Troubadours

The Vatican's copy of a treasured book of old French troubadour love songs has just been re-scanned in color and high resolution and placed online. Reg.lat.1490 contains the collection known as the Chansonnier cangé and is of especial interest because some of the works in it are by trobairises, the female troubadours of the 12th and 13th centuries in the Occitan region.

From the Wikipedia article Trobairitz, which I recommend you read, it would seem only four manuscripts of this work survive. The Vatican version was previously only online in a murky black and white copy.

Another fascinating manuscript just out in color is Reg.lat.1391 containing De Verecundia by one of the most famous humanists of the early Renaissance, Coluccio Salutati (1331-1406). Transcript. Read Mirabile for a summary. This was scribed by the Fifth Scribe in the tabulation of Ullman and Ceccherini, possibly in Coluccio's lifetime.

Also new online in color is Reg.lat.1446, dated about 1300, a collection of works on falconry and keeping birds healthy. eTK lists it as containing a translation of the Arabic-speaking falconer Moamyn's Sollicitudo nature gubernans.

Aside from these, 21 other manuscripts arrived online in the past week for the first time.

1. Reg.lat.1136,
2. Reg.lat.1491,
3. Reg.lat.1533,
4. Reg.lat.1539,
5. Reg.lat.1586,
6. Reg.lat.1594,
7. Reg.lat.1597,
8. Reg.lat.1609,
9. Reg.lat.1619,
10. Reg.lat.1632,
11. Vat.lat.1412,
12. Vat.lat.2060

    Gorgeous first page of Plato's "Republic" in the Latin version by Antonius Cassarinus. Coat of arms of Pius II. HT @JBPiggin https://t.co/a4zIxLhgl4 pic.twitter.com/v0H8KiFRq0

    — Pieter Beullens (@LatinAristotle) November 20, 2017

13. Vat.lat.2182,
14. Vat.lat.2203,
15. Vat.lat.2204,
16. Vat.lat.2205,
17. Vat.lat.2206,
18. Vat.lat.2208,
19. Vat.lat.2210,
20. Vat.lat.2211, Seneca and Cicero
21. Vat.lat.2272,

This list nearly failed to appear after Firefox 56 and its handy extensions, including Distill, essentially disappeared from the face of the earth late in the week. The browser has been reincarnated as Firefox Quantum and most old extensions don't work with this new generation or cannot automatically import their settings and logs.

As a temporary fix I have installed a time-lagged version, Firefox ESR, which recovered last week's state of the DigiVatLib portal. These snapshots of the past are logged in Distill, an extension which monitors DigiVatiLib for changes, and are of course essential in figuring out what changes every seven days.


Extension writers worldwide are going through hell this month as they attempt to migrate their software to meet Mozilla's ridiculous demands or just retire defeated.

Lightshot which used to have a lovely workflow for manuscript scholars is now buggy (and no longer does snips outside the Firefox window). Alpheios, a super-dictionary of Latin and Greek which every scholar should have installed and which was developed with grant money, is not compatible with Quantum. There must be a special place in hell for the Mozilla Foundation software developers who have taken down these solid running systems in the name of self-aggrandizing innovation.

This is Piggin's Unofficial List number 137. If you have corrections or additions, please use the comments box below. Follow me on Twitter (@JBPiggin) for news of more additions to DigiVatLib.