Details

Subjects:

Martini, Luca, 1980-.
Rucellai, Cosimo, 1495-1519.
Vettori, Jacopo.
Rithmomachia (Game).
Mathematical recreations -- Early works to 1800.
Mathematical recreations.

Form/Genre:

Codices.
Diagrams.
Dialogues.
Treatises.
Manuscripts, Italian.
Manuscripts, Latin.
Manuscripts, Renaissance.

Language:

Italian with a short section in Latin (f. 49r-49v).

Summary:

Treatise by Benedetto Varchi on proportion as the basis for rithmomachia, a mathematical game played on a chessboard with pieces that each have a shape and a number; a dialogue written by Carlo di Ruberto Strozzi, in which Cosimo Rucellai, who introduced the game to Benedetto Varchi, teaches the rules to Strozzi and Jacopo di Piero Vettori; and other notes on the game. Later unrelated notes and pen trials on leaves before and after main texts. Damage and bleed-through due to oxidation on many leaves.

Contents:

1. f.1r-2v: [Letter from Benedetto Varchi to Luca Martini] / Benedetto Varchi.
2. f.3r-26r: Trattato delle proportioni et proportionalità / [Benedetto Varchi]
3. f.26v-46r: Dialogo sopra la particolare dichiaratione del giuoco di Pitagora inter locutori Carlo Strozzi, Cosimo Rucellai, et Iacopo Vettori / [Carlo Strozzi]
4. f.46v-51r: Richimimachia.

Notes:

Ms. codex.
Title from caption titles (f. 3r, 26v).
Collation: Paper, 60 + 1 loose diagram; 1⁴ 2-4¹⁶ 5-6⁴; [i-iv], 1-15, [16], 17, [18-23], 24, [25-56]; contemporary foliation in ink, modern foliation in pencil, upper right recto. Link to collation model at end of record.
Layout: Written in 22-24 long lines.
Script: Written in an italic script in the hand of Marchiono de Marchioni (f. iii recto).
Decoration: 6 diagrams and drawings of arrangements of numbers or shapes on grids (f. 18r, 30v, 33v, 35v, 36r, 1 loose); 1 small marginal diagram (f. 3r); later sketches in pastel of faces in profile (f. ii verso-iii recto); red initials and rubrics in red with occasional blue initials throughout. Diagrams are very fragile due to oxidation.
Binding: Parchment wrapper formed from a leaf of a 14th-century register of the commune of Florence, with stubs of 2 pairs of ties; a madrigal by Petrarch (Or vedi, Amor...) is written on the upper cover.
Origin: Written in Florence after 1539 (f. 2v).

Penn Provenance:

Early ownership inscription without full name (Hic liber est mei Marci Antonii, f. i recto).
Formerly in the Bibliotheca Bardi-Serzelli, in Pelago, east of Florence (19th-century (?) bookplate, inside upper cover).
Formerly owned by Giannalisa Feltrinelli (bookplate, inside upper cover and inside case).
Sold at auction at Christie's in Part 2 of the sale of the Feltrinelli collection, 3 Dec. 1997, lot 220, to Lawrence J. Schoenberg.
Deposit by Lawrence J. Schoenberg and Barbara Brizdle, 2011.
Gift of Barbara Brizdle Schoenberg, 2019.

Cited in:

Described in Transformation of knowledge: early manuscripts from the collection of Lawrence J. Schoenberg (London: Paul Holberton, 2006), p. 45-46 (LJS 232).

Cited as:

UPenn LJS 232.

Contributor:

Strozzi, Carlo, 1517-
Marchioni, Marchiono de, scribe.
Feltrinelli, Giannalisa, former owner.
Lawrence J. Schoenberg Collection (University of Pennsylvania)

OCLC:

787856222

Web link:

The Lawrence J. Schoenberg and Barbara Brizdle Manuscript Initiative Fund Home Page

Collation model

Access Restriction:

Access to this item is subject to staff review.