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.