17th century architect?)
6. Barb.or.144, multiple printed books in one binding, the first of which is 治曆緣起, Chinese Missionary Books brought by Philippe Couplet from China
7. Borg.Carte.naut.IV, portolan chart, scanned illegibly!
8. Borg.Carte.naut.VI, ditto
9. Borg.Carte.naut.VII, ditto, Campbell number 154, dated to 1497, Alexandria
10. Borgh.221, Aldobrandinus de Toscanella, Scala fidei sive tractatus de symbolo apostolico
11. Borgh.289, Opera aliqua de re iuridica et sermones
12. Borgh.290, Bottoni, Bernardo, Summa super titulis decretalium
13. Cappon.120,
14. Cappon.247,
15. Cappon.270,
16. Cappon.282.pt.1,
17. Cappon.282.pt.2,
18. Cappon.283.pt.1,
19. Cappon.285,
20. Cappon.286,
21. Cappon.289,
22. Cappon.290,
23. Cappon.308,
24. Chig.G.IV.114, book of crests
25. Chig.L.VI.196,
26. Chig.M.VII.146, mixed codex with astronomy, Italian maps of Mediterranean coast, Hippocratic medical writings
27. Ott.lat.234, Joannis Langiaci, Panegyricus
28. Ott.lat.585, Summa de sufficienna sacramentorum
29. Ott.lat.1676, Ovid, Epistula XV
30. Reg.lat.1621, thin Renaissance manuscript of Pseudo-Ovid. This was once thought to be an important source of the poem Consolatio ad Liviam until Oldecop discovered that it was a copy on parchment (perhaps as a luxury present) taken from a printed Venetian edition of 1492. See Reeve's article in Revue d'Histoire des Textes. Here is "Ovid":
    
31. Reg.lat.1756, contains works by Constantine the African including Liber chirurgiae, the Liber graduum, and De genitalibus membris which describes female reproductive organs. Also the De quattuor humoribus of Constantine's mentor, Alfanus, bishop of Salerno. See discussion by Monica Green
32. Vat.gr.909, Euripides
33. Vat.lat.2791, Ovid, Epistula XV
34. Vat.lat.5005, Albertus Magnus, c.1193-1280 De Mineralibus libri quinque - 15th century ms
35. Vat.lat.5644, music, Antifona solenne per i Vespri, a book from Coluccio Salutati's former library in Florence. Article by Bannister describes how its date can be established as 1160.
36. Vat.lat.9134, Roman monumental epigraphs transcribed and decoded
37. Vat.sir.495, Nicene creed, letter of Constantine the Great convening Council of Nicaea and other council documents in Syriac translation (Smelov)
38. Vat.slav.7, eight sheets only

Here is an ostrich running in Borg.Carte.naut.VII:

As always, if you can provide more details on these, use the comments box below. [This is Piggin's Unofficial List 23.]

Armenian Treasures

We owe much to Armenian monks for the preservation of the early Christian past. Many ancient works that are now lost in their original Greek, such as key books by the great Jewish philosopher Philo of Alexandria, survive only in Armenian translation.

That's why we should be so pleased that a new crop of digitizations and uploadings at Digita Vaticana includes Vat.arm.3, a finely illuminated 13th-century codex that is believed to have been the first Armenian manuscript to enter the Vatican book collections in the 15th century. This was exhibited in the Rome Reborn exhibition 20 years ago in Washington and St Louis and the catalog stated that it was thought to have been donated to the papacy by the Armenian delegates at the Council of Florence.

Its texts are mainly liturgical but there are also texts on chronology, geography, astronomy, mensuration, philosophy and history. I'm not aware if any of these are unique, but it's great to just browse this thick codex and admire the care with which it was made. From the illuminations, here is a fine red-beaked bird from folio 213r:

There's also a fine bird lady on folio 317r as part of what seems to be a matrix of consanguines or arbor consanguinatis: 

The digitizations are evidently advancing despite the summer heat in Rome. The latest 51 bring the tally of items on the index page to 2,633. Here is my list:

1. Borg.copt.109.cass.I.fasc.1,
2. Borgh.262, Decretales of Pope Gregory IX, glossed by Bernardus Parmensis (also known as Bernard of Parma, Bernard Botone, Bernard Bottoni), seems similar to Ms. 1 at Syracuse University
3. Borgh.366, Augustine of Hippo, City of God, 15th-century manuscript
4. Cappon.132, handwritten copy from about 1730 of an earlier treatise on perspective drawing by the mannerist painter Giulio Romano (see below). Consult the catalog at Archive.org for more information about this and other Capponi items below.
5. Cappon.179,
6. Cappon.182,
7. Cappon.198,
8. Cappon.203,
9. Cappon.223,
10. Cappon.226,
11. Cappon.227,
12. Cappon.230,
13. Cappon.236,
14. Cappon.256,
15. Cappon.257,
16. Cappon.262,
17. Cappon.263,
18. Cappon.265,
19. Cappon.266,
20. Cappon.267,
21. Cappon.268,
22. Cappon.274,
23. Cappon.280.pt.1,
24. Cappon.280.pt.2,
25. Cappon.291.pt.1,
26. Cappon.294,
27. Cappon.299,
28. Cappon.304,
29. Cappon.305,
30. Cappon.310,
31. Cappon.311,
32. Cappon.314,
33. Cappon.315,
34. Cappon.316,
35. Cappon.317,
36. Reg.lat.1360, a manuscript of the 12th-century Chanson d'Aspremont, a French narrative poem of heroic deeds (Wikipedia)
37. Sbath.723, one of the Arabic manuscripts collected by Paul Sbath of Aleppo, Syria
38. Urb.lat.4, concordance of the Bible, 15th century
39. Urb.lat.8, Joachim of Fiore, Thomas Aquinas, Lawrence of Pratis, 15th-century ms
40. Vat.arm.3, Eusebius' Epistle to Carpianus, and other texts, featured in Rome Reborn (see above)
41. Vat.ebr.116, Talmud Bavli, Tract Bava Kamma
42. Vat.ebr.140, part of the Babylonian Talmud (thanks to @TuomasLevanen for these 2 notes)
43. Vat.lat.65, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Judges, glossed
44. Vat.lat.110, commentary on Ecclesiasticus, palimpsest layer apparently includes some 7th-century (?) material from Pliny the Elder
45. Vat.lat.143, Lanfranc of Canterbury, commentary on Pauline Epistles
46. Vat.lat.146, Peter Lombard on Pauline Epistles, 14th century
47. Vat.lat.172, Dionysius Areopagita
48. Vat.lat.1895, Diogenes Laertius
49. Vat.lat.2878, 15th-century, humanist copy of Cicero's Epistulae ad Atticum (discussed by Peter Lebrecht Schmidt). The front of this codex was abused for a bit of papal bookkeeping, being used to record a mule-leasing agreement: Astolfo, superintendent of mules of the palace, must deliver on 1 January 1570 to Bernardino Cirillo, preceptor of the Hospital of the Holy Spirit and the pope's majordomo, and take back into custody on the 31st of the same month, all those mules on the attached inventory in the stable of the palace (the actual inventory of the mules is not there, which would have been too much of an insult to Cicero and Atticus).
50. Vat.lat.6549, Henry of Bourbon (apparently Henry IV of France who issued the Edict of Nantes), paper manuscript
51. Vat.lat.14153, Italian literary autographs

As ever, tell me via the comments box below if you know more about any of these codices. [This is Piggin's Unofficial List 22.]

Here is a drawing of devils flying around evil idolatrous Rome from Borgh.366, folio 1r

Angles of view in treatise on perspective drawing, Cappon 132, folio 14v:

By the way, a knowledge of medieval Armenian is something that certain scholars brag about, much as a scratch golfer would brag of his zero handicap. A few weeks back, a reviewer for the Bryn Mawr Classical Review was publicly berating any of his inferiors having the temerity to write about Philo without learning Armenian first: The language barrier is not unsurmountable and does not justify studying this part of Philo from the translations of the (Armenian) translation only. That sounds a bit like those ads that claim that anyone can learn to play golf like Tiger Woods if they buy this or that set of clubs. Sigh. If only life were that easy.

Attic Nights

A literary Roman justice, Aulus Gellius, born in 125 or 128 CE, began, during his studies in Athens, to compile a commonplace book in 20 volumes that was to become known as the Attic Nights.

This album of quotes from famous books and from the views of Gellius's erudite friends was famed through late antiquity and the medieval period as a source of philology, literary wisdom, history and scientific knowledge. The blogger Roger Pearse once memorably described it as the world's first blog.

The work suffered a curious transmission, being broken into two parts. There is a section comprising books I to VII, which may once have had with it the lost book eight. The other section, from IX to XX, seems to have become detached from the first in late antiquity and has a separate manuscript history.

On August 3, Digita Vaticana brought online a principal witness to this second section, Reg.lat.597, a manuscript penned by the famous Carolingian scholar and scribe Lupus of Ferrières in about 850. It contains the Attic Nights from 9.14.2 to 20.6.12 and is written in a very clear fashion as you see in this extract from the chapter titles 10.10 and 10.11 on folio 80v:

X above says: "Quae eius rei causa sit, quod et Graeci veteres et Romani anulum [hoc] digito gestaverint qui est in manu sinistra minimo proximus," which reads in translation: The reason why the ancient Greeks and Romans wore a ring on the next to the little finger of the left hand. (Online at Perseus, where this is title 10.10.) Read it, as the explanation is quite intriguing, and then consider how many people still wear rings that way 2,500 years later.

The full list of 42 manuscripts just released, raising the total to 2,582, is as follows:

1. Barb.lat.5693, letters of Italian poet and scholar Pietro Bembo (1470-1547)
2. Barb.or.2, a remarkable psalter on paper with the psalms in five languages in parallel columns: Ge'ez, Syriac, Bohairic Coptic, Arabic, Armenian; would that be a "pentapla"?
3. Borg.copt.109.cass.I.fasc.2,
4. Borg.copt.109.cass.I.fasc.3,
5. Borg.copt.109.cass.I.fasc.4,
6. Borg.copt.109.cass.I.fasc.5,
7. Borg.copt.109.cass.IV.fasc.8,
8. Borg.copt.109.cass.IV.fasc.9,
9. Borg.copt.109.cass.IV.fasc.10,
10. Borg.lat.900, charter
11. Borgh.184, Francucci, Scipione‏: La Galleria de Cardinale Borghese, 17th-century poetry in a beautiful curly hand
12. Borgh.235, Guido Ebroicensis, Sermones de tempore et de sanctis sive Summa Guiotina, 16th century
13. Cappon.224, 18th-century drawings from (classical?) cameos and other items in the Capponi Museum including the Romulus and Remus below at 83r

14. Cappon.251, Cosimo Baroncelli on the origins of the House of Medici
15. Cappon.264, Tuscany history and letters from the 14th century in 18th century hand
16. Cappon.303, Clement XII
17. Chig.a.I.19, sketches for the building of St Peter's Basilica, also an elaborate coach (below)

18. Chig.I.I.17,
19. Ott.gr.472, a charter
20. Ott.lat.3131, collection of drawings of objects in the Vatican Museum
21. Patetta.2909.pt.bis, Venetian poetry
22. Reg.lat.74, a palimpsest: the underlayer is an 8th-century lectionary which is partly legible in the digitization
23. Reg.lat.257, the 8th-century Missale Francorum, a major source of liturgy of the early mass. Lowe CLA 1 103. Here is the word canon (link goes to folio):
    
    
24. Reg.lat.597, contains the second part of the Attic Nights of Aulus Gellius, apparently penned and annotated by Lupus Servatus, (c.805-c.862), Abbot of Ferrières (see Lindermann, Lecouffe, Pearse.)
25. Reg.lat.689.pt.2, contains a (7th-century) fragment of the Historiae of Gregory of Tours and other items in a scrapbook of old manuscript fragments (see Palmer).
26. Reg.lat.1040, Records of the Sixth Ecumenical Council: this manuscript was apparently in the possession of Archbishop Arn of Salzburg in 798 or 799
27. Reg.lat.1462, Fulgentius, from Fleury, start of the 9th century. This also contains the earliest poetry in a post-Latin language: the Alba of Fleury
28. Ross.1192, scrapbook of illuminations cut from a music manuscript, including the two gents peeping through a crack in the door below

29. Ross.1194, music, Exaudi nos Domine
30. Urb.lat.1767, Baldassare Castiglione, Book of the Courtier (Il Cortegiano) with a fine frontispiece (2v), detail explaining how to slip a note behind your chaperone

31. Vat.lat.45, a concordance to the scriptures (13th-14th centuries)
32. Vat.lat.54, study edition of Genesis and Exodus with beautifully interlocked blocks of notes and text
33. Vat.lat.56, ditto, glossa ordinaria et interlineari, 13th-14th century
34. Vat.lat.58, ditto, Exodus
35. Vat.lat.59, ditto
36. Vat.lat.62, ditto, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy
37. Vat.lat.64, Numbers, 12th century
38. Vat.lat.72, Rabanus Maurus, Commentary on Maccabees, preceded by annotated Paralipomenon (Chronicles)
    
39. Vat.lat.95, Peter Lombard, Commentary on Psalms
40. Vat.lat.140, study edition of Pauline Epistles with side notes and interlinear notes
41. Vat.lat.157, Nicholas of Lyra on the Old Testament, some illuminations
42. Vat.lat.197, Cyprian of Carthage, works, Renaissance initials

As always, please enter corrections or additions in the comment box below. [This is Piggin's Unofficial List 21.]

Leonardo's Shadows

Leonardo da Vinci's art theory was compiled by a pupil, Franceso Melzi, in about 1540 into a celebrated Treatise on Painting, which explained perspective and shadows and numerous other techniques of art. It was widely read in later centuries. Digita Vaticana has just released a digitization of one of the manuscripts, Barb.lat.4304. Here is its explanation of the shadows seen on bodies at a distance:

Full background on the work and a comparison of the manuscripts can be found on the Treatise on Painting website at the Institute for Advanced Technology in the Humanities, University of Virginia.

Digita Vaticana has been fairly busy as the Roman summer hots up, issuing a total of 204 items on July 14 and 23. Because of my own holiday in Sweden (more from that later), I am getting in arrears, so I beg pardon that the following list is not fully annotated. There are lots of art gems in this release. Here is a nativity scene from the beautiful Barberini Book of Hours:

Below is the full list of 204 items issued on July 14 and 23. The Digita Vaticana index and catalog server is now frequently out of service (more than 80 hours offline July 23-26), so in the following list, most of the links are to the digitizations themselves, where the servers tend to be more stable.

1. Arch.Cap.S.Pietro.D.213,
2. Arch.Cap.S.Pietro.E.5,
3. Arch.Cap.S.Pietro.E.19,
4. Arch.Cap.S.Pietro.F.22,
5. Arch.Cap.S.Pietro.F.45,
6. Arch.Cap.S.Pietro.H.45,
7. Barb.gr.10, Donatus Aelius, Ars Grammatica Minor: Pinakes
8. Barb.gr.93, Homer's Odyssey (excerpts)
9. Barb.gr.102, Manuel Moschopulus: Schedographia: Pinakes
10. Barb.gr.176, Phrantzēs, Geōrgios, 1401-1477, Chronicon minus
11. Barb.gr.184, Nicephorus Gregoras, 1295-1359/1360, Byzantina historia
12. Barb.gr.192, Miscellanea de historia Byzantina
13. Barb.gr.206, Poussines, Pierre, 1609-1686, Commentarii in Pachymerae Andronicum
14. Barb.gr.212, Hippiatricorum corpus
15. Barb.gr.269, Asclepius Trallianus (6th century):In Aristotelis Metaphysicorum libros
16. Barb.gr.276, Emperor Maurice, Strategikon, and part of the Cesti of Julius Africanus; this is a section of a manuscript of which the other part is in Paris, BNF, gr. 2442
17. Barb.lat.168, Livy's Roman history Ab Urbe Condita, from the famed Corvinius Library of Hungary, illuminated initials
18. Barb.lat.370, Nicholas Trivet (Trevet), English writer and chronicler (c.1257 – c.1334),
    In Psalterium
19. Barb.lat.443, incl. Francois de Meyronnes, Passus super universalia (Glorieux)
20. Barb.lat.487, Barberini Book of Hours (use of Rouen): the reconstitution of another Rouen book of hours was a hot topic on the blogosphere this week with Lisa Fagin Davis. Read this online and savour the saving of 968 euros.
21. Barb.lat.3942, Ariosto's Orlando Furioso
22. Barb.lat.3984, Book of Virtues and Vices, illumination (examples below) by the Italian painter Master of the Dominican Effigies
23. Barb.lat.4086,
24. Barb.lat.4304,
25. Barb.lat.4357, 1542 Venetian atlas of portolan maps which belonged to Henry VIII of England (articles by Francesco Solinas and Peter Soustal ... and they are legible!
26. Barb.lat.5379, Confession of Pope Alexander VIII, purchaser of Queen Christina's library
27. Barb.or.18,
28. Barb.or.46 ,
29. Barb.or.155, Hebrew alphabet, Arabic astronomy and astrology, in mixed manuscript
30. Borg.cin.536,
31. Borg.ebr.9, Isaac b. Jacob Alfasi's Code with glosses
32. Borg.ill.12,
33. Borgh.206,
34. Borgh.220,
35. Cappon.127,
36. Cappon.163,
37. Cappon.172,
38. Cappon.176,
39. Cappon.181,
40. Cappon.186,
41. Cappon.193,
42. Cappon.195,
43. Cappon.197,
44. Cappon.200,
45. Cappon.204,
46. Cappon.207,
47. Cappon.209,
48. Cappon.210,
49. Cappon.218,
50. Cappon.219,
51. Cappon.220,
52. Cappon.221,
53. Cappon.225,
54. Cappon.228,
55. Cappon.233.pt.1,
56. Cappon.233.pt.2,
57. Cappon.234,
58. Cappon.235,
59. Cappon.240,
60. Cappon.243,
61. Cappon.253,
62. Cappon.255,
63. Cappon.258,
64. Cappon.259.pt.1,
65. Cappon.259.pt.2,
66. Cappon.260,
67. Cappon.284,
68. Cappon.287,
69. Cappon.296,
70. Cappon.313,
71. Chig.A.VII.220,
72. Chig.C.VI.163.pt.A,
73. Chig.G.IV.113,
74. Neofiti.3, Levi b. Gershom's Commentary on the Pentateuch
75. Neofiti.12, Aba Mari ben Mosheh ben Yosef Astruḳ, Minḥat ḳenaʼot, about 1400
76. Ott.gr.25, works of Nilus of Sinai
77. Ott.gr.39, works of Theodoret
78. Ott.gr.48.pt.1, works of Philo
79. Ott.gr.48.pt.2, ditto
80. Ott.gr.48.pt.3, ditto
81. Ott.gr.59, poets, misc. works, item by Methodius
82. Ott.gr.64, legal synopsis
83. Ott.gr.67, theological, mainly Philocalia of Origen
84. Ott.gr.69, speeches of Libanius
85. Ott.gr.73, Euthymii Zigabeni Panoplia dogmatica
86. Ott.gr.74, Theodori Heracleensis Commentarius in Psalmos
87. Ott.gr.76, John Chrysostom
88. Ott.gr.88, Lectionary
89. Ott.gr.90, Dio Chrysostom, Pinakes
90. Ott.gr.91, various authors, includes De laudibus Constantini
91. Ott.gr.94, Clement of Alexandria
92. Ott.gr.99, John of Cyprus, works
93. Ott.gr.100, Explicatio quorundam Evangelii locorum ex diversis Patribus
94. Ott.gr.107, John Chrysostom, homilies
95. Ott.gr.109, philosophical: Pinakes
96. Ott.gr.110, Almageste
97. Ott.gr.111, Epitome Historiae Romanae Cassii Dionis
98. Ott.gr.112, Tatian, Oratio Ad Graecos
99. Ott.gr.121, In Aristotelis Metaphysica
100. Ott.gr.124, Procopius Gazaeus, Catena In Canticum Canticorum
101. Ott.gr.127, Oecumenius Catena in acta apostolorum; Justinian, Letters
102. Ott.gr.128, Athanasius Alexandrinus
103. Ott.gr.133, Catena In Lucam
104. Ott.gr.134, ditto
105. Ott.gr.142,
106. Ott.gr.146,
107. Ott.gr.153,
108. Ott.gr.154,
109. Ott.gr.157.pt.B,
110. Ott.gr.158,
111. Ott.gr.159.pt.1,
112. Ott.gr.159.pt.2,
113. Ott.gr.160,
114. Ott.gr.161,
115. Ott.gr.167,
116. Ott.gr.170,
117. Ott.gr.172,
118. Ott.gr.173,
119. Ott.gr.175,
120. Ott.gr.176,
121. Ott.gr.177,
122. Ott.gr.178,
123. Ott.gr.180,
124. Ott.gr.182,
125. Ott.gr.188,
126. Ott.gr.192.pt.2,
127. Ott.gr.195,
128. Ott.gr.205,
129. Ott.gr.206,
130. Ott.gr.210,
131. Ott.gr.211,
132. Ott.gr.214,
133. Ott.gr.221,
134. Ott.gr.225,
135. Ott.gr.228,
136. Ott.gr.231,
137. Ott.gr.239,
138. Ott.gr.243,
139. Ott.gr.250,
140. Ott.gr.251,
141. Ott.gr.262,
142. Ott.gr.266,
143. Ott.gr.267,
144. Ott.gr.269,
145. Ott.gr.273,
146. Ott.gr.284,
147. Ott.gr.286,
148. Ott.gr.288,
149. Ott.gr.289,
150. Ott.gr.292,
151. Ott.gr.295,
152. Ott.gr.299,
153. Ott.gr.300,
154. Ott.gr.308,
155. Ott.gr.315,
156. Ott.gr.325,
157. Ott.gr.361,
158. Ott.gr.471,
159. Ott.lat.479,
160. Reg.lat.87.pt.1,
161. Reg.lat.267, uncial, probably from Fleury, includes work by Fulgentius (fl. late 5th century), Lowe CLA 1 104
162. Reg.lat.615, Heriger's Vita Sancti Remacli, probably copied under Heriger's direction, with word spacing and punctuation discussed by Paul Saenger in his book on silent reading
163. Reg.lat.960, Philip of France ...
164. Reg.lat.1283.pt.C, Fragmenta Sallustiana
165. Reg.lat.1858, Roman de la Rose
166. Ross.358, Hebrew: Two works by Jedaiah b. Abraham Bedersi
167. Ross.438, Hebrew: Maḥzor for the entire year, Roman rite
168. Ross.499, Hebrew prayers through year including fast days, Yom Kippur, etc.
169. Ross.532, Hebrew, work by Abraham Conat
170. Ross.533, David Kimhi, commentary on former and latter prophets
171. Ross.534, Mosheh ben Yaʿaḳov, Sefer mitsṿot gadol, about 1400
172. Ross.1167, scrapbook of illuminations cut from (music) manuscripts
173. Urb.lat.666, a fine Renaissance manuscript of the works of the late antique poet Prudentius, dated 1481 according to the catalog
174. Vat.ebr.7, fol.105r begins Leviticus. All Hebrew. Impressive size, clear to read, notes @TuomasLevanen on Twitter
175. Vat.ebr.117,
176. Vat.ebr.121, #Aramaic, part of the Babylonian Talmud (hat tip to @TuomasLevanen on Twitter)
177. Vat.ebr.614,
178. Vat.estr.or.58,
179. Vat.gr.681,
180. Vat.gr.1927, notable 12th-century Greek psalter with illuminations to most of the canticles
181. Vat.gr.2026,
182. Vat.lat.18, Vulgate Bible
183. Vat.lat.22, Vulgate Bible, Bolognese?
184. Vat.lat.25, Vulgate Bible
185. Vat.lat.26, Vulgate Bible, fine initials
186. Vat.lat.27, Vulgate Bible, 13th century, some initials
187. Vat.lat.33, Vulgate Bible, 13th-14th century, some initials
188. Vat.lat.35, Vulgate Bible, 14th century
189. Vat.lat.38, New Testament, 13th century
190. Vat.lat.44, Gospels, 12th century, with elegant version of canon tables
191. Vat.lat.52, study edition of Genesis, 13th century, with both marginal and interlinear glosses
192. Vat.lat.53, ditto
193. Vat.lat.61, study edition of Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, with glosses
194. Vat.lat.67, study edition of Joshua, Judges, Ruth etc. with glosses
195. Vat.lat.69, study edition of Kings, with glosses
196. Vat.lat.77, study edition of Job and Isaiah with glosses, 14th century
197. Vat.lat.86, Psalterium Galllicanum cum glossa ordinaria Walafridi Strabi et Anselmi Laudunensis glossa interlineari, 12th century 
198. Vat.lat.87, study edition of Psalms, glossed, 12th century
199. Vat.lat.99, study edition of Ecclesiasticus and parts of New Testament
200. Vat.lat.100, ditto, Proverbs etc.
201. Vat.lat.103, study edition of Isaiah, 12th century
202. Vat.lat.105, study edition of Isaiah, 13th century
203. Vat.lat.132, Gospel of Luke, study glosses
204. Vat.lat.3970.pt.2, more of the catalogue by Cardinal Sirleto (1514-85) following a part digitized in February

To finish, here are Moses receiving the Ten Commandments and Noah's Ark from Barb.lat.3984:

As always, if you can contribute or correct information, please use the comment box below. Follow me on Twitter (@JBPiggin) for more news on digitizations. [This is Piggin's Unofficial List 20.]