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.