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Milan, Biblioteca Ambrosiana, A 29

[Black-and-white microfilm scans of the textblock; inspected in April 2019.]

Collection of three works: Arabic. Date:

ff. 1v–10v completed in mid Shaʿbān 916/end of November 1510 (10v); ff. 12r–24r completed in the second decade of Ramaḍān 916/late December 1510 (24r); ff. 24v–26v copied by the same hand.

Or.:

unknown; copied by Yūsuf 〈b.〉 Yaḥyā 〈b.〉 Ṣāliḥ al-Qurashī (24r).

Prov.:

computations for a conjunction in 950/1543 and for the great conjunctions of 950/1544, 971/1564 and 992/1583-4 (11r). An ownership statement by Muḥammad b. ʿAlī Ṣāliḥ al-Baṣrī dated … Ṣafar 1117/May-June 1705 (11r). A seal reading yā khāfī l-alṭāf / ʿabdu-hu Muṣṭafā / najjinā mim-mā nakhāfu (13r). ‘196’ in Hindu-Arabic numerals (p. I). The manuscript belongs to the ‘nuovo fondo’ acquired by Eugenio Griffini and others from Giuseppe Caprotti, an Italian merchant active in Yemen between 1880 and 1909, and later donated to the Biblioteca Ambrosiana (Griffini, p. vii).

Cod.: white paper turned brown, 26 ff. (foliated with Arabic-European numerals in pencil; catchwords). A single small and neat black naskh hand; mostly undotted ductus with occasional vowels. Oversized bold titles, chapter headings and formulaic expressions, including ‘qāla Baṭlamyūs’, ‘qāla l-mufassir’, and the verbum numbering (written out in full) in the Ptolemaic work; red ink for most numerals (in Hindu-Arabic and abjad notation) and for formulaic expressions. Diagrams drawn without ruler, in black and red; many reserved spaces for diagrams. Very few marginalia by the same hand; computations, notes and diagrams in several different naskh hands (ff. 11r, 12r). Codex in bad condition; readability heavily affected by insects, moisture stains and numerous paper slips pasted on the pages in an attempt to restore the manuscript; binding often loose, reinforced on ff. 8v–9r. Dimensions: 310×215 mm, written area 253×166 mm; 41 lines per page. Heavily deteriorated dark brown leather covers over paper pasteboards, both decorated with a central pasted yellow square medallion (partially detached, unrecognisable floral motif) and a yellow line running from its upper and lower angles to the upper and lower margins; the same medallion on the flap; grey paper pastedowns including fragments of an unidentified work. Type II binding.

Cont.: astrology and geodesy. — Index: final lines of Muḥammad b. Abī Bakr al-Fārisī, Ṭirāz al-dahr fī asrār al-khalq wa-l-amr fī l-aḥkām al-Jāmāspiyya ʿalā l-qirānāt al-ʿulwiyya wa-mā yadullu ʿalay-hi min al-nabawāt wa-l-milal (1r); Ptolemaica (1v–10v); extracts from Ibn Waḥshiyya, Kitāb al-Ṭilasmāt, and Taqī l-Dīn b. ʿAbd al-Qādir al-Tamīmī, Manāfiʿ khawāṣṣ ayāt al-Qurʾān (10v); astrological computations and a related horoscope (11r; see above); Shams al-Dīn Aḥmad b. Muḥammad b. Ibrāhīm al-Ashʿarī l-Tihāmī, Kitāb al-Tuffāḥa fī ʿilm al-misāḥa (12r–24r); Muʾayyid al-Dīn al-ʿUrḍī, Risāla fī Stikhrāj mā bayn markazay al-shams wa-mawḍiʿ awji-hā (24v–26v, end lost). Blank: 11v.

Bibl.: Eugenio Griffini, Catalogo dei manoscritti arabi di nuovo fondo della Biblioteca Ambrosiana di Milano. Volume I: codici 1-475, Roma: Rivista degli Studi Orientali, 1910–1919, pp. 268–270; Oscar Löfgren and Renato Traini, Catalogue of the Arabic Manuscripts in the Biblioteca Ambrosiana, Vol. II: Nuovo fondo: Series A-D (Nos. 1-830), Vicenza: Neri Pozza Editore, 1981, p. 17; Franco Martorello and Giuseppe Bezza, Aḥmad ibn Yūsuf ibn al-Dāya. Commento al Centiloquio Tolemaico, Milano / Udine: Mimesis, 2013, pp. 33–34 and 40–41.

1v–⁠10v	\1v\ قال بطلميوس الحكيم قد قدّمنا لك يا سوريّ كتابًا في ما يؤثّره الكواكب في عالم التركيب كثيرة المنفعة في تقدمة المعرفة بعلمها. وهذا الكتاب ثمرة ما اشتملت عليه تلك الكتب وقد حصّلناه مائة كلمة موجزة على الخصّ والتجريد منها وعرف وليس يميل إلى معرفة من لم ينعم النظر في جميع ما قدّمنا قبله من العلوم في علوم آخر من علوم الرياضة فكان سعيدًا. — \10v\ فهذا ما حضرني أيدك الله من تفسير كلمات بطلميوس وأرجو أن يكون مطا{بقًا لمعانيه مستوفيًا} لشرحه والصواب لك أن يمنعه ممّا لا يؤثّر منه إلاّ التكثّر بملكه ويرى حصوله. تمّ كتاب الثمرة المسمّى اقطرطسطا ومعناه المائة كلمة اختصرها بطلميوس من كتبه وكتب سائر الحكماء {وقرّبها من فهم} المرتاضين بهذه الصناعة الجليلة والعلم النفيس الدالّ على توحيد الله وجلاله وجبروته وعظمته لا مبدل {لكلمات الله} ولا رادّ لحكمه وهو السميع العليم. = Abū Jaʿfar Aḥmad b. Yūsuf, Tafsīr Kitāb al-Thamara (C.3.1) , version with 100 verba. — Title: 〈Kitāb al-Thamara li-Baṭlamy〉ūs al-malik al-ḥakīm ilā malik al-yūnāniyya 〈S〉ūrā tafsīr Aḥmad b. Yūsuf al-Miṣrī wa-huwa miʾat kalima mulakhkhaṣa (1r). — Additional title: Kitāb al-Thamara al-musammā ā-q-ṭ-r-ṭ-s-ṭ-ā wa-maʿnā-hu l-miʾa kalima (10v). — Index: Pseudo-Ptolemy’s introduction, 1v; verbum 1, 1v; commentator’s introduction, 1v; commentary on verbum 1, 1v–2r; remaining 99 verba intertwined with the commentary, 1v–10v. — Commentator’s colophon with Greek title (restorations in brackets in the transcription above based on MS Milan, Ambrosiana, C 86); dated scribal colophon. Two marginal corrections by the main hand marked by ṣḥ (5v, 7v), some more corrections in the body text (10r). No glosses. Partially trimmed marginalia. Some damaged passages restored in the margins by a different hand. Verbum 98 omitted and replaced by the first part of its commentary (Martorello & Bezza, p. 41). This witness was used for the edition in Martorello & Bezza.

1v–⁠10v

\1v\ قال بطلميوس الحكيم قد قدّمنا لك يا سوريّ كتابًا في ما يؤثّره الكواكب في عالم التركيب كثيرة المنفعة في تقدمة المعرفة بعلمها. وهذا الكتاب ثمرة ما اشتملت عليه تلك الكتب وقد حصّلناه مائة كلمة موجزة على الخصّ والتجريد منها وعرف وليس يميل إلى معرفة من لم ينعم النظر في جميع ما قدّمنا قبله من العلوم في علوم آخر من علوم الرياضة فكان سعيدًا. — \10v\ فهذا ما حضرني أيدك الله من تفسير كلمات بطلميوس وأرجو أن يكون مطا{بقًا لمعانيه مستوفيًا} لشرحه والصواب لك أن يمنعه ممّا لا يؤثّر منه إلاّ التكثّر بملكه ويرى حصوله. تمّ كتاب الثمرة المسمّى اقطرطسطا ومعناه المائة كلمة اختصرها بطلميوس من كتبه وكتب سائر الحكماء {وقرّبها من فهم} المرتاضين بهذه الصناعة الجليلة والعلم النفيس الدالّ على توحيد الله وجلاله وجبروته وعظمته لا مبدل {لكلمات الله} ولا رادّ لحكمه وهو السميع العليم.

= Abū Jaʿfar Aḥmad b. Yūsuf, Tafsīr Kitāb al-Thamara (C.3.1)

, version with 100 verba. — Title: 〈Kitāb al-Thamara li-Baṭlamy〉ūs al-malik al-ḥakīm ilā malik al-yūnāniyya 〈S〉ūrā tafsīr Aḥmad b. Yūsuf al-Miṣrī wa-huwa miʾat kalima mulakhkhaṣa (1r). — Additional title: Kitāb al-Thamara al-musammā ā-q-ṭ-r-ṭ-s-ṭ-ā wa-maʿnā-hu l-miʾa kalima (10v). — Index: Pseudo-Ptolemy’s introduction, 1v; verbum 1, 1v; commentator’s introduction, 1v; commentary on verbum 1, 1v–2r; remaining 99 verba intertwined with the commentary, 1v–10v. — Commentator’s colophon with Greek title (restorations in brackets in the transcription above based on MS Milan, Ambrosiana, C 86); dated scribal colophon. Two marginal corrections by the main hand marked by ṣḥ (5v, 7v), some more corrections in the body text (10r). No glosses. Partially trimmed marginalia. Some damaged passages restored in the margins by a different hand. Verbum 98 omitted and replaced by the first part of its commentary (Martorello & Bezza, p. 41). This witness was used for the edition in Martorello & Bezza.