Details

Standardized Title:

Bāriʻ fī aḥkām al-nujūm. Latin. Selections

Subjects:

Astrology -- Early works to 1800.
Astrology.
Astrology, Arab -- Early works to 1800.
Astronomy -- Early works to 1800.
Astronomy.
Astronomy, Arab -- Early works to 1800.
Astronomy, Arab.
Astrology, Arab.

Form/Genre:

Codices.
Illuminations.
Treatises.
Manuscripts, Latin.
Manuscripts, Medieval.

Language:

Latin.

Summary:

Bifolium from a 14th-century manuscript copied in England of the mid-13th-century Latin translation by Aegidius de Thebaldis (assisted by Petrus de Regio) of the Old Castilian translation of an 11th-century Arabic treatise on astrology. The text on the bifolium is from Book 5 and Book 6 of the work, which are in the section concerning nativities. The bifolium has been bound in reverse so that the leaf with the end of Book 5 and the beginning of Book 6 (and the historiated initial marking the division) are on the first leaf, followed by the originally earlier leaf containing material from Chapter 14 of Book 5. Two marginal section headings (f. 2r) in the same hand as the text; a few brief marginal annotations.

Notes:

Ms. codex.
Title supplied by cataloger based on heading for Book 6 (f. 1r).
Layout: Written in 2 columns of 53 lines; prickings visible.
Script: Written in Gothic textualis script.
Decoration: 8-line historiated initial depicting a monk and a woman with an armillary sphere on a gold ground (slightly rubbed) with a bar border in blue, red, and gold with ivy-leaf finials extending through the full left margin and into the upper and lower margins (f. 1r); 2 3-line decorated initials, one a puzzle initial in red and blue with penwork in red and blue (f. 1r) and the other in red with blue penwork (f. 1v); alternating red and blue paragraph marks.
Binding: Modern paper over cardboard, with gilt cover label (Ibn Abi 'l-Rijal, Liber in iudiciis stellarum, England, circa 1320, MS 1317 ES).
Origin: Written in England in approximately 1320 (Quaritch).

Local notes:

Lawrence J. Schoenberg & Barbara Brizdle Manuscript Initiative.

Penn Provenance:

Formerly owned by Bernard M. Rosenthal (note in pencil on letterhead, front flyleaf).
Sold by Bernard M. Rosenthal as part of his private collection to Bernard Quaritch Antiquarian Books (London), 1987.
Appears in Quaritch's catalog 1147 (Bookhands of the Middle Ages, Part V, 1991), number 107; sold to a private collector in Switzerland.
Sold at auction at Christie's, 20 November 2013, lot 34, to Lawrence J. Schoenberg.
Deposit by Lawrence J. Schoenberg and Barbara Brizdle, 2014.

Related Collections:

A single leaf probably from the same parent manuscript is Ricketts ms. 211, Lilly Library, University of Indiana.

Cited as:

Oversize LJS 501

Contributor:

Thebaldis, Aegidius de, active 13th century, translator.
Regio, Petrus de, translator.
Rosenthal, Bernard M., former owner.
Lawrence J. Schoenberg Collection (University of Pennsylvania)

OCLC:

868902754

Web link:

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