PAL

Ptolemaeus Arabus et Latinus

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Oxford, Corpus Christi College, 233

s. XIV (f. 21-80).

Or.:

England.

Prov.:

St Albans Abbey (f. 21-80, cf. f. 21r: ‘Liber sancti Albani de libraria conventus ex dono abbatis Iohannis septimi [John of Wheathampstead, abbot 1420-1440 and 1450-1464]…’); John Dee in 1556; Brian Twyne (d. 1644), who bequeathed the MS to Corpus Christi College.

Parchment, 150 f., composite MS made of eight parts assembled by Brian Twyne, or perhaps already by John Dee. Part IV (f. 21-80) is itself composite, comprising three elements (f. 21-64, 14th c, one hand; f. 67-73, 13th and 14th c., two hands; f. 74-80, 14th c., one hand), which originally belonged to a more complete MS (see below).

Medicine, astronomy and magic (f. 21-80): Questiones Salernitanae (21r-31v); Ptolemaica (32r-64r); added table of contents, late medieval hand (65v); Euclidis, Elementa, excerpts (66r-66v); Ars notoria (67ra-72va); Pseudo-Aristotle, Secretum secretorum, excerpt (72va-73va); Theodosius, Spherica, excerpts (74r); Jordanus de Nemore, De plana spera (75r-80v). Blank: 64v-65r, 74v. The table of contents f. 65v (ed. Thomson, 117) shows that this part (f. 21-80) originally contained more texts and in a different order: ‘Ars …le (?) que dicitur saphea. Tractatus astrolabii … (?) eius motus. De cognitione … (?) commune. De significatione rei occulte. De aeris dispositione. Tabule pro almanac. Ars notaria. Epistola Aristotelis de cognitione sanitatis. Compotus Rugerii Hereford. Compositio astrolabii. Dies notata. Cirurgia medicine non satis n… Planispherium. Alfraganus Nu (?). Questiones de geometricis. Questiones … (?) naturalium. Geber in Almagesti tractatum. Ymagines solimale desunt’. The other parts of the MS, dating from the 13th to the 15th c., contain texts dealing with grammar (1-20), philosophy (81-88 and 127-150), astronomical tables (89-114) and astrology (115-125).

Bibl. H. O. Coxe, Catalogus codicum qui in collegiis aulisque Oxoniensibus hodie adversantur, II, Oxford, 1852, Codices MSS. Collegii Corporis Christi, 95-96; J. Roberts, A. G. Watson, John Dee’s Library Catalogue, London, 1990, 126 (M153); F. S. Pedersen, The Toledan Tables. A Review of the Manuscripts and the Textual Versions with an Edition, København, 2002, I, 150-151; R. M. Thomson, A Descriptive Catalogue of the Medieval Manuscripts of Corpus Christi College Oxford, Oxford, 2011, 117-119.

32r–⁠64r

‘Geber in Ptolomaeum [title added in upper margin by a later hand]. Verba Geb<er> filii Aflau Ispalensis [title added by yet another hand in lower margin]. Scientia species habet quarum melior post scientiam De rebus particularibus que sequuntur per scientam elevationum. Cum ergo volueris scire longitudinem diei…’ (a later hand added ‘Quod in hiis 33 foliis de commento Gebir scribitur continet in exemplari undecim folia et dimidium, et remanens 53 folia que non scribuntur, et sic non habetur hic nisi quasi sexta pars et parum ultra totius commenti Gebir super Almagesti’).

= Geber, Liber super Almagesti (C.1.2)

. Preface, 32r-34v; I, 34v-54v; II, 54v-64r. The text breaks off in the middle of a sentence in the second half of Book II. Glosses by the scribe and by at least one later medieval hand.