Details

Standardized Title:

Miṣbāḥ fī ʻilm al-miftāḥ fī al-ḥikmah al-Ilāhīyah wa-al-ṣināʻah al-ḥikmīyah
مصباح في علم المفتاح في الحكمة الالاهية والصناعة الحكمية

Other Title:

Miṣbāḥ wa-nuzʹhat al-arwāḥ fī ʻilm al-miftāḥ fī al-ḥikmah al-Ilāhīyah wa-al-ṣināʻah al-falsafīyah wa al-natījah al-ʻalīyah
مصباح ونزهة الارواح في علم المفتاح في الحكمة الالاهية والصناعة الفلسفية و النتيجة العلية
كتاب مصححات افلاطون.

Subjects:

Jābir ibn Ḥayyān.
Alchemy -- Early works to 1800.
Alchemy.

Form/Genre:

Manuscripts, Arabic.
Manuscripts, 16th century.
Manuscripts, Renaissance.
Codices (bound manuscripts)
Diagrams.
Drawings (visual works)
Treatises.

Language:

Arabic.

Summary:

Two works on alchemy copied together in different hands. The first, a 14th-century treatise based on the work of the 8th-century alchemist and chemist Jābir ibn Ḥayyān, copied in A.H. 970 (1562); the second, a pseudo-Platonic work on alchemy with commentary (tafsīr) attributed to Jābir ibn Ḥayyān. Some marginal notes. The first work may be missing leaves after folio 51.

Contents:

1. f.1r-92v: Kitāb al-Miṣbāḥ wa-nuzʹhat al-arwāḥ fī ʻilm al-miftāḥ fī al-ḥikmah al-Ilāhīyah wa-al-ṣināʻah al-falsafiyyah wa al-natījah al-ʻalīyah / ʻIzz al-Dīn Aydamar ibn ʻAlī ibn Aydamar al-Jaldakī
2. f. 93r-128v: Kitāb Muṣaḥḥaḥāt Aflāṭūn

Notes:

Ms. codex.
Title of first work from title page (f. 1r); title of second work from introduction (f. 93v).
Foliation: Paper, 128; [1-128], modern foliation in pencil, upper left recto. Catchwords on each leaf, lower left recto.
Layout: Written in 21 (f. 1-92) and 27 (f. 93-128) long lines.
Script: Written in a naskh in black ink; pointed.
Decoration: 3 drawings of plants in red ink (f. 91r-91v), with green coloring added to one of them; penwork in black and red ink around colophon of first work (f. 92v); 2 circular diagrams inside upper cover; rubrications in red.
Binding: Later morocco, bottom cover blind-stamped with a central mandorla, top cover laid with paper (cream over blue) decorated with a cut-out pattern.
Origin: Copy of first work completed at the end of Muḥarram in Aleppo (Syria) in A.H. 970 by al-Ḥājj Shams al-Dīn ibn al-Ḥājj ʻAbbās (f. 92v); second work is undated and unsigned.

Local notes:

Lawrence J. Schoenberg & Barbara Brizdle Manuscript Initiative.

Penn Provenance:

Formerly owned by Bektāsh al-Tūqātī and then held in the library of Sultan Selim II (inscription, f. 93r).
Sold by Sam Fogg Ltd. (London), Nov. 2002.
Deposit by Lawrence J. Schoenberg and Barbara Brizdle, 2011.
Gift of Barbara Brizdle Schoenberg, 2019.
Formerly owned by Bektāsh al-Tūqātī and then held in the library of Sultan Selim II (inscription, transcribed by Nicholas Harris, f. 93r).

Cited in:

Described in Transformation of knowledge: early manuscripts from the collection of Lawrence J. Schoenberg (London: Paul Holberton, 2006), p. 111-112 (LJS 441).

Cited as:

UPenn LJS 441.

Contributor:

Shams al-Dīn ibn ʻAbbās, active 1562, scribe.
Tūqātī, ʻUbayd Allāh Bektāsh, former owner.
Selim II, Sultan of the Turks, 1524-1574, former owner.
Lawrence J. Schoenberg Collection (University of Pennsylvania)
شمس الدين بن عباس، active 1562, scribe.
توقاتي، عبيد الله بكتاش، former owner.

Contains:

Kitāb Muṣaḥḥaḥāt Aflāṭūn.
كتاب مصححات افلاطون.

OCLC:

122591902

Web link:

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