Textual Errors in Old Bibles

Modern literary scholarship has its roots in the painstaking work of medieval clergy to eliminate mutations in the text of the Bible. The Vatican Library has just digitized one of the great monuments of this rich scholarly past, the Correctorium Vaticanum, Vat.lat.3466.

This 13th-century compilation is by a Franciscan, Guillelmus Lamarensis, born about 1230. He is believed to have been an Englishman, so he may well have gone by the name William Delamare (see CERL). His work is introduced in Hasting's Dictionary of the Bible.

The corrector was expert in Greek and Hebrew and devoted himself to the hunt for instances where the 13th century text was did not correctly reproduce the fifth-century Latin Vulgate translation by Jerome of Stridon. Such a project may have consumed much of his lifetime.

Last week 69 new manuscripts became available. Here is the full list:

1. Barb.gr.411,
2. Borg.ind.33,
3. P.I.O.5,
4. Ross.11,
5. Ross.15,
6. Vat.gr.1249,
7. Vat.lat.901, "Amabile est a melioribus persuaderi ...", author Jacobus de Alexandria. See eTK
8. Vat.lat.1548 (Upgraded to HQ), "Annus solaris qui magnus sepe vocatur...", (12c); .author Manfred. See eTK
9. Vat.lat.1912,
10. Vat.lat.2928,
11. Vat.lat.2952,
12. Vat.lat.2955,
13. Vat.lat.2956,
14. Vat.lat.2961,
15. Vat.lat.3040 (Upgraded to HQ),
16. Vat.lat.3458,
17. Vat.lat.3466, Correctorim Vaticanum, see above
18. Vat.lat.3468.pt.1, the other half of Ramon Llull's Arbor Scientiae, see last week's post.
19. Vat.lat.3478,
20. Vat.lat.3503,
21. Vat.lat.3509.pt.2,
22. Vat.lat.3517,
23. Vat.lat.3519,
24. Vat.lat.3522.pt.1,
25. Vat.lat.3522.pt.2,
26. Vat.lat.3524.pt.2,
27. Vat.lat.3525,
28. Vat.lat.3527,
29. Vat.lat.3535,
30. Vat.lat.3538,
31. Vat.lat.3546,
32. Vat.lat.3547 (Upgraded to HQ),
33. Vat.lat.3551 (Upgraded to HQ),
34. Vat.lat.3562,
35. Vat.lat.3566,
36. Vat.lat.3568 (Upgraded to HQ),
37. Vat.lat.3577,
38. Vat.lat.3578,
39. Vat.lat.3579,
40. Vat.lat.3582,
41. Vat.lat.3583,
42. Vat.lat.3593,
43. Vat.lat.3598,
44. Vat.lat.3600,
45. Vat.lat.3606,
46. Vat.lat.3610,
47. Vat.lat.3613,
48. Vat.lat.3615 (Upgraded to HQ),
49. Vat.lat.3618,
50. Vat.lat.3626,
51. Vat.lat.3634, Martirium pariter et gesta, the awful story of Ferdinand the Holy Prince, a Portuguese royal who was sent to Morocco as a hostage and died in captivity after his compatriots refused to pay up as promised.
    
52. Vat.lat.3637,
53. Vat.lat.3641,
54. Vat.lat.3656,
55. Vat.lat.3670,
56. Vat.lat.3673,
57. Vat.lat.3678,
58. Vat.lat.3679,
59. Vat.lat.3680,
60. Vat.lat.3693,
61. Vat.lat.3699,
62. Vat.lat.3700,
63. Vat.lat.3701,
64. Vat.lat.3702,
65. Vat.lat.3704,
66. Vat.lat.3707,
67. Vat.lat.3714, "Quem veritas virtus et scientia ubique...", author Barnabas de Riatinis. See eTK

    Nel Compendium de naturis et proprietatibus alimentorum, Barnaba da Reggio elenca, tra l'altro, i vari tipi di pasta consumati nel Centro Nord nel XIV secolo 😍#LatestDigitizedManuscripts 🍝 https://t.co/GS0xLdEA7S pic.twitter.com/tgMAnlU47F

    — Digita Vaticana (@DigitaVaticana) July 26, 2018

68. Vat.lat.3728,
69. Vat.lat.7194 (Upgraded to HQ),

This is Piggin's Unofficial List number 171. 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.

Tree of Science

Among the most creative ideas to emerge from the mind of the Catalan philosopher and logician Ramon Llull was the "tree of science". Llull, who was born about 1232, wrote this mature work in Rome between 1295 and 1296. The Tree of Science (Arbre de la ciència, Arbor Scientiae) explores the generality of science, ars magna, for the non-university reader.

Llull's trees are not true networks but simply rely on a teaching analogy that had become popular in the preceding 13th century: the comparison with an organism, in which each science is represented by a tree with roots, trunk, branches, leaves and fruits. It is perhaps not a surprise that the comparison mixes with the idea of Christ's cross as a tree. Here is a drawing on fol 266r:

The roots represent the basic principles of each science; the trunk is the structure; the branches, the genres; the leaves, the species; and the fruits, the individual, his/her acts and his/her finalities (Wikipedia). The 16 trees in the work have been described as an "encyclopaedic grove".

The Vatican Library's copy dates from 1428 and is bound in two volumes. The first has been online for a while, and the second part came online last week and opens with the incipit, In desolatione et fletibus stans Raymundus sub quadam arbore.  The electronic Thorndike and Kibre (eTK) adds that the title first appeared in print at Barcelona in 1482.

Last week's digitizations also include several items in Beneventan script and a selection of law texts:

1. Barb.lat.3808,
2. Chig.R.VIII.62,
3. Ross.9,
4. Vat.gr.1298.pt.1 (Upgraded to HQ),
5. Vat.ind.20,
6. Vat.ind.43 (Upgraded to HQ),
7. Vat.ind.44 (Upgraded to HQ),
8. Vat.ind.46 (Upgraded to HQ),
9. Vat.lat.2136 (Upgraded to HQ),
10. Vat.lat.2267,
11. Vat.lat.2280 (Upgraded to HQ),  Huguccio, Summa Decreti (1ra- 248rb; 256ra-370vb); Johannes de Deo, Continuatio Summae Huguccionis [Cause 23-26] (371ra-388rb)
12. Vat.lat.2291, Baldus, Lectura in Codicem [I] (1ra-118rb)
13. Vat.lat.2292, Baldus, Lectura in Codicem [VI] (1ra-335vb)
14. Vat.lat.2294,
15. Vat.lat.2317 (Upgraded to HQ),
16. Vat.lat.2500,
17. Vat.lat.2556, Panormitanus, Apparatus on the Decretales [X 3]
18. Vat.lat.2675,
19. Vat.lat.2720,
20. Vat.lat.2920 (Upgraded to HQ),
21. Vat.lat.2927,
22. Vat.lat.2958,
23. Vat.lat.2977,

    Another copy of Aristotle's logical works in the newest list of @DigitaVaticana by @JBPiggin. Initial with teacher and students coming out of a knight's mouth...https://t.co/b6b4220D3g pic.twitter.com/2rWloLZBwt

    — Pieter Beullens (@LatinAristotle) July 25, 2018

24. Vat.lat.3183,
25. Vat.lat.3353 (Upgraded to HQ),

    Angelo Colocci, Renaissance humanist, collector of antiquities, friend of Raphael, was born #OnThisDay in 1474. The Vatican Library houses a lot of manuscripts that had once belonged to him. Vat. lat. 3388 e Vat. lat. 3353 are now among the #LatestDigitizedManuscripts👓🔎📚🏛️📜 pic.twitter.com/SvWhgS1pA0

    — Digita Vaticana (@DigitaVaticana) July 24, 2018

26. Vat.lat.3380,
27. Vat.lat.3388 (Upgraded to HQ), Angelo Colocci, see @DigitaVatican tweet above
28. Vat.lat.3402 (Upgraded to HQ),
29. Vat.lat.3406,
30. Vat.lat.3428,
31. Vat.lat.3444,
32. Vat.lat.3453 (Upgraded to HQ),
33. Vat.lat.3457.pt.1,
34. Vat.lat.3468.pt.2, Llull (above)
35. Vat.lat.3471,
36. Vat.lat.3472,
37. Vat.lat.3480,
38. Vat.lat.3484,
39. Vat.lat.3487,
40. Vat.lat.3489,
41. Vat.lat.3490,
42. Vat.lat.3494,
43. Vat.lat.3495,
44. Vat.lat.3496,
45. Vat.lat.3502,
46. Vat.lat.3505,
47. Vat.lat.3507,
48. Vat.lat.3512,
49. Vat.lat.3539, a late 11th century Beneventan script item noticed by Lowe: Sulpicius Severus, Vita S. Martini; Caesarius, Homiliae; Basilius, Regula, etc.
    
50. Vat.lat.3542,
51. Vat.lat.3544,
52. Vat.lat.3549, another late 11th century Beneventan script item noticed by Lowe: Cassianus, Collationes.
53. Vat.lat.3563,
54. Vat.lat.3567 (Upgraded to HQ),
55. Vat.lat.3569,
56. Vat.lat.3585,
57. Vat.lat.3589,
58. Vat.lat.3590,
59. Vat.lat.3605,
60. Vat.lat.3607,
61. Vat.lat.3609 (Upgraded to HQ),
62. Vat.lat.3623,
63. Vat.lat.3628,
64. Vat.lat.3629,
65. Vat.lat.3643,
66. Vat.lat.3644,
67. Vat.lat.3650,
68. Vat.lat.3652,
69. Vat.lat.3662,
70. Vat.lat.3691,

This is Piggin's Unofficial List number 170. 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.

Diocletian and the Goats

Was the Emperor Diocletian of Rome a former Egyptian goat-herd? That is apparently what many Copts believed. This claim features in a Coptic manuscript just digitized at the Vatican Library, Vat.copt.65, which relates the life of Saint Theodore of Shwtp (or Saint Theodore the General), who was burned alive between 305 and 310 CE in Pontus in modern-day Turkey.

The contents of the 14th-century manuscript are discussed in detail by Dioscorus Boles on his blog. Among the interesting aspects are the story's allegation of Roman racism towards Egyptians and the practice of press-ganging Egyptians for Roman military service. Shwtp, in case you are asking, is town in Egypt.

Last week 26 manuscripts were released online. Here is my full list:

1. Barb.lat.3996,
2. Reg.lat.1350,
3. Vat.ar.52 (Upgraded to HQ),
4. Vat.copt.65 (Upgraded to HQ),
5. Vat.copt.66 (Upgraded to HQ),
6. Vat.copt.67 (Upgraded to HQ),
7. Vat.gr.1702 (Upgraded to HQ),
8. Vat.lat.2286, Bartolus de Saxoferrato 1314-1357 wrote this legal commentary: Lectura in primam partem Digesti Infortiati and Lectura super secunda parte Digesti novi. This is a 15th century copy.
9. Vat.lat.2311,
10. Vat.lat.3299,
11. Vat.lat.3404,
12. Vat.lat.3424, Ermolao Barbaro or Hermolaus Barbarus (1454-1493): letters to Jacopo Antiquario, seemingly attacking a book, Cornucopia, by his fellow humanist Nicolo Perotti. See eTK.
13. Vat.lat.3433,
14. Vat.lat.3440,
15. Vat.lat.3442,
16. Vat.lat.3457.pt.2,
17. Vat.lat.3465, a panegyric of Thomas Aquinas. This Renaissance codex and others in the range were originally possessions of Antonio Carafa (1538-91), Vatican librarian.
    
18. Vat.lat.3477,
19. Vat.lat.3485,
20. Vat.lat.3488,
21. Vat.lat.3491,
22. Vat.lat.3497,
23. Vat.lat.3504,
24. Vat.lat.3509.pt.1,
25. Vat.lat.3536,
26. Vat.lat.8866,

This is Piggin's Unofficial List number 169. 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.

Precious Scraps

Western manuscripts from the fifth century are so rare that even two torn fragments from a book are objects of excitement. In the past few days, the Vatican Library has digitized and placed online its fragments of the Historiae of Sallust, Reg.lat.1283.pt.B, where the text is written in rustic capitals on both sides of the parchment:

They are thought to be from a codex scribed in Italy. It was torn up to be used as bookbinding material in about 700 CE at a great early medieval center of learning, Fleury Abbey in France. The new codex, itself a great treasure, was acquired centuries later by the wealthy and erudite collector Queen Christina of Sweden and ended up at the Vatican.

Elisabeth Pellegrin says parchment from the same Sallust text was found in Orleans ms 192 and Berlin lat. Q 364. This is the only text of the Historiae from before 1000 CE to survive, according to Richard Matthew Pollard and indeed the work is only known incompletely.

The two fragments, framed on sheets of conservation parchment, are among 42 items released in the past week. The full list:

1. Ott.lat.1475,
2. Reg.lat.1283.pt.B, (above). Part A is already online
3. Urb.lat.1304,
4. Urb.lat.1641,
5. Vat.copt.64 (Upgraded to HQ),
6. Vat.et.75,
7. Vat.gr.216 (Upgraded to HQ),
8. Vat.gr.245 (Upgraded to HQ),
9. Vat.gr.711 (Upgraded to HQ),
10. Vat.gr.807 (Upgraded to HQ),
11. Vat.gr.1027,
12. Vat.gr.1040 (Upgraded to HQ),
13. Vat.gr.2283,
14. Vat.gr.2599,
15. Vat.ind.38, Christian prayers in Tamil, written on palm leaves in southern India in the 16th or 17th century.
    
    Anthony Grafton writes:
    While inspecting the famous Palatine Library of Heidelberg, confiscated as spoil of war by Maximilian I, Elector of Bavaria, and presented to Pope Gregory XV in 1623, the papal librarian Allacci wrote Cardinal Ludovisi that amongst the notable objects was "a mass of palm leaves" ("uno mazzo di palme") whose language and content he did not know. It was a small collection of Christian prayers in Tamil entitled "Tamil mantiram" (Tamil prayers), which could be either the work of missionaries of the Counter-Reformation or an older composition from the ancient Christian communities in South India. The accompanying note, of unknown date, labels it as "carmina in lingua japanica" (songs in the Japanese language), which shows the difficulty of identifying works in "exotic" scripts before the additional growth of Oriental studies in the nineteenth century.
16. Vat.lat.369,
17. Vat.lat.3272,
18. Vat.lat.3312,
19. Vat.lat.3347,
20. Vat.lat.3378 (Upgraded to HQ),
21. Vat.lat.3384 (Upgraded to HQ),
22. Vat.lat.3397,
23. Vat.lat.3399,

    Niccolò Perotti's invective against Georges of Trebizond & laudatory letter to Bessarion @DigitaVaticana & listed by @JBPiggin.https://t.co/Tu2TW6zlfb pic.twitter.com/jhrbyPFni7

    — Pieter Beullens (@LatinAristotle) July 9, 2018

24. Vat.lat.3400,
25. Vat.lat.3408,
26. Vat.lat.3413,
27. Vat.lat.3414,
28. Vat.lat.3417 (Upgraded to HQ),
29. Vat.lat.3425,

    Vat. lat. 3425 (13th C.) - Iulius Firmicus Maternus (4th cent.), Matheseos libri VIII; Urb. lat. 1304 (16th C.) - Christophorus Clavius (1538-1612), Expositio In Sphaera Ioan. de Sacro Bosco. #astronomy #LatestDigitizedManuscripts🔭https://t.co/9rhOwPnZvVhttps://t.co/WztCtDYSHD pic.twitter.com/6oCvajhGhE

    — Digita Vaticana (@DigitaVaticana) July 5, 2018

30. Vat.lat.3427,
31. Vat.lat.3434,
32. Vat.lat.3445,
33. Vat.lat.3447.pt.1,
34. Vat.lat.3447.pt.2,
35. Vat.lat.3448,
36. Vat.lat.3450,

    Vat. lat. 3450: "Facezie raccolte dal Colozio in varie carte messe insieme di mano sua". Raccolta di facezie, Angelo Colocci (1474 - 1549). #LatestDigitizedManuscripts - https://t.co/wgAxY13Tne pic.twitter.com/1EVEX4W74j

    — Digita Vaticana (@DigitaVaticana) July 4, 2018

37. Vat.lat.3452,
38. Vat.lat.3469,
39. Vat.lat.3486,
40. Vat.lat.3511,
41. Vat.lat.3555,
42. Vat.lat.11218, letters of Pope Gregory XV (1612)

This is Piggin's Unofficial List number 168. 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.

Leto Lecture

You settle into your seat and await the arrival of the lecturer, Pomponius Leto, perhaps the most famous university professor in 15th century Rome. His classics lecture today is about Varro, replete with mentions of ruined things you often see on your walks in the city.

You have been tasked with writing up the lecture for the rest of the class. Your blotted jottings will be transferred to a clean notebook after each class in the series.

How surprised you would be to hear that the notes, after you have polished them up, will be flown to the United States (where?) in the 1990s for the great Rome Reborn exhibition and will be re-digitized in color and high quality by the Vatican Library in 2018 so that even people in New Zealand (where?) will be able to see every shiver of your quill.

Anthony Grafton comments: "The student who copied this manuscript had a lively talent for drawing, seen here in his sketches of the Baths of Diocletian. As a whole the lectures show the rich way in which Roman texts and antiquities illuminated each other in the interdisciplinary scholarship of the Roman humanists."

There's a detailed online description of the notebook in the St Louis microfilm library catalog. Grafton's catalog has the wrong folio reference to the image above, but page through the digitization and enjoy the other quick sketches made in 1484 or thereabouts.

Only four Vatican manuscripts were released online last week. They were:

• Chig.A.IV.70,
• Vat.lat.2871,
• Vat.lat.3415 (Upgraded to HQ) (above)

  In 1484 Pomponio Leto lectured on Varro De lingua Latina.
  Browse the notes taken by Pomponio's students during his lessons in Vat. lat. 3415! #LatestDigitizedManuscripts - https://t.co/fmqel1FHzt pic.twitter.com/QZd7iMlLWs

  — Digita Vaticana (@DigitaVaticana) June 26, 2018

• Vat.lat.3430,

  'De fato et fortuna' by Coluccio Salutati (1331 - 1406), great political and cultural leader of the #Renaissance, in Vat. lat. 3430 (15th cent., first half), #LatestDigitizedManuscripts - https://t.co/R3QjbIGi1n pic.twitter.com/H5QHDboy2n

  — Digita Vaticana (@DigitaVaticana) June 27, 2018

This is Piggin's Unofficial List number 167. 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.

Peek-a-Boo

We all like peek-a-boo pictures and this one from the 13th century is quite elegant. It shows a lady shyly peeking at a suitor (out of sight past the bird) and considering the weighty question of whether they are compatible without breaking the rules of incest.

It appears at fol. CCVIIr of Vat.lat.2671, a codex of law which has just been digitized at the Vatican Library. The book is the Summa super titulis decretalium of Goffred de Trano, compiled between 1241 and 1243 and this is a copy from just a generation later, scribed 1270/80, perhaps in Puglia, Italy. The image is part of an arbor, a scheme of forbidden in-law unions.

Goffred, according to Hermann Schadt passim, is the first to propose that this diagram is a tree: "Et quia in qualibet arbore, fructifera et naturali, quattuor, attendunt, truncus, rami, fructus et frondes. Et in hac arbore scripta eadem considerari oportet." Far fetched, as these matrices don't really look anything like trees, but the artist obediently paints a bird and a big frondy leaf.

On another folio, CCIVv, is the other model for the matrix, the placard-carrying man. Here is the head:

.. and here are the feet:

At first sight I thought that little face in the middle, like a joey in a kangaroo pouch, was the holder of the placard. In fact, look at for a while and you might even see a hang-glider here :-)  

 In all, 53 books were digitized last week, and here is the full list:

1. Barb.gr.388,
2. Barb.gr.392,
3. Borg.ind.62,
4. Chig.E.VIII.251 (Upgraded to HQ),

   New @DigitaVaticana: Michael Scot's translation of Aristotle's De Animalibus & Avicenna's Abbreviation - HT @JBPiggin https://t.co/eOcgyfDaLN
   According to @erik_kwakkel the correction of this MS was supervised by Scot himself.https://t.co/TPcOXWOkCZ pic.twitter.com/RVVLgaMac3

   — Pieter Beullens (@LatinAristotle) June 26, 2018

5. Ott.lat.2048 (Upgraded to HQ),

   Another important MS for Aristoteles Latinus in @JBPiggin's list from @DigitaVaticana : the unique copy of a Latin translation from Arabic of Aristotle's Metaphysica A1.https://t.co/ipEzCBYWq0 pic.twitter.com/apoDmN39QM

   — Pieter Beullens (@LatinAristotle) June 26, 2018

6. Ott.lat.3375,
7. Vat.copt.111,
8. Vat.lat.2247,
9. Vat.lat.2253,
10. Vat.lat.2285,
11. Vat.lat.2289,
12. Vat.lat.2290 (Upgraded to HQ),
13. Vat.lat.2393,
14. Vat.lat.2671 (above)
15. Vat.lat.2804,
16. Vat.lat.2818,
17. Vat.lat.3175,
18. Vat.lat.3185, the Ars Notoria, a book of magic, which was first mentioned by Michael Scot in 1236 and thus was written earlier. Lots of diagrams in this 14th or 15th century copy:
    
    See the eTK. The incipit, Ego Apollonius magister artium merito nuncupatus, apparently refers to the supposed (but most unlikely) author, Apollonius of Tyana
19. Vat.lat.3239,
20. Vat.lat.3243,
21. Vat.lat.3250,
22. Vat.lat.3268,
23. Vat.lat.3335,
24. Vat.lat.3338,
25. Vat.lat.3339,
26. Vat.lat.3343, Solinus, listed in: Milham, Mary E. 'A Handlist of the Manuscripts of C. Julius Solinus.' Scriptorium, 37 (1983), 128.

    Manuscripts travelled in many ways, also as spoils of war: this beautiful #Carolingian compilation of #Roman #geography & #history was acquired by Napoleon during his Italian campaigns & retrieved only after the fall of the French Emperor
    HT @JBPiggin
    ➡️https://t.co/0x3FAyqQRN pic.twitter.com/FwB0XpKfdB

    — GiorgiaV (@ParvaVox) June 26, 2018

27. Vat.lat.3346,
28. Vat.lat.3348,
29. Vat.lat.3349 (Upgraded to HQ),
30. Vat.lat.3365,
31. Vat.lat.3368 (Upgraded to HQ),
32. Vat.lat.3371 (Upgraded to HQ),
33. Vat.lat.3372 (Upgraded to HQ),
34. Vat.lat.3376,
35. Vat.lat.3377,
36. Vat.lat.3379,
37. Vat.lat.3381,
38. Vat.lat.3382,
39. Vat.lat.3385 (Upgraded to HQ),
40. Vat.lat.3392,
41. Vat.lat.3405,
42. Vat.lat.3412,
43. Vat.lat.3418,
44. Vat.lat.3419 (Upgraded to HQ),
45. Vat.lat.3426 (Upgraded to HQ), medical, eTK lists incipit: Ostendendum est diligenter quod humana corpora et animalium sunt;  mutabili et instabili (11th century)

    Thanks again for these weekly notices of @DigitaVaticana images. This week in medicine, the previously scanned microfilm for Vat. lat. 3426 is now replaced w/ full-color scans. A handsome copy of the late antique trans & comm of the Hippocratic #Aphorisms: https://t.co/aJkOt9IPrj pic.twitter.com/VmjsMfssUk

    — Monica H Green (@monicaMedHist) June 27, 2018

46. Vat.lat.3435,
47. Vat.lat.3443,
48. Vat.lat.3446,
49. Vat.lat.3449,
50. Vat.lat.3461,
51. Vat.lat.3470,
52. Vat.lat.11817,
53. Vat.lat.13895,

This is Piggin's Unofficial List number 166. 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.

The Islands

A remarkable 10th-century manuscript from southern Italy, perhaps from Monte Cassino, reveals  some of the first tender shoots of medieval illustration. Vat.lat.3342, just digitized by the Vatican Library, is a copy of Solinus's Collectanea rerum memorabilium, a compilation of marvels such as lotus-eaters, Amazons and the Blemmye with eyes in their chests and other racy bits from Pliny's Natural History.

There are no monsters in this codex, but a user has added little sketches of the islands of the world and their characteristic forms, as taught in schools since antiquity. Here are Corsica, Sardinia, Sicily and Crete:

Britain has the scholiast stumped: how on earth is it shaped? Too weird. So he leaves it out, providing the gloss only in his own Carolingian-style handwriting. In the case of Taprobane (modern Sri Lanka), no one knows what is there so he shows it as an empty blob:

The main script is Beneventan according to Lowe, or as an earlier librarian called it on the flyleaf, lettera longobarda. Patrick Gautier Dalché, who notes that this the oldest extant manuscript of Mommsen's Class I of Solinus witnesses, identifies the glosses as coming from the Historiae of Orosius.

In Latin antiquity it was more or less settled that the known world comprises three continents and six main islands. The shapes were taught to help the student remember islands by their classically known outlines: much indented Corsica, four-cornered Sardinia, triangular Sicily, elongated strip-like Crete and pear-shaped Sri Lanka.

In all, 40 manuscripts have been scanned and placed online in the past week. Here is the list:

1. Borg.ind.3 (Upgraded to HQ),
2. Borg.ind.39,
3. Borg.ind.42,
4. Borg.ind.43,
5. Borg.ind.46,
6. Chig.R.V.33 (Upgraded to HQ),
7. Ott.lat.3374 (Upgraded to HQ),
8. Ott.lat.3376,
9. Ott.lat.3378,
10. Urb.gr.56 (Upgraded to HQ),
11. Vat.estr.or.80,
12. Vat.estr.or.92 (Upgraded to HQ),
13. Vat.gr.1298.pt.2 (Upgraded to HQ),
14. Vat.ind.29,
15. Vat.lat.2288,
16. Vat.lat.2410,
17. Vat.lat.2652,
18. Vat.lat.2834 (Upgraded to HQ),
19. Vat.lat.2858,
20. Vat.lat.2873,
21. Vat.lat.3252 (Upgraded to HQ),

    Each time new MSS go online @DigitaVaticana I feel the thrill of an egg hunt.
    The prize today is the famous 9thC Codex Bembinus containing Virgil's Bucolics, the Georgics & other poems (Appendix Virgiliana) ascribed to the #ancient poet
    ➡️https://t.co/QdLpote4Uq
    HT @JBPiggin pic.twitter.com/Uz7XGmLxxo

    — GiorgiaV (@ParvaVox) June 18, 2018

22. Vat.lat.3322 (Upgraded to HQ),
23. Vat.lat.3324 (Upgraded to HQ),
24. Vat.lat.3331,
25. Vat.lat.3333 (Upgraded to HQ),
26. Vat.lat.3336,
27. Vat.lat.3342, a 10th-century copy of Solinus's Collectanea rerum memorabilium (above)
28. Vat.lat.3344,
29. Vat.lat.3355 (Upgraded to HQ),
30. Vat.lat.3356,
31. Vat.lat.3383,
32. Vat.lat.3390,
33. Vat.lat.3394,
34. Vat.lat.3398,
35. Vat.lat.3407,
36. Vat.lat.3410,
37. Vat.lat.3410.pt.A,
38. Vat.lat.3411 (Upgraded to HQ),
39. Vat.lat.3560,
40. Vat.lat.6150,

This is Piggin's Unofficial List number 165. 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.