Page Comparison

Fols 1r^a–172v^a. Ptolemy, Almagest, translated by Gerard of Cremona.

Fol. 1r^a . Prologue: Incipit liber almagesti. Quidam princeps nomine albuguafe…

Fols 1v–2r. The translation of al-Hajjaj’s chapter 1: Bonum domine [hoc dicit lectori].

These folios also contain the following: interlinear glosses written by the same hand; marginal glosses written by the same hand; interlinear glosses written by a later hand and a lemmatised commentary written by the same later hand. As Charles Burnett comments, this indicates an ‘intense interest’ in the first chapter in the Almagest.

Fols 1v^a–172v^a. The text of the Almagest in 13 dictiones with drawings, and heavily glossed on fols 1r–6r, 10v, 13r–13v, begins Ecce ubi primi capituli prime dictionis initium dedit. Bonum domine hoc dictum lectori fuit… The text ends on fol. 172v^a with a reference to the several versions of chapter 1… per ipsam prologationem et abreuiationem tunc iam sequitur et honestum est ut ponamus hic finem libri.

Fols 172v^a –173r^a. A version of al-Hajjaj’s translation which is apparently unique to the Melbourne manuscript: Bonum o sure fuit quod sapientibus non fallacibus…

Fol. 173r^a. The beginning of a commentary to part of al-Hajjaj’s translation. This is written in the text space in the same hand as the version of the translation beginning; Bonum sur hoc lectori dicit…

Fols 173r^a–173v^a. The translation of Ishaq’s chapter 1: Capitulum primum in prologo huius libri. Bonum quidem fecerunt in eo quod uideo…[ii]

Fols 175r^a –193v^b. ‘Several short texts in a late fourteenth-century hand which supplement the information in the ‘Almagest’.[iii] These include:

Fols 175r^a -175r^b. Astrologia que de celestibus corporibus…

Fols 176r ^a –183r^a. Gerard of Cremona Theorica planetarum.[iv]

Fols 176r^a–183r^a. Incipit theorica planetarum. Circulus excentricus dicitur uel egresse cuspidis uel egredientis centri qui non habet centrum…

Fols 175v^a-183v^a. Anonymous commentary on Gerard of Cremona. Theorica planetarum. Circulus excentricus…

Fol. 184r^a -184r^b. Johannes de Harlebeke. De sphera solida. Incipit tractatus de sphera solida…Incipit prima pars…

Fols 187r^b -189v^b. Petrus de Sancto Audomaro. Compositio instrumenti semissarum. Incipit tractatus instrumenti…

Fols 189v^b –192r^b. Qusta ibn Luqa. Tractatus spherae volubilis (translated by Stephenus Arlandi (mid-fifteenth century). Incipit tractatus spere solide…

Fols 192v^a –193v^b.Abraham ibn Ezra, Liber introductorius ad iudicia astrorum, (translated by Petrus de Abano). Incipit Liber introductorius…

Folio ii recto contains the missing conclusion to the Almagest; astrologcal diagrams and commentary are continued on folio ii verso.

Parchment.

The eighteenth-century paper flyleaves have watermarks. 

Originally this manuscript consisted of the Almagest alone. Each of the thirteen books of this textbegins with two decorated initials, one at the beginning of the list of chapters and the other at the beginning of the text proper. These are painted in foliate patterns in red, green, or blue, outlined or dotted with white, on gold grounds. The shafts of the initial ‘P’ are often set against contrasting coloured grounds with white crosses or dot-and-line motifs. The more elaborate initial on fol. 1r includes a grotesque. Rubrics are in red, and further divisions of the text are marked by pen-flourished initials, alternately red decorated with blue, and blue with red. The Theorica planetarium has fourteenth-century pen-flourished initials in red and blue. Folio 174r has unfinished drawings and eclipses.

Program of Decoration and Illustration

In addition to the articulation of the text by pen-and-ink and painted initials described above (see Decoration), the Almagest is illustrated by numerous diagrams often ten lines high, in black ink, and regularly including circles, arcs, and text labels.

The manuscript is bound in eighteenth-century, quarter red-brown calf over pasteboards with speckled brown paper and parchment corners, and has a gilded title on the spine: ‘PTOLEMAEI ALMAGESTUS ET ALIA OPUSCULA’.

Latin, North Italy, perhaps the Veneto, c. 1200-25.

Berthold L. Ullman and Philip A. Stadter identified this manuscript as number 734 in the catalogue of the Biblioteca di San Marco in Florence, which was compiled c. 1500 (1972, pp. 208 and 316): Almagestus Ptolomei, liber Alboaly Sarcinatoris de nativitatibus, liber pronosticationis hymbrium, pluviarum et ventorum, theorica planetarum, tractatus de sphera solida sive de astrolabro spherico, semissa de aequationibus planetarum, tractatus spherae solidae, introductorium ad iudicia astrorum, in volumine satis mango et pulchro nigo in membranis. This describes eight of the ten texts in the manuscript, later identified by Keith Sinclair (1969, pp. 382–6). The two not noted are the very short texts on the second flyleaf, which were perhaps considered not to be worth recording. The ‘beautiful black’ manuscript was described in the catalogue as quite large and on parchment. Evidently, it once had black covers. The verso of the present fol. iii, which was the back pastedown in the fifteenth-century binding, has dark stains around its edges, presumably from where it had been glued to the previous black covering.

Ullman and Stadter also suggested that the manuscript might have been the one listed 58th in the legacy made to the library in the 1478 testament of the doctor Lorenzo da Bisticci, nephew of the celebrated bookseller Vespasiano da Bisticci. Giuseppe M. Cagni has published the contents of Lorenzo da Bisticci’s codicil, which includes 71 volumes said to be almost all on ‘charta di chaveretto’, which is a kind of lamb or kid vellum. Among these is an ‘Almagesto di Tolomeo’, but no description that would help identify the particular manuscript (Vespasiano da Bisticci e il suoepistolario, Roma, 1969, p. 32 n. 1). However, in the c. 1500 catalogue, three volumes of the Almagesti are listed, and Ullman and Stadter have traced two of the San Marco volumes to the Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Firenze (now with the shelfmarks: Conventi soppresi, MSS J. IV. 20 and J. III. 24), each of which carry an inscription stating that the manuscript came ‘from Cosimo (de’ Medici) who bought it from the heirs of Filippo di ser Ugolino Pieruzzi of Vertine’ (1972, pp. 25–27 and 208). Thus, by elimination, the Melbourne manuscript quite likely came from Lorenzo da Bisticci. In 2011 an ultraviolet examination of the partially erased inscription at the foot of fol. ii suggested the reading: ‘mae[stro Lorenz]o da Bisticci’.

On the spine is the number ‘179’, which, as Ullman and Stadter observed, corresponds to the entry with that number in the 1768 catalogue of the Biblioteca. Furthermore, they noted that most of the San Marco manuscripts were rebound at this time (1972, p. 52), and the binding of the Melbourne manuscript, with red-brown leather on the spine and speckled brown paper and parchment corners over pasteboard covers, matches that of other ex-San Marco manuscripts, such as the volume of Cicero which is MS 93 in the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale University.

According to Ullman and Stadter, J.T. Payne of the firm Payne and Foss acquired a group of manuscripts from the Biblioteca di San Marco around 1830 (1972, pp. 54–5). On the front pastedown of the Melbourne manuscript is written ‘Payne 1833 MSS Phillipps’, indicating that it was acquired from J.T. Payne by Sir Thomas Phillipps in 1833. The latter added his printed number ‘6551’ to the spine (A.N.L. Munby, Vol. III, 1954, p. 94). On the verso of fol. iiii is written in pencil ‘Robinson 5.9.49. £L-/-/- st.’, indicating that the manuscript was acquired by the State Library of Victoria from the bookseller William H. Robinson on 5 September 1949 (on the acquisition, see Carmody, 2008, pp. 100–2). The Library’s first shelfmark ‘*091/P95A’ was written on the verso of fol. iiii.

A.N.L. Munby, Phillipps Studies, 5 Vols, Cambridge, 1951–1960, Vol. III: The Formation of the Phillipps Library up to 1840 (1954).

C.A. McCallum, The Public Library of Victoria, 1856–1956, Melbourne, 1956, p. 129.

K.V. Sinclair, ‘Phillipps Manuscripts in Australia’, The Book Collector, Vol. II, 1962, 332–7, p. 336.

K.V. Sinclair, ‘An Unnoticed Astronomical and Astrological Manuscript’, Isis, 54, 1963, pp. 396–9.

L. Thorndike and P. Kibre, A Catalogue of Incipits of mediaeval scientific writings in Latin, London, 1963.

L. Thorndike, ‘Additional Addenda et Corrigenda to the Revised Edition of Lynn Thorndike and Pearl Kibre A Catalogue of Incipits of Mediaeval Scientific Writings in Latin, 1963’, Speculum, XL, 1965, 116–22; p. 116.

K.V. Sinclair, Descriptive Catalogue of Medieval and Renaissance Western Manuscripts in Australia, Sydney, 1969, pp. 382–6; No. 224.

B.L. Ullman and P.A. Stadter, The Public Library of Renaissance Florence: Niccolò Niccoli, Cosimo de’ Medici and the Library of San Marco, Padua, 1972, pp. 208, 316.

P. Kunitzsch, Der Almagest: Die Syntax mathematica des Claudius Ptolemäus in arabisch-lateinischer Überlieferung, Wiesbaden, 1974, pp. 91, Nos 238 and 239, p. 99 n. 260, and p. 384.

M.M. Manion and V.F. Vines, Medieval and Renaissance Illuminated Manuscripts in Australian Collections, London, 1984, pp. 95–6, No. 36, fig. 82.

E. Garin, ‘La Biblioteca di San Marco’, in La chiesa e il convento di San Marco a Firenze, T.S. Centi (ed.), 2 Vols [c. 1989–1990], Vol. I, 79–128.

 J.N. Crossley, ‘Ptolemy’s Almagest: its dates and the dating of Oxford, All Souls College, ms. 95’, The La Trobe Journal, no. 81, Autumn, 2008, pp. 118–126.

C. Burnett, ‘Why Study Ptolemy’s Almagest? The evidence of MS Melbourne, State Library of Victoria, Sinclair 224’, in The La Trobe Journal, 81, Autumn 2008, pp. 126-43. [2008a]

C. Burnett, Ptolemy Almagest, in B. Stocks and N. Morgan (eds), The Medieval Imagination: Illuminated Manuscripts from Cambridge, Australia, and New Zealand, exh. cat., State Library of Victoria, Melbourne, 2008, pp. 214-7, No. 72. [2008b]

The Almagest is the most advanced astronomical text in Greek, which was written by Claudius Ptolemeus in the second century A.D. It describes many aspects of cosmology, the motion of the moon and planets, and eclipses; andit also  provides the coordinates of numerous fixed stars. It is regarded as the most important of the translations from Arabic into Latin of philosophical, mathematical, and medical texts made by Gerardo da Cremona (1114–87) in Toledo. There are two Arabic versions of the text preserved, the first produced by al-Hajjaj in A.D. 827–8, the second by Ishaq ibn Hunayn (c. A.D. 880), but revised by Thabit ibn Qurra (d. A.D. 901). Gerard’s translation includes parts of both. Books I–IX follow al-Hajjaj’s version, while books X–XIII follow Ishaq and  `Thabit’s. The State Library’s manuscript contains a further revision of the text, thought to be by Gerardo himself, correcting mistakes introduced in the Arabic translation. Further, it adds the translation of equivalent passages in the other Arabic version in the margin. Perhaps most significantly, the manuscript includes the first chapter of both the al-Hajjaj and the Ishaq and Thabit versions, as well as a second version of al-Hajjaj’s first chapter with commentary, which is unique to this manuscript. As Charles Burnett observed, ‘The fact that three versions of the opening chapter of the Almagest are included shows the interest in this chapter, which explains how theoretical science is divided into theology, mathematics and natural science, but of these only mathematics can yield certain knowledge; yet, the study of astronomy, as the highest part of the mathematics, can lead one to the understanding of God’ (2008, p. 214).

Digital imaging and research on this manuscript were supported by the Australian Research Council Linkage Grant, Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts in Australia:Researching and Relating Australia’s Manuscript Holdings to New Technologies and New Readers (2010-13). Substantial donations from the Catholic Archdiocese of Sydney, Catholic Church Insurance and the National Australia Bank are gratefully acknowledged. The Catholic Diocese of Ballarat, The Network for Early European Research, and Newman College, The University of Melbourne, have also generously contributed to the project.

Chief Investigators (CIs) of the ARC project were Professor emeritus Margaret Manion (The University of Melbourne), Professor Bernard J Muir (The University of Melbourne), and Dr Toby Burrows (The University of Western Australia). Graduate research assistants were Alexandra Ellem, Dr Hugh Hudson, Dr Elaine Shaw and postgraduate scholar Elizabeth Melzer (The University of Melbourne). Shane Carmody was the representative of the Chief Industry Partner (The State Library of Victoria). The following curators, conservators, photographers and computer specialists at The State Library of Victoria also contributed their expertise: Katrina Ben, Des Cowley, Ian Cox, Adrian Flint, Ross Genat, Jean Holland, Shelley Jamieson, Afsana Khan, Coralie McInnes, Monika McIntyre, Helen McPherson, Peter Mappin and Sarah Mason. Before he left the project at the end of 2011, Hugh Hudson made a significant contribution to this entry, particularly  in the area of Provenance and the updating of Bibliography. This contribution is also acknowledged in appropriate endnotes. Other contributors, besides the ARC team, both in Australia and overseas, are also acknowledged in relevant endnotes.

These detailed entries draw on the information in earlier catalogues and also update it. In particular, they are based on the following: K.V. Sinclair, Descriptive Catalogue of Medieval and Renaissance Western Manuscripts in Australia, Sydney, 1969, M. M. Manion and V. F. Vines, Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts in Australian Collections, London, 1984, and B. Stocks and N. Morgan, eds, The Medieval Imagination: Illuminated Manuscripts from Cambridge, Australia and New Zealand, Melbourne, 2008. Our debt to these pioneering publications and dependence on them are acknowledged here.          

Margaret M.Manion on behalf of the ARC team, October, 2013.