Humanist's Astronomy Book

The personal library of the great Florentine humanist Coluccio Salutati (1331-1406) was scattered after his death. It remains a thing of fascination for every scholar. It's the definitive overview of what an early Renaissance man with the income to buy books read, with Coluccio's own notes scattered in the margins.

Coluccio's private copy of the Great Stemma formed for a while the title picture on my Twitter account. (I replaced it with the current gaudy recreation because parchmenty pictures don't work as panoramas.)

Thanks to digitization a good many of his books are now online to inspect.A real treasure among their number is Collucio's private copy (in Latin) of the Almagest by Ptolemy the Geographer, Vat.lat.2056, which has just arrived online at the Vatican Library digital portal.The diagrams are fascinating. The first image below is from a celebrated rota used by astrologers; you can read off the climates here, starting with the mouth of the Dniepr at top:

We continue to wait for Vatican's DigiVatLib to do color versions of the Florentine notary's books, such as his Seneca, Reg.lat.1391, which is still only available in black and white.

1. Reg.lat.675
2. Reg.lat.901
3. Reg.lat.997
4. Reg.lat.1072
5. Reg.lat.1082
6. Reg.lat.1110
7. Reg.lat.1115, a major compendium of magic (Jacobus Faber Stapulensis), astrology and astronomy (John of Glogau); this was on the site in murky black and white, but is new in color; a vital improvement since it is far from easily legible. See eTK for contents.
   
8. Reg.lat.1119
9. Reg.lat.1122
10. Reg.lat.1126
11. Reg.lat.1144
12. Reg.lat.1152
13. Reg.lat.1156
14. Reg.lat.1159
15. Reg.lat.1160
16. Reg.lat.1161
17. Reg.lat.1162
18. Reg.lat.1170
19. Reg.lat.1184
20. Reg.lat.1196
21. Reg.lat.1207
22. Reg.lat.1226
23. Reg.lat.1234
24. Reg.lat.1246
25. Reg.lat.1257
26. Reg.lat.1266
27. Reg.lat.1267, contains the only complete text of Dracontius, the African author, and his Satisfactio. One of the Beneventan script examples compiled by Lowe (and a prime exhibit in a mistaken theory that Visigothic and Benevantan script are linked), it is composed of different parts, miniscule at first, then Beneventan from folio 139:
    1. Euclid, Boethius, ff 1-135, 13th century, including the glorious diagram below
    2. Beda, ff 136-138, 11th century
    3. Calendarial matter, ff. 139-140v and part of 143, 9th-10th century
    4. Versus Marci Poetae de S. Benedicto, ff 141v-142v, 10th century 
    5. Dracontius, Satisfactio, ff  143v-150v, 9th-10th century 
    
28. Reg.lat.1269
29. Reg.lat.1275
30. Reg.lat.1289
31. Vat.lat.1927
32. Vat.lat.1944
33. Vat.lat.1954
34. Vat.lat.1956
35. Vat.lat.1965
36. Vat.lat.1980
37. Vat.lat.1982
38. Vat.lat.1987
39. Vat.lat.1999
40. Vat.lat.2006
41. Vat.lat.2007
42. Vat.lat.2024
43. Vat.lat.2032
44. Vat.lat.2042
45. Vat.lat.2046
46. Vat.lat.2047
47. Vat.lat.2056, Ptolemy's Almagest, see above
48. Vat.lat.2069
49. Vat.lat.9484
50. Vat.lat.15399

This is Piggin's Unofficial List number 128. If you have corrections or additions, please use the comments box below. Follow me on Twitter (@JBPiggin) for news of more additions to DigiVatLib.