Continuing the pace of recent weeks, the Vatican added forty manuscripts to the online repositories this week. Additionally continuing the trends, Barb.lat, in the 2000-2300 range, contributed twenty-one volumes, with two more coming from an earlier section of the Barberini collection. Beyond that, work continues slowly on the Ott.lat, with seven digitized, and Capp.Sist.Diari with two more coming online.

The final fond represented this week is Comboniani, with eight manuscripts added to the ones digitized in past weeks. I have finally gotten a copy of the principal catalogue of the collection:

Biblioteca apostolica vaticana, Raineri, Osvaldo. (2000). Codices Comboniani Aethiopici. Bibliotheca Vaticana.

This means that the both this weeks and the volumes from past weeks have been properly identified, and I will be able to continue that going forward. As an interesting note, the catalogue includes the Ge'ez titles of all works, but also transliterations into Latin characters.

At the right is the first page of text, f.1r, from Ott.lat.1158.pt.B. This rather battered looking page is the incipit and beginning text of Giordano Ruffo's De Medicina Equorum. This is the oldest known work on horse medicine, composed in the court of Frederick II. While it is common to have illuminations of interlaced beasts or people in an initial letter, this sideways horse "C" is somewhat unique.

At the bottom is a bit of decorative band from p.15 of Comb.A.11, a 20th C Ethiopian Psalter in Ge'ez.