Under the Knife

Medieval surgery was, by all accounts, painful for the patient. One of the newest Vatican manuscripts online contains Gerard of Cremona's Latin translation of the Arabic handbook of surgery by the famed Andalusian doctor Abulcasis or Albucasis (see Wikipedia). Consider these instruments:

I'm not going to tell you what they were used for. But anesthetic procedures were crude, so you felt the cut.

This manuscript of the 13th or 14th century is among more than 30 extant according to Monica H Green's count in 2011.

It seems the book was read by non-doctors too, as indicated by the luxury colors in this copy. She adds: "Whereas other surgical texts circulated quite widely in western Europe, up until the fifteenth century Albucasis's work was copied only in Italy and, to a lesser extent, in southern France." See too an earlier article online by David Trotter on the Latin mss.

In the past week, 112 manuscripts came online. The Vatican Library's newsletter adds some good news, indicating the digitization program remains open-ended.

The Japan-based company which is the main funder of the project, NTT Data, previously told media its support was limited to 3,000 manuscripts up to 2019, but the December newsletter says Katsuichi Sonoda, an NTT Data VP, offered November 30 to continue the collaboration with the Library “indefinitely”. Sounds great!

1. Ross.47,
2. Ross.60,
3. Ross.67 (Upgraded to HQ),
4. Ross.71,
5. Ross.83,
6. Ross.86.pt.2,
7. Ross.102 (Upgraded to HQ),
8. Ross.104,
9. Ross.132 (Upgraded to HQ),
10. Ross.133,
11. Ross.134,
12. Ross.139 (Upgraded to HQ),
13. Ross.148 (Upgraded to HQ),
14. Ross.166,
15. Ross.169,
16. Ross.200,
17. Ross.205 (Upgraded to HQ),
18. Ross.221,
19. Ross.229 (Upgraded to HQ),
20. Ross.233,
21. Ross.250 (Upgraded to HQ),
22. Ross.256,
23. Ross.267,
24. Ross.270 (Upgraded to HQ),
25. Ross.271 (Upgraded to HQ),
26. Vat.lat.2389,
27. Vat.lat.2392, eTK incipit: Gerard of Cremona translations of Arabic medical works, and the De cibariis attributed to Petrus de Musanda
28. Vat.lat.2403, eTK incipit: Desideranti tibi scribi a me mysteria lapidum omnium
29. Vat.lat.2408,
30. Vat.lat.2431,
31. Vat.lat.2440,
32. Vat.lat.2445.pt.2,
33. Vat.lat.2445.pt.3,
34. Vat.lat.2465, Jacobus de Forlivio, on the Aphorisms of Hippocrates; see Jordanus
35. Vat.lat.2478,
36. Vat.lat.3219 (Upgraded to HQ),
37. Vat.lat.3367,
38. Vat.lat.3369,
39. Vat.lat.4020,
40. Vat.lat.4021,
41. Vat.lat.4022,
42. Vat.lat.4083, eTK incipit: Interrogatio nobilis viri domini Uberti marchionis; (Gerard of Cremona)
43. Vat.lat.4098 (Upgraded to HQ),
44. Vat.lat.4112.pt.2,
45. Vat.lat.4251,
46. Vat.lat.4276,
47. Vat.lat.4347 (Upgraded to HQ),
48. Vat.lat.4368,
49. Vat.lat.4375,
50. Vat.lat.4379,
51. Vat.lat.4389 (Upgraded to HQ),
52. Vat.lat.4403,
53. Vat.lat.4404,
54. Vat.lat.4405,
55. Vat.lat.4408
56. Vat.lat.4420, eTK incipit: Non solum cum scripserunt rememoratores; 
57. Vat.lat.4421,
58. Vat.lat.4422, eTK incipit: Cum natura non minus indigeat aquis fisicalibus (14c); John of Parma
59. Vat.lat.4428, Avicenna's Terra Pura and other works; eTK incipit: Corpora mineralia in quatuor dividuntur
60. Vat.lat.4432, eTK incipits: Quia sentire quidem (early 14th century); De virtutibus naturalibus
61. Vat.lat.4434, Jacobus de Forlivio, De intentione et remissione formarum, see Jordanus
62. Vat.lat.4436,
63. Vat.lat.4441,
64. Vat.lat.4448, Antonius de Scarparia, 14th century Italian physician, on Galen's Ars Parva, with a diagram discussed by John Murdoch's Album of Science showing the continuum by latitudes from completely well (at top) to completely sick (below): 
    
65. Vat.lat.4451 (Upgraded to HQ), medical etc, Thadeus of Florence and others, eTK incipit: Impossibile est eundem incipere et finire (14th century)
66. Vat.lat.4454 (Upgraded to HQ), eTK incipit: Averroes in commento xv de animalibus sicut illa; See also Jordanus
67. Vat.lat.4455 (Upgraded to HQ), Jordanus, Arithmetic. See Jordanus database. eTK incipit: Convenerunt in hoc antiqui; by Petrus Hispanus
68. Vat.lat.4457,
69. Vat.lat.4463,
70. Vat.lat.4464, eTK incipit: Consuevit dubitari de titulo huius libri; by Dino del Garbo
71. Vat.lat.4467, Abulcasis/Albucasis (above)

    Chirurgia [opus Albucasis; translatio ex arabico], Gerhardus Cremonensis (1114 - 1187) ff. 1r-32r; De locis affectis, Galenus, ff. 33r-59v (translatio anonyma). #surgery #medicine
    
    Vat. Lat. 4467 (14th cent.) among the #LatestDigitizedManuscripts 👨‍⚕️💉🔪https://t.co/jMWdZXaiby pic.twitter.com/yoLJsN1str

    — Digita Vaticana (@DigitaVaticana) December 18, 2018
    

    What a great present for @EgoConstantinus's obit day. Sure, the al-Zahrawi/Abulcasis part of @DigitaVaticana Vat. lat. 4467 is fascinating, but check out what follows it: Constantine's translation of Galen's De interioribus!

    — (@EgoConstantinus)
72. Vat.lat.4469,
73. Vat.lat.4470,
74. Vat.lat.4471,
75. Vat.lat.4473,
76. Vat.lat.4474,
77. Vat.lat.4475 (Upgraded to HQ), eTK incipit: Sciendum est quod humores quidam sunt in capite (13c-14c); also: De limphis oculorum qui dicitur paralymenon
78. Vat.lat.4477, eTK incipit: Cum omne corpus animatum; Glossulae aphorismorum Hippocratis
79. Vat.lat.4478, eTK incipit: Celi enarrant gloriam dei triplici via aq modo mirabili celi; author Jean Ganivet
80. Vat.lat.4483,
81. Vat.lat.4485,
82. Vat.lat.4487,
83. Vat.lat.4490 (Upgraded to HQ),
84. Vat.lat.4493 (Upgraded to HQ),
85. Vat.lat.4494,
86. Vat.lat.4495,
87. Vat.lat.4496,
88. Vat.lat.4498 (Upgraded to HQ), Frontinus, Seneca and other classical authors, see Jordanus
89. Vat.lat.4502 (Upgraded to HQ),
90. Vat.lat.4503,

    So even when the phone didn't exist people used to doodle the same way we do when we're on the phone...
    
    Vat. lat. 4503 among the #LatestDigitizedManuscripts ☎✍🏻 https://t.co/Ck3OQgyYFr pic.twitter.com/sbkxS6oi1u

    — Digita Vaticana (@DigitaVaticana) December 20, 2018

91. Vat.lat.4504,
92. Vat.lat.4505,
93. Vat.lat.4506,
94. Vat.lat.4507,
95. Vat.lat.4509,
96. Vat.lat.4513,
97. Vat.lat.4514 (Upgraded to HQ),
98. Vat.lat.4515,
99. Vat.lat.4518,
100. Vat.lat.4522 (Upgraded to HQ),
101. Vat.lat.4523,
102. Vat.lat.4524,
103. Vat.lat.4526,
104. Vat.lat.4527,
105. Vat.lat.4528,
106. Vat.lat.4529,
107. Vat.lat.4530, Jamblichus, see Jordanus
108. Vat.lat.4535,
109. Vat.lat.4538,

     Richard Rufus of Cornwall's commentary on Aristotle's Metaphysics now available @DigitaVaticana and found in the list by @JBPiggin.https://t.co/AQ7uGjH7a7 pic.twitter.com/JjRTbunbK4

     — Pieter Beullens (@LatinAristotle) December 22, 2018

110. Vat.lat.4539, Bernelinus, Gerbert and others on arithmetic, see Jordanus. With this bull's eye by the Dennis the Menace of the Vatican rubber stamp:
     
111. Vat.lat.5754.pt.A,
112. Vat.lat.9055,
This is Piggin's Unofficial List number 190. Thanks to @gundormr for harvesting. If you have corrections or additions, please use the comments box below. Follow me on Twitter (@JBPiggin) for news of more additions to DigiVatLib.

Tiro's Secret

Tironian notes formed a medieval shorthand system which made life easier for the writers, and much harder for us modern readers. The script, said to have been devised by Cicero's secretary Tiro, is not a secret. You "only" have to learn it.

This week, the Vatican Library has kindly digitized a 10th-century ninth-century (thanks Martin Hellmann!) manual to get you started. Vat.lat.3799 seems to have been put together in Northern France, perhaps in St. Amand. As a foretaste, try copying Adam and Eve:

If you think that it would be quicker to write Eva longhand, you might be right.

Martin Hellmann, who created a Tironian online manual back in 2011, has made another stride for independent scholarship with a handy index of the medieval manuals which he brought online a few months ago at his Martinellus website.

In all, 61 manuscripts have just arrived online. My list:

1. Borg.lat.260,
2. Ott.lat.3380,
3. Ott.lat.3381,
4. Ross.28 (Upgraded to HQ),
5. Ross.43,
6. Ross.44,
7. Ross.46,
8. Ross.48,
9. Ross.52,
10. Ross.53,
11. Ross.54,
12. Ross.55,
13. Ross.56,
14. Ross.57,
15. Ross.58,
16. Ross.63,
17. Ross.64,
18. Ross.68,
19. Ross.69,
20. Ross.75,
21. Ross.77,
22. Ross.78,

    Have a nice weekend in front of a Christmassy fireplace like this...
    
    Ross.78 #LatestDigitizedManuscripts 🔥🦌🎄🍪🍷https://t.co/ZydDbFhdwM pic.twitter.com/9Euzhk5fk1

    — Digita Vaticana (@DigitaVaticana) December 14, 2018

23. Ross.79,
24. Ross.80,
25. Ross.82,
26. Ross.93,
27. Ross.111 (Upgraded to HQ),
28. Ross.121,
29. Ross.122,
30. Ross.123,
31. Ross.124,
32. Ross.152,
33. Ross.155,
34. Ross.159 (Upgraded to HQ),
35. Ross.168,
36. Ross.172,
37. Ross.179,
38. Ross.185,
39. Ross.196,
40. Ross.226 (Upgraded to HQ), a canon law commentary, Liber de vita christiana by Bonizo of Sutri, according to Hermann Schadt, who identifies the following bizarre drawing as a descent genealogy of Noah and his three sons:
    
41. Ross.240,
42. Ross.242,
43. Vat.gr.2625 (Upgraded to HQ),
44. Vat.lat.2466, medical translations of Hippocrates and Avicenna by Jacobus Forlivius. See the list in Jordanus
45. Vat.lat.3799, manual of Tironian notes, 10th or 11th century (above)
46. Vat.lat.4184,
47. Vat.lat.4267,
48. Vat.lat.4344,
49. Vat.lat.4387,
50. Vat.lat.4392,
51. Vat.lat.4400,
52. Vat.lat.4423,
53. Vat.lat.4426, a 13th-century compilation of 11 texts from diverse authors, five of them natural philosophy texts listed in the eTK incipits 
54. Vat.lat.4429, a compilation of 12 scientific works by Avicenna, Thomas Bradwardine, Aristotle and others. See the list in Jordanus
55. Vat.lat.4431,
56. Vat.lat.4440, 11 medical works including On Fevers: see eTK incipits 
57. Vat.lat.4442,  
58. Vat.lat.4465,
59. Vat.lat.4479,
60. Vat.lat.4508,
61. Vat.lat.11829, Francesco Tonii, L'Ignoranza: a play, seemingly written under the patronage of Felice Rospigliosi to entertain Pope Clement IX

This is Piggin's Unofficial List number 189. Thanks to @gundormr for harvesting. If you have corrections or additions, please use the comments box below. Follow me on Twitter (@JBPiggin) for news of more additions to DigiVatLib.

Venn Diagram

One of the early appearances of what we nowadays call a Venn diagram is in the Ars musice, a tract on musical harmony by an anonymous medieval author once supposed to have been Thomas Aquinas.

A principal source of this diagram is a late 13th or early 14th-century scientific codex Vat.lat.4357 at the Vatican which has just been digitized. The tract starts with a magnificent wheel diagram of the varieties of church music:

Michael Bernhard proposed (PDF) in 2006 that it is a compilation mainly based on the De Musica of Johannes Cotto (Affligemensis), peppered with Macrobius, Boethius, Isidore, Berno, Hermannus Contractus and William of Hirsau. He has edited the text and diagrams. He identifies the author as one Augustinus minor.

The codex binds together smaller manuscripts, with the Ars at ff. 57-64. Check out the contents on MirabileWeb for more detail.

Here is the full list of 71 digitizations in the past week:

1. Barb.or.23,
2. Cerulli.pers.5,
3. Cerulli.pers.170,
4. Cerulli.pers.241,
5. Cerulli.pers.356,
6. Cerulli.pers.477,
7. Cerulli.pers.503,
8. Cerulli.pers.698,
9. Cerulli.pers.711,
10. Cerulli.pers.899,
11. Cerulli.pers.971,
12. Cerulli.pers.1054,
13. Ross.23,
14. Ross.45,
15. Ross.62,
16. Ross.65,

    Books of Hours!
    * Ross 65 - 15th C, Use of Genoa (!!)
    * Ross 120 - early 16th C, maybe Rouen
    also Ross 66 appears to be, but isn’t in Morello

    — AaronM (@gundormr) December 9, 2018

17. Ross.66 (Upgraded to HQ), seems to be a book of hours, see tweet above
    
    
    
    
18. Ross.120 (Upgraded to HQ), a book of hours (see tweet above) which raises the issue: do angels gossip while on duty?
    
19. Ross.149 (Upgraded to HQ),
20. Ross.150,
21. Vat.lat.2471,
22. Vat.lat.3193,
23. Vat.lat.3416, with Orbis terrarum spatia breviter (1472), a work of Pier Candido Decembrio (from eTK) 
24. Vat.lat.3739,
25. Vat.lat.4097 (Upgraded to HQ),
26. Vat.lat.4105 (Upgraded to HQ),
27. Vat.lat.4113.pt.1,
28. Vat.lat.4140,
29. Vat.lat.4153,
30. Vat.lat.4158,
31. Vat.lat.4182,
32. Vat.lat.4263,

    A very special MS from @DigitaVaticana now in @JBPiggin's list: an anthology from Aristotle's biology (red numerals in the margin refer to the relevant books from 'De animalibus')https://t.co/sRalF7QoSK pic.twitter.com/XeseFusHXR

    — Pieter Beullens (@LatinAristotle) December 9, 2018

33. Vat.lat.4265 (Upgraded to HQ), see MirabileWeb
34. Vat.lat.4266,
35. Vat.lat.4268,
36. Vat.lat.4270 (Upgraded to HQ),
37. Vat.lat.4271,
38. Vat.lat.4272 (Upgraded to HQ),
39. Vat.lat.4282,
40. Vat.lat.4285,
41. Vat.lat.4287,
42. Vat.lat.4289,
43. Vat.lat.4290,
44. Vat.lat.4292,
45. Vat.lat.4299,
46. Vat.lat.4308,
47. Vat.lat.4309,
48. Vat.lat.4322,

    🤩🎉At last 🎉🤩
    Among the #latestdigitizedmanuscripts @DigitaVaticana: the badly damaged 10thC copy of Atto of Vercelli's works produced under his supervision.
    Note the bishop's monogram used in the titles & the organised glossing system!
    HT @JBPiggin
    🔗https://t.co/FFdiAoIjQ1 pic.twitter.com/nqZI1gzcp3

    — GiorgiaV (@ParvaVox) December 8, 2018

49. Vat.lat.4323 (Upgraded to HQ), copy of above:

    By the early 17thC, when the Vatican Library acquired Vat. lat. 4322, the #manuscript was already badly damaged. The librarians therefore decided to make a copy of it, which is also among the #latestdigitizedmaanuscripts @DigitaVaticana HT @JBPiggin
    🔗https://t.co/wrKVYIxuG2 pic.twitter.com/YmC15HWY8e

    — GiorgiaV (@ParvaVox) December 9, 2018

50. Vat.lat.4348,
51. Vat.lat.4350,
52. Vat.lat.4355,
53. Vat.lat.4357 (Upgraded to HQ), above, Ars Musice of Augustinus minor. The codex also contains the Breviloquium de virtutibus antiquorum principum et philosophorum of John of Wales, fl. 1257-1283, the Cosmographia of Bernardus Silvestris and De planctu naturae by Alan of Lille.

    So cool! This is a compact way to show a musical mode's two forms: 'authentic' and 'plagal'. "F mode" (Lydian) is the one here, and is either CDEFGABC or FGABCDEF, -- the both contain FGABC so put that in the middle!

    — Mark Janello (@MarkJanello) December 8, 2018

54. Vat.lat.4359,
55. Vat.lat.4365,
56. Vat.lat.4367,
57. Vat.lat.4370,
58. Vat.lat.4374,
59. Vat.lat.4376,
60. Vat.lat.4377,
61. Vat.lat.4380,
62. Vat.lat.4382,
63. Vat.lat.4383,
64. Vat.lat.4386,
65. Vat.lat.4390,
66. Vat.lat.4393,
67. Vat.lat.4395,
68. Vat.lat.4401,
69. Vat.lat.4409,
70. Vat.lat.4788 (Upgraded to HQ),
71. Vat.turc.211,

This is Piggin's Unofficial List number 188. Thanks to @gundormr for harvesting. If you have corrections or additions, please use the comments box below. Follow me on Twitter (@JBPiggin) for news of more additions to DigiVatLib.

Down Time in Goa

The Italian nobleman Pietro della Valle was one of the most remarkable of all Renaissance men: a composer, a linguist, an acute diarist, but also a warrior, a killer, a Romeo and an indomitable wangler of audiences with exotic monarchs.

On an extraordinary, multi-year tourist trip to the furthest lands (with a retinue), he picked up Persian.

In Goa, India, he whiled away some time in 1624 translating the book De tribus coelis of Christoforo Borri from Latin to Persian. What gentlemen do. It contains this diagram of Tycho Brache's compromise scheme for a cosmology: less Ptolemaic but not quite Copernican:

The sun revolves around the earth as it traditionally had, but the planets revolve around the sun. Also shown are the locations of several comets whose courses were calculated to cross the courses of two or more planets, according to Anthony Grafton's Rome Reborn catalog.

The codex, Vat.pers.10, has just been digitized in color by the Vatican Library after only being available in black and white. It is one of 40 items newly digitized this past week. Here is my full list:

1. Barb.lat.4310,

   Barb. lat. 4310 among the #LatestDigitizedManuscripts: Ricette per fare vetri colorati et smaltati d'ogni sorte havuta in #Murano, 1536. 💗 https://t.co/9CaavbTCr5 @comunevenezia pic.twitter.com/lf1j0jk5qZ

   — Digita Vaticana (@DigitaVaticana) November 29, 2018

2. Barb.or.164,
3. Ross.34 (Upgraded to HQ),
4. Vat.gr.1032 (Upgraded to HQ),
5. Vat.lat.3184,
6. Vat.lat.3292,
7. Vat.lat.3473,
8. Vat.lat.4028,
9. Vat.lat.4059,
10. Vat.lat.4077,
11. Vat.lat.4078,
12. Vat.lat.4080, see eTK for incipits "Quoniam huic arti ysagogas prestituimus" and "Quantum huic arti".
13. Vat.lat.4086, works of Roger Bacon, plus extract of Seneca: see Jordanus
14. Vat.lat.4094,
15. Vat.lat.4133,
16. Vat.lat.4151,
17. Vat.lat.4168,
18. Vat.lat.4199,
19. Vat.lat.4214,
20. Vat.lat.4217 (Upgraded to HQ),

    🤓 Do you know what an Atlantic #Bible is❓
    It's a Bible (the complete Vulgate) in a giant format (50/60 x 35/40 cm) produced btw mid-11th and late 12thC in Central #Italy.
    One of them is among the #LatestDitigizedManuscripts @DigitaVaticana
    HT @JBPiggin
    🔗https://t.co/5crmUbVnt6 pic.twitter.com/5Jsq3RZ0Yn

    — GiorgiaV (@ParvaVox) December 3, 2018

21. Vat.lat.4225,
22. Vat.lat.4242 (Upgraded to HQ),

    Someone has been naughty and asks now for forgiveness...
    "I, a scribe and a teacher, looked upon the impudence of a sinneress..."
    Monastic penance in a late 11thC codex from #Nonantola among the #LatestDigitizedManuscripts @DigitaVaticana HT @JBPiggin
    🔗https://t.co/8ZiEM1Rn33 pic.twitter.com/v6gBig7qi6

    — GiorgiaV (@ParvaVox) December 1, 2018

23. Vat.lat.4249 (Upgraded to HQ),
24. Vat.lat.4254,
25. Vat.lat.4258,
26. Vat.lat.4269 (Upgraded to HQ),
27. Vat.lat.4274 (Upgraded to HQ),
28. Vat.lat.4281,
29. Vat.lat.4284,
30. Vat.lat.4288,
31. Vat.lat.4291,
32. Vat.lat.4296,
33. Vat.lat.4304,
34. Vat.lat.4313,
35. Vat.lat.4345,
36. Vat.lat.13320,
37. Vat.pers.10 (Upgraded to HQ), above. Shown in Washington in Rome Reborn exhibition
38. Vat.sir.11,

    Hey buddy! Vat.Sir.11 is a Syriac book of Psalms, with Arabic introduction

    — Tuomas Levänen (@TuomasLevanen) December 1, 2018

39. Vat.sir.529,
40. Vat.sir.560.pt.B (Upgraded to HQ), the more modern section of a famed codex which was donated to the papacy in 1937 by the Syrian-Orthodox Metropolitan of Mosul. The other part of that codex, dating to the 8th or 9th century, which is already online, contains a single folio, 27, with part of a celebrated late-antique collection of Roman law, the Sententiae Syriacae. 

This is Piggin's Unofficial List number 187. Thanks to @gundormr for harvesting. If you have corrections or additions, please use the comments box below. Follow me on Twitter (@JBPiggin) for news of more additions to DigiVatLib.

Biggest Book in the Vatican

The biggest book in the Vatican Library, a celebrated bilingual Hebrew and Aramaic manuscript dated to 1294 and containing the whole Bible, is now online. I will let the Twitter post from @vaticanlibrary tell you why Urb.ebr.1 is so remarkable:

Urb. ebr. 1 is the largest object in terms of thickness (330 mm), and actually the document with the greatest weight (45.7 kilograms) in the entire collection of the Vatican. Now it is fully available online: https://t.co/ZCVrnCT08m pic.twitter.com/LXxfvRTGDV

— Vatican Library (@vaticanlibrary) November 26, 2018

"Fully" available means that previous to this, a murky black-and-white image of Codex Urbinas 1 was the only offering online. A brief description at MBH tells us the codex contains the Tanakh, Masorah with Targum alternating and the Rashi commentary.

Also new online is the first Persian manuscript to have entered the Vatican Library. Written in the cursive "naskhi" script typical of the Middle East, this book dated to 1312 is one of the earliest surviving Persian manuscripts of any part of the Scriptures.

In all, 33 manuscripts arrived on the website of the library last week for all to see:

1. Urb.ebr.1 (Upgraded to HQ), above
2. Vat.gr.1646 (Upgraded to HQ),
3. Vat.lat.1113 (Upgraded to HQ),
4. Vat.lat.1479 (Upgraded to HQ),
5. Vat.lat.2385,
6. Vat.lat.3045,
7. Vat.lat.3169,
8. Vat.lat.3318 (Upgraded to HQ),
9. Vat.lat.3350,
10. Vat.lat.3362,
11. Vat.lat.3422,
12. Vat.lat.3423 (Upgraded to HQ),
13. Vat.lat.4054,
14. Vat.lat.4057,
15. Vat.lat.4148 (Upgraded to HQ),
16. Vat.lat.4154 (Upgraded to HQ),
17. Vat.lat.4201,
18. Vat.lat.4240 (Upgraded to HQ),
19. Vat.lat.4241,
20. Vat.lat.4243,
21. Vat.lat.4246,
22. Vat.lat.4257,
23. Vat.lat.4259,
24. Vat.lat.4298,
25. Vat.lat.4306,
26. Vat.lat.4326,
27. Vat.lat.4333,
28. Vat.lat.4340,
29. Vat.lat.11521,
30. Vat.lat.13363,
31. Vat.mus.538,
32. Vat.pers.4 (Upgraded to HQ), the 1312 Gospel of Matthew in Persian (above), shown in the United States in the Rome Reborn exhibition, the first Persian manuscript to enter the pope's collection. Anthony Grafton wrote: "The page displayed here includes the opening of the text of the Gospel of Matthew", though surely this is the ending thereof:
    
33. Vat.sir.560.pt.A (Upgraded to HQ),

In addition, the Vatican Library online portal has added eight books which had already been online in color from Heidelberg University Library, Germany:

1. Pal.lat.656,
2. Pal.lat.657,
3. Pal.lat.660,
4. Pal.lat.662,
5. Pal.lat.663,
6. Pal.lat.664,
7. Pal.lat.665,
8. Pal.lat.666,

This is Piggin's Unofficial List number 186. Thanks to @gundormr for harvesting. If you have corrections or additions, please use the comments box below. Follow me on Twitter (@JBPiggin) for news of more additions to DigiVatLib.

Layer Upon Layer

For about 700 years, an epic poem in Latin about the Roman civil war between Julius Caesar and the forces of the Roman Senate led by Pompey the Great provided the key introduction to students in western Europe to the themes of war and politics. Pharsalia or De Bello Civili was constantly studied and commented on.

My own interest in the matter revolves around the diagrams often attached to manuscripts of the poem, and the vexed question of who devised the diagrams and when. (Spoiler alert:) it wasn't Lucan. Perhaps it was a late antique grammaticus. Here's a sample from Cod. 370 at the Burgerbibliothek Bern.

In other Lucan manuscripts without diagrams, layer upon layer of commentary was added. The manuscript Vat.lat.3284 contains both the text of Lucan’s DBC and level after level of exegesis by different hands over a long period.

Alessio Mancini of Kiel notes in a newly published paper on it: "The most recent hand, in particular, supplies a true full-scale commentary to Lucan’s text, and has been ascribed by Mariagrazia Antonetti to an unknown humanist close to the members of the Accademia Romana." But Mancini sees "massive use of the recollectae to Lucan written by Benvenuto da Imola." He instead traces the last layer of glosses to Ferrara in the first decades of the 15th century.

That manuscript has just been digitized by the Vatican Library, along with 41 other treasures in the past week. The full list:

1. Ross.21,
2. Ross.37,
3. Vat.lat.2353,
4. Vat.lat.2407,
5. Vat.lat.3221 (Upgraded to HQ),
6. Vat.lat.3284,

   Vat. lat. 3284 (11th cent.): Bellum civile, Lucanus (ff. 2-113v); Glosulae super Lucanum (11th, 12th/13th, 14th, 15th cent.)#LatestDigitizedManuscripts - https://t.co/UxkGsaqtnp pic.twitter.com/ybzRK8FIgx

   — Digita Vaticana (@DigitaVaticana) November 16, 2018

7. Vat.lat.3345,

   Translator Georg of Trebizond justifies his choice to translate συσσίτιον as concibatio in a long gloss in the margin of Plato's Laws. Seen in @JBPiggin's list of MSS @DigitaVaticana.https://t.co/Ogf0fFlgv8 pic.twitter.com/C4PQMCpEJP

   — Pieter Beullens (@LatinAristotle) November 18, 2018

8. Vat.lat.3363 (Upgraded to HQ),

   Among the #latestdigitizedmanuscripts from @DigitaVaticana also this 9thC copy of Boethius' Consolatio: copied in the Loire region, annotated by a late 9thC Welsh scribe and glossed in 10thC England!
   One to match the #BLAngloSaxons mss!
   HT @JBPiggin
   🔗https://t.co/FC1ZNHmyd3 pic.twitter.com/wQxsT98q5G

   — GiorgiaV (@ParvaVox) November 19, 2018

9. Vat.lat.3401,
10. Vat.lat.3421,

    Another fascinating codex among the #latestdigitizedmanuscripts @DigitaVaticana : a beautiful 10thC copy of Sidonius Apollinaris' works owned by 3 Italian humanists and used to prepare the 16thC editions of the late antique poet's Opera.
    HT @JBPiggin
    🔗https://t.co/oL86lx2aDi pic.twitter.com/3znVpoOCOv

    — GiorgiaV (@ParvaVox) November 26, 2018

11. Vat.lat.3936,
12. Vat.lat.3954 (Upgraded to HQ), a 1475 inventory of the pope's library, described for the Rome Reborn exhibition as one of the oldest surviving catalogs of the library. It has the signature of the compiler, Bartolomeo Platina, on fol. 76 and uses classification by subject, author, and title.
    
13. Vat.lat.4004,
14. Vat.lat.4025,
15. Vat.lat.4037.pt.1 (Upgraded to HQ), speeches and letters of Bessarion, with some scientific texts included. Jordanus lists an anonymous mathematical text.
16. Vat.lat.4073,
17. Vat.lat.4076,
18. Vat.lat.4079 (Upgraded to HQ),
19. Vat.lat.4084, a 14th century compilation of 11 Arabic (Alhandreus, etc), Aristotelean and other astronomical/mathematical texts. See Jordanus and eTK. Here is a fine zodiac diagram:
    
20. Vat.lat.4115 (Upgraded to HQ),
21. Vat.lat.4122,
22. Vat.lat.4123,
23. Vat.lat.4129,
24. Vat.lat.4130,
25. Vat.lat.4131,
26. Vat.lat.4138,
27. Vat.lat.4141 (Upgraded to HQ),
28. Vat.lat.4155,
29. Vat.lat.4156 (Upgraded to HQ),
30. Vat.lat.4172,
31. Vat.lat.4174,
32. Vat.lat.4178.pt.1,
33. Vat.lat.4191,
34. Vat.lat.4211,
35. Vat.lat.4213,
36. Vat.lat.4236,
37. Vat.lat.4237,
38. Vat.lat.4283,
39. Vat.lat.4295,
40. Vat.lat.4318,
41. Vat.lat.4320,
42. Vat.lat.4341,

There are also 28 items which have long been online in Heidelberg and have now joined the Vatican portal too:

1. Pal.lat.608.pt.1 (Upgraded to HQ),
2. Pal.lat.616,
3. Pal.lat.619,
4. Pal.lat.626,
5. Pal.lat.627,
6. Pal.lat.628,
7. Pal.lat.630,
8. Pal.lat.631,
9. Pal.lat.632,
10. Pal.lat.633,
11. Pal.lat.634,
12. Pal.lat.637,
13. Pal.lat.638,
14. Pal.lat.639,
15. Pal.lat.640,
16. Pal.lat.642,
17. Pal.lat.644,
18. Pal.lat.645,
19. Pal.lat.646,
20. Pal.lat.647 (Upgraded to HQ),
21. Pal.lat.648,
22. Pal.lat.650,
23. Pal.lat.651,
24. Pal.lat.652,
25. Pal.lat.654,
26. Pal.lat.655,
27. Pal.lat.658 (Upgraded to HQ),
28. Pal.lat.661,

This is Piggin's Unofficial List number 185. Thanks to @gundormr for harvesting. If you have corrections or additions, please use the comments box below. Follow me on Twitter (@JBPiggin) for news of more additions to DigiVatLib.

Endpapers

Endpapers and flyleaves are always worth a look when a Vatican manuscript arrives online. One item this week, a 14th-century book of canon law, has been bound up in wrecked bits of a 12th-century copy of the Legenda Aurea of Jacobus de Voragine.

Used parchment cost nothing, and libraries always had stocks of worn-out books.

This Sancto Sebastiano text, if you need it, is at Intratext.

In all, 13 manuscripts were new this week:

1. Ross.24, 
   
2. Vat.lat.2379,
3. Vat.lat.2382, Galen and Hippocrates
4. Vat.lat.2383, Galen in Latin
5. Vat.lat.3395, already flagged by DigitaVaticana:

   Un Volume di raccolta de' Luoghi sopra le cose Romane among the #LatestDigitizedManuscripts - Moenia, Portae, Colles, Fora.
   Vat. lat. 3395: https://t.co/b9WKNZueqC pic.twitter.com/Y1mlf8a1jP

   — Digita Vaticana (@DigitaVaticana) November 9, 2018

6. Vat.lat.3988, a 14th-century book of Constitutiones of the popes, with leaves from a 12th-century Legenda Aurea as endpapers (Dolezalek catalog).
7. Vat.lat.4027 (Upgraded to HQ),
8. Vat.lat.4176, church history, with acta of Council of Constance?
9. Vat.lat.4179,
10. Vat.lat.4196, a heavily annotated study of the Book of Leviticus
11. Vat.lat.4209, similar to above, the Epistles, starting with Corinthians
    
12. Vat.lat.4248 (Upgraded to HQ),
13. Vat.lat.4262,

There are also ten items which have been online in Heidelberg and have now joined the Vatican portal too:

1. Pal.lat.608.pt.2 (Upgraded to HQ),
2. Pal.lat.612,
3. Pal.lat.613,
4. Pal.lat.614,
5. Pal.lat.615,
6. Pal.lat.618,
7. Pal.lat.621,
8. Pal.lat.623,
9. Pal.lat.624,
10. Pal.lat.625,

    #LatestDigitizedManuscripts - Arbores consanguinitatis et affinitatis Iohannis Teutonici in Pal. lat. 625 (12th-13th c.): Decretum Gratiani cum Glossa ordinaria Iohannis Friburgensis et Iohannis Teutonici et additionibus Bartholomaei Brixiensis 🌲 https://t.co/4zanaL98YB pic.twitter.com/sDyaqqA1kM

    — Digita Vaticana (@DigitaVaticana) November 8, 2018

This is Piggin's Unofficial List number 184. Thanks to @gundormr for harvesting. If you have corrections or additions, please use the comments box below. Follow me on Twitter (@JBPiggin) for news of more additions to DigiVatLib.

Mind's Eye Has Been Published

When were family-tree diagrams invented? My new book, Mind's Eye: How One Ancient Latin Invented Our Way to Visualize Stories, uncovers the progenitor of today's graphic timelines and trees in an ancient three-meter-wide chart of history.

Hidden in plain sight, the Great Stemma -- a Roman masterpiece -- has never been honored at book length before.

The Great Stemma was not only a vast visual abstraction of the march of time from Creation as far as the birth of Jesus Christ, but also marked a swerve in civilization towards exploiting our visual perception as an extra tool for thinking.

I argue that diagrams and visual displays exploit the computing power of human vision to short-cut our reasoning tasks. Cognitive science is only now able to grasp what a major shift in human culture this was. My research places that creative leap in the ancient world.

I foreshadowed Mind's Eye two years ago (when the book's working title was "Expositor" and I was still following up some loose ends in the inquiry). Since then, I have added some great cover art (the theme comes from Neptune's Necklace, a wondrous seaweed from the South Pacific) and converted the manuscript to e-book format. A print version may follow.

Here's the link which leads to stores where you can buy Mind's Eye at a low introductory price: https://books2read.com/PigginMindsEye (to which I add a modest plea: buy from one of the non-Kindle stores, where the price to you is the same, but I get a bigger royalty!)

Mind's Eye can be read rapidly, by skimming the 117 illustrations and checking out the QR links. Or it can be savored as an 88,000-word narrative in which I narrate how I brought this neglected graphic to light.

We Love Geography

Last month I gave a paper at the Kartographiehistorisches Colloquium, and was surprised that more than 100 people were waiting in Friedenstein Palace in Gotha, Germany to listen. Geography and its paraphernalia fascinate a lot of people.

That feeling seems to have taken hold back in the 15th century, when Italian nobles began spending insane amounts of money to own their own Geographies of Ptolemy.

The Vatican Library has just digitized Vat.lat.3810, volume one of a two-volume luxury edition dating from about 1470. Anthony Grafton wrote when this was displayed in the United States:

By the middle of the century increasingly opulent manuscripts of the Geography had become fashionable as conspicuous displays of wealth; and travellers and explorers as well as scholars read them.

Now it has to said that Ptolemy is not light reading, for any of the above. Most of his book is a directory of places with latitudes and longitudes, like the coast of Puglia here:

About as interesting as tide tables or the phone book. The real reason that this gorgeous book was commissioned was for the maps by Nicholas Germanus, which are in the previously released Vat.lat.3811, and these would make any of my historical cartography friends drool with pleasure:

This week's digitizations are few in number, but perhaps there is a rush in store for us. Here is the list of 17:

1. Ross.86.pt.1,
2. Vat.lat.2339,
3. Vat.lat.2358,
4. Vat.lat.2869,
5. Vat.lat.2979,

   Intricate red penwork in and around this E. From another MS of Aristotle's logical works & Boethius' commentaries @DigitaVaticana, found in the latest list by @JBPiggin.https://t.co/WIwPbAg3HP pic.twitter.com/dxTh7aHnom

   — Pieter Beullens (@LatinAristotle) November 4, 2018

6. Vat.lat.3035, Logic of Paulus Pergulensis, see Jordanus. With this fine Porphyrian Tree: 
   
7. Vat.lat.3737,

   Need some help with your rhetoric homework? Don't worry Vat. lat. 3737 is now among the #LatestDigitizedManuscript
   
   "La Retorica di Aristotele ridutta in Arbori" - https://t.co/Q8ZfyRC7zE pic.twitter.com/ooo63kZTX3

   — Digita Vaticana (@DigitaVaticana) October 30, 2018

8. Vat.lat.3810 (Upgraded to HQ), Geography of Ptolemy (above)
9. Vat.lat.4018,
10. Vat.lat.4157,
11. Vat.lat.4159,

    🔔Newly digitised early #medieval #manuscript🔔
    A pocket-size, tidy & reader-friendly lawbook feat. a widely popular collection of #Carolingian capitularies (Collectio Ansegisi). Copied in the 2nd half of the 9thC in Frankish territories.
    HT @JBPiggin
    🔗https://t.co/KPCSuIhboc pic.twitter.com/RcVUx1Hn2Q

    — GiorgiaV (@ParvaVox) November 5, 2018

12. Vat.lat.4161,
13. Vat.lat.4163,
14. Vat.lat.4166,
15. Vat.lat.4190,
16. Vat.lat.4226,
17. Vat.lat.13362,

Five more items already online at Heidelberg now at Vatican too:

1. Pal.lat.571,
2. Pal.lat.572 (Upgraded to HQ),
3. Pal.lat.603 (Upgraded to HQ),
4. Pal.lat.606 (Upgraded to HQ),
5. Pal.lat.609,

This is Piggin's Unofficial List number 183. Thanks to @gundormr for harvesting. If you have corrections or additions, please use the comments box below. Follow me on Twitter (@JBPiggin) for news of more additions to DigiVatLib.