Details

Subjects:

Astronomy -- Early works to 1800.
Astronomy.
Astronomy, Medieval.
Jewish astronomy -- Early works to 1800.
Jewish astronomy.

Form/Genre:

codices (bound manuscripts)
diagrams.
treatises.
Manuscripts, Hebrew -- 15th century.
Manuscripts, Renaissance.

Language:

Hebrew.

Summary:

Partial copy of an introduction to astronomy. Manuscript text is divided in 3 books, with the first book addressing geometry and trigonometry; the second, the structure and position of the Earth; and the third, the movement of the sun and moon and equinoxes and eclipses. The fourth book of the text, on the application of astronomy to the Jewish calendar, and the fifth book, containing canon tables, are not present in this manuscript.

Notes:

Ms. codex.
Title supplied by cataloger.
Collation: Parchment and paper, i (modern paper) + 70 + i (modern paper); 1¹⁸ 2-3²⁰ 4²⁰(-8); [1-70], modern foliation in pencil, upper left and upper center recto. Gatherings have outermost and central bifolia of parchment with paper bifolia in between.
Layout: Written in 40 long lines; frame-ruled in faint ink.
Script: Written in Sephardic Hebrew script.
Decoration: 37 astronomical diagrams representing orbits, eclipses, and other phenomena, with spaces left blank for additional diagrams.
Binding: Modern leather, blind-tooled, with 2 clasps.
Origin: Written in Spain or Italy, ca. 1460.

Local notes:

Lawrence J. Schoenberg & Barbara Brizdle Manuscript Initiative.

Penn Provenance:

Formerly owned by Moritz Dessauer, founding rabbi of the synagogue in Meiningen; inscription, Geschenk des Landrabbiners Dr. M. Dessauer in Meiningen, recording gift by Dessauer to unknown recipient (inside lower cover).
Formerly in the library of Országos Rabbiképző-Intézet (the Rabbincal Seminary of Budapest), K. 209.
Offered for sale by Jörn Gunther Antiquariat (Basel, Switzerland), Brochure 8 (2004), item 17.
Sold by Sam Fogg Ltd. (London) to Lawrence J. Schoenberg, Fall 2005.
Deposit by Lawrence J. Schoenberg and Barbara Brizdle, 2012.
Gift of Barbara Brizdle Schoenberg, 2021.

Cited in:

Described in Transformation of knowledge: early manuscripts from the collection of Lawrence J. Schoenberg (London: Paul Holberton, 2006), p. 72 (LJS 476).

Cited as:

LJS 476

Contributor:

Dessauer, M. (Moritz), 1842-1895, former owner.
Országos Rabbiképző-Intézet (Hungary), former owner.
Lawrence J. Schoenberg Collection (University of Pennsylvania)

OCLC:

818666645

Web link:

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