PAL

Ptolemaeus Arabus et Latinus

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Vatican, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Pal. lat. 1414

Date:

s. XIII2 (f. 224rb: ‘Explicit liber presens anno salutis incarnationis domini Ihesu Christi MoCCo66, 12 die mensis Novembris. Constat pro scriptura 62 fl. Florentinorum’, this note has been added by what seems to be a later hand, but 1266 is a plausible date for the MS).

Or.:

northern France, perhaps Paris (cf. notes on the geographical coordinates of Paris, f. 138v, 139v and 140rb; cf. also John of London’s table for Paris f. 25r).

Prov.:

an added note (14th c.?) on f. 225r lists some 37 species of fish found in the Meuse river (‘Isti pisces inveniuntur in Mosa’); Nikolaus Pruckner (d. 1557), who gave the MS to Elector Palatine Ottheinrich in 1553, cf. f. 1r: ‘Das buch hat mir Ottheinrich pfallzgrave Dockter Nicklas Pruckner mathematicus zu Markgravenbaden geschenckt den 2 May 1553’; Heidelberg, Bibliotheca Palatina; Vatican library in 1623.

Parchment, 225 f., several neat hands, decorated initials throughout.

Astrology and astronomy: Alcabitius, Introductorius (1ra-20rb); short astronomical and astrological chapters ‘Pictagoras vir animi sagax scripsit a terra usque ad Lunam 126000 stadiorum… Cometes est stella que a plerisque peritis… Cum fuerit Luna cum Capite vel Cauda in uno signo… Ad inveniendum dyametrum terre sic procede…’ (20rb-20vb); Pseudo-Thebit Bencora, De motu octave spere (21ra-23rb); astrolabe ‘De inventione azimuth. Possunt autem azimuth hoc modo fieri…’ (23rb-23vb); ‘Potest zodiacus dividi in gradus et signa et in minores partes per declinationem…’ (24ra-24va); John of London, star table for 1246 in Paris (25r); drawings of an astrolabe (25v-26v); Ptolemaica (27ra-29vb); Sacrobosco, Algorismus (29vb-34vb); Robert Grosseteste, De sphera (34vb-41ra); Hermes, Centiloquium (41va-43vb); Robert Grosseteste, Compotus (43vb-62r); Liber de motibus planetarum (62va-66vb); canons of Toledan tables (67ra-84ra); Thebit Bencora, De recta imaginatione spere et circulorum eius diversorum (84ra-85rb); table 1232-1998 ‘Tabula ad inveniendum annos Arabum per annos domini Ihesu Christi’ with canon (85v); Toledan tables with canons (86r-157va), including ascension tables for Toulouse (96r-97v); ‘Cum sint due signorum distinctiones, una secundum coniunctionem…’ (157vb-159v); Theorica planetarum Gerardi (160ra-166ra); ‘Sciendum est quod planetarum quidam sunt benevoli, quidam malevoli…’ (166rb-167vb); Robertus Anglicus, Quadrans vetus (168ra-173ra); Sem filius Haym, Capitulum in narratione Saturni quid accidat in mundo (173ra-174ra); Gergis, De significatione septem planetarum in domibus (174ra-177ra); Pseudo-Messahallah, De compositione astrolabii (177va-189vb); Canones super tabulas Humeniz philosophi summi Egiptiorum, tables (190r-204v) and canons (205ra-208ra); Campanus of Novara, De quadrante (208ra-211ra); ‘Notandum quod principatus planetarum in conceptione humana…’ (211ra-213ra); ‘Cupientibus fructum planetarum primo scire oportet…’ (213ra-215vb); table: elections from the aspects of the Moon with the other planets (216r); Robert Grosseteste (?), De impressionibus aeris (216vb-220ra); Roger of Hereford, De quatuor partibus iudiciorum astronomie (220ra-224rb); scattered notes by several late medieval hands (224v-225v).

Bibl. Inventarium manuscriptorum Latinorum Bibliothecae Palatinae (handwritten catalogue), 500-501; L. Thorndike, ‘The Study of Mathematics and Astronomy in the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries as Illustrated by Three Manuscripts’, Scripta Mathematica 23 (1957), 67-76: 71-72; L. Thorndike, ‘Notes upon Some Medieval Latin Astronomical, Astrological and Mathematical Manuscripts at the Vatican, Part II’, Isis 49 (1958), 34-49: 39-44; L. Schuba, Die Quadriviums-Handschriften der Codices Palatini Latini in der Vatikanischen Bibliothek, Wiesbaden, 1992, 195-200; C. Panti, Moti, virtù e motori celesti nella cosmologia di Roberto Grossatesta. Studio ed edizione dei trattati De sphaera, De cometis, De motu supercelestium, Firenze, 2001, 216; F. S. Pedersen, The Toledan Tables. A Review of the Manuscripts and the Textual Versions with an Edition, København, 2002, I, 178-179; A. Lohr, C. P. E. Nothaft, Robert Grosseteste’s Compotus, Oxford, 2019, 40-41; C. P. E. Nothaft, ‘Ptolemaic Orbs in Twelfth-Century England. A Study and Edition of the Anonymous Liber de motibus planetarum’, Mediterranea. International Journal on the Transfer of Knowledge 3 (2018), 145-210: 175.

27ra–⁠29vb

‘Cum omnibus directe intuentibus constet esse necessarium aliquid in astronomia arte prevalere in libro planetarum requiratur secundum hoc quod Anaxagoras ibi disposuit. Finitus est liber figure Ptholomei.’