Fake Book

Did you ever hide money in books? I used to as a boy, until I returned a library book with a banknote left inside it as a forgotten bookmark. I frantically rushed to the Epsom Branch of the Auckland Public Library system, found the book on its shelf and opened it to find the cash still there.

And did you ever beg as a child to be given an old book so you could cut out the core to use as a secret hiding place? The Vatican has at least one such fake book, but there are no banknotes in this one any more. Legat.Pal.lat.24 is a hollowed-out volume presumably used to secrete valuables or messages in libraries. It is held in the Fondo legature and the binding has been dated to 1869-1878.

Here is the full list of digitizations I have harvested in the past week:

1. Arch.Cap.S.Pietro.F.4, evangeliary?
2. Legat.Pal.lat.24, hollowed-out fake book (above)
3. Reg.lat.6, Glosae Super Iohannem
4. Reg.lat.7, a mid 9th-century Bible from St Denis in Carolingian script, unusual because the copyist wrote out Tb 1- 6,12 in the Vetus Latina instead of the Vulgate text of Jerome (fols. 44 ff). Beuron number 143
5. Reg.lat.17, Augustine
6. Reg.lat.18
7. Reg.lat.32, Ambrose of Milan on Psalms
8. Reg.lat.38, Augustine and Ambrose
9. Reg.lat.68, Ivo of Chartres, Richard of St Victor and others
10. Reg.lat.73
11. Reg.lat.111
12. Reg.lat.113, Rabanus Maurus with this wonderful initial
    
13. Reg.lat.114, Vegetius? Boethius?
14. Reg.lat.138, John Chrysostom and some Ambrose
15. Reg.lat.139
16. Reg.lat.145, Bernard on sin
17. Reg.lat.159, autograph(?) Theologia Christiana of Peter Abelard, the best witness of the work as Abelard conceived it. Dated to 1122-1125 by Constant Mews
18. Reg.lat.166, Boethius
19. Reg.lat.177, John of God, Liber poenitentiarius
20. Reg.lat.178, John of Tambaco
21. Reg.lat.200, Claudius of Turin
22. Reg.lat.206, Prosper of Aquitaine
23. Reg.lat.245, Faustus of Riez
24. Reg.lat.246
25. Reg.lat.269, Iohannes Sarisberiensis
26. Urb.lat.352, miscellany, Alanis de Insulis and others
27. Urb.lat.429, a Renaissance copy of Lorenzo Valla's translation of Thucydides. See History of Information.
28. Urb.lat.430, Herodotus in Latin translation
29. Urb.lat.474, the flyleaves are taken from a vanished Vetus Latina bible of the 9th or 10th century and contain fragments from 2 Mcc; Beuron Number 199
    
30. Urb.lat.607
31. Urb.lat.821.pt.A, paper manuscript relating to Spanish Kingdom of Naples
32. Urb.lat.821.pt.B.1
33. Urb.lat.821.pt.B.2
34. Urb.lat.821.pt.B.3
35. Urb.lat.1278
36. Urb.lat.1389
37. Urb.lat.1503
38. Urb.lat.1513
39. Urb.lat.1525
40. Urb.lat.1542
41. Urb.lat.1552
42. Urb.lat.1630, conclave Gregory XV
43. Vat.gr.155
44. Vat.gr.503
45. Vat.gr.920.pt.1
46. Vat.gr.1635
47. Vat.lat.1128
48. Vat.lat.1260
49. Vat.lat.1274
50. Vat.lat.1275
51. Vat.lat.1278
52. Vat.lat.1283
53. Vat.lat.1285
54. Vat.lat.1309

In addition, we find the following 12 Palatina manuscripts new online.

1. Pal. lat. 572 Sammelhandschrift (15. Jh.)
2. Pal. lat. 1122 Avicenna; Arnoldus ; Franco de Polonia; Petrus ; Ptolemaeus, Claudius: Medizinisch-naturwissenschaftlicher Sammelband (2. Hälfte 13. Jh. ; 1. Hälfte 14. Jh.), including an Alkindi text with the incipit: In medicinis per artem compositis considerans (Alkindi cum comm. Arnaldi de Villanova). Ptolemy text begins Scientia astrorum dividitur in duo. See eTK
3. Pal. lat. 1126 Gentilis : De febribus vel expositio super primam fen quarti canonis Avicennae (Italien, Mitte 15. Jh.)
4. Pal. lat. 1127 Gentilis : De febribus vel Expositio super primam fen quarti canonis Avicennae (Padua, 1462), Excusati ab his que in librorum principiis; Febris est calor extraneus innaturalis. Gentilis of Foligno was a commentator on Avicenna. See eTK
5. Pal. lat. 1131 Avicenna; Ludovicus de Florentia; Mundinus : Medizinische Sammelhandschrift (Heidelberg, 15. Jh. (1476)), Quoniam nihil carius et amabilius; .a Mundinus de Foro Iulio eTK
6. Pal. lat. 1134 Petrus ; Bartholomaeus de Sancta Sophia; Rāzī, Muḥammad Ibn-Zakarīyā /ar-; Gerardus : Medizinische Sammelhandschirft (Deutschland, 1454 ; 1400), a text by Peter of Tussignano here was compiled at the University of Bologna in 1385: incipit: In dispositione medicinarum seu receptarum convenientium. See eTK
7. Pal. lat. 1137 Rāzī, Muḥammad Ibn-Zakarīyā /ar-; Ps.-Hippocrates; Jacobus : Medizinische Sammelhandschrift (Amberg, um 1560)
8. Pal. lat. 1141 Isrāʾīlī, Isḥāq Ibn-Sulaimān /al-; Knab, Erhardus: Medizinische Sammelhandschrift (Heidelberg, letztes Viertel 15. Jh.)
9. Pal. lat. 1142 Isrāʾīlī, Isḥāq Ibn-Sulaimān /al-; Paulus : Medizinische Sammelhandschrift (um 1500), a main text here is on fevers, with the incipit: Amice carissime fili Iohannes lacrima. See eTK
10. Pal. lat. 1768 Ps.-Aristoteles ; Thomas ; Petrus ; Johannes ; Knab, Erhardus: Sammelhandschrift (Südwestdeutschland, 2. Hälfte 15. Jh.)
11. Pal. lat. 1817 Avicenna: Canonis libris tres (II., IV., V.) (Italien, 13./ 14. Jh.)
12. Pal. lat. 1828 Luther, Martin: Bericht über den Augsburger Reichstag von 1530 (Weimar (?), Mitte 16. Jh.)

I would like to especially thank Pieter Beullens who last month provided leads to further identify some of these items from the electronic Thorndike and Kibre (eTK) while it was still paywalled. [At U Missouri, searches tended to fail with a message: "You are not allowed to access this database. Please contact LEV or PDK for access." On March 6, Lisa Fagin Davis of the Medieval Academy of America announced on Twitter the link on the academy website had been rectified to always lead to a search page that does not demand a password. Thanks so much for this improvement. Use that link.]

What I did not previously know is that the eTK database can also be searched in a more aesthetically pleasing format via IndexCat at the US National Library of Medicine, which is also free.

This is Piggin's Unofficial List number 107. If you have corrections or additions, please use the comments box below. Follow me on Twitter (@JBPiggin) for news of more additions to DigiVatLib.