PAL

Ptolemaeus Arabus et Latinus

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Escorial, Real Biblioteca del Monasterio de San Lorenzo, ár. 1829

[Colour scanned images of the textblock; inspected in June 2019.]
Collection of two works: Arabic.  Date:

undated, before the 14th century.

Or.:

unknown, probably the Maghreb, later additions probably Andalusī; copyist of the first part unknown, second part by the scribe who also copied ff. 56v and 57v in MS Florence, BML, Or. 94.

Prov.:

mention of three owners who can be identified as members of the well-known Ibn Wāqār family of thirteenth- to fifteenth-century scholars and physicians, namely Isḥāq (6r), Yūsuf b. Ibrāhīm (6r), and Mūshā b. Abū Ibrāhīm Abū l-Ḥasan Shalumūn (1r, 6r); with one exception the name ‘Waqār’ was scratched off or trimmed, possibly after the expulsion of the Jews in 1492 (for the identification, see also MS Escorial, RBMSL, ár. 870, ff. 1v–69r, according to its colophon copied by Abū Ibrāhīm Abū l-Ḥasan Shalumūn Waqār for his son Mūshā); Mūshā probably provided the title page (1r, also in Sephardic script) and the table of contents (3r–4r), each marked with a characteristic symbol, as well as a commentary on inlaid sheets. Information on the treatise (IIIv–IIr, in this order; transcription in Casiri) and some marginalia (e.g., 100r, 105r) by David Colville, assistant librarian in El Escorial from 1617 to 1627 and Arabic interpreter of the Kings Philip III and IV (see D. M. Dunlop, ‘David Colville, a Successor of Michael Scot’, Bulletin of Hispanic Studies 28 (1951), pp. 38–42; and Katarzyna K. Starczewska, Latin Translation of the Qurʾān (1518/1621). Commissioned by Egidio Viterbo. Critical Edition and Case Study, Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2018, pp. xcv–xcvi). A calligraphic signature on f. 129v is also present in MS Florence, BML, Or. 94, f. 184r, and suggests that both codices once belonged to the same owner. Old shelfmarks: ‘VII. A.15’ and ‘24. B. VI’ (IIIv).

Cod.: thick oriental paper, III+131+IIa ff. (foliation with Arabic-European numerals at the top left of rectos, with 35 to 39 repeated; ff. 18, 43, 46, 76, and 104 are inlaid sheets not belonging to the main text, a sheet between ff. 50/51 was torn out, and smaller inlaid sheets after ff. 56, 69, 109, and 130 are unnumbered; an earlier foliation in abjad notation at the centre top of rectos, often trimmed, starting at f. 6 and including the inlaid sheets except ff. 18 and 104; no catchwords). Flyleaves added with new binding (seventeenth-century western paper with watermarks: a hand holding a flower with six acute petals). Two maghribī hands. First hand (6v–118r): brown faded ink, a clear, fully dotted and partly vocalized maghribī hand, very regular and upright; tāʾ marbūṭa dotted, regular hamzas and shaddas; paragraph beginnings highlighted in bold, occasionally indicated by marginal symbols (three dots with a vertical stroke below, e.g., 15v); textual dividers in the form of red and orange marks inserted by a reader. Second hand (118v–129v): a bigger, at times sloppy black maghribī script with notable slant and cursive elements; almost fully dotted ductus, no vowels and hamzas, some shaddas; paragraph beginnings highlighted in bold, verba introduced by qāla Batlamyūs and numbered in western abjad notation. No tables or diagrams apart from two lists of terms in columns (31r, 33r–v) and a trimmed figure in the margin (38v). Paper in good condition, stains of glue in the folds, some loose folios; folios trimmed before David Colville made his annotations. Sheets folded in quarto format, rebound in a brown leather binding (probably seventeenth century) with a blind library stamp, head tail and fore-edge coloured in gold with a Latin inscription on the fore-edge: ‘BATLAMIUS’.

Cont.: Astrology. — Index: notes on the Tetrabiblos by David Colville (IIIv–IIr); title page (1r); list of the chapters of the Tetrabiblos by Mūsha b. Waqār (3r–4r); Ptolemaica (6v–118r); Ptolemaica (118v–129v); subject index of the verba of the Centiloquium, referred to by abjad numbers, probably in Mūshā b. Waqār’s hand (130r); three loose slips of paper with glosses. Blank: 1v–2v, 4v–5v, 130v, Ir, Iar, IIa.

Bibl.: Miguel Casiri, Bibliotheca Arabico-Hispana Escurialensis sive Librorum omnium Mss. quos Arabicè ab auctoribus magnam partem Arabo-Hispanis compositos Bibliotheca Coenobii Escurialensis complectitur, recensio & explanatio, 2 vols, Madrid: Antonius Perez de Soto, 1760–1770, vol. II, pp. 346–347 (no. mdcccxxiv); Hartwig Derenbourg and E. Lévi-Provençal, Les manuscrits arabes de l’Escurial. Tome III: Théologie — Géographie — Histoire, Paris: Geuthner, 1928, p. 308.

6v–⁠118r

\6v\ المقالة الأولى من كتاب الأربع لبطلميوس في القضاء بالنجوم. الباب الأوّل أنّ الأمور التي بها يكون تمام تقدمة المعرفة المأخوذة من علم النجوم يا سوري — \118r\ فإذ قد اتينا على القول في أمر المواليد على طريق الجملة فأرى أنّه من الواجب أن أختم هذا الكتاب في هذا الموضع.

= Ptolemy, Kitāb Arbaʿ maqālāt (tr. Ibrāhīm b. al-Ṣalt/Ḥunayn b. Isḥāq) (A.2.2)

, with Thābit’s glosses in the margins. — Title: Kitāb al-arbaʿ maqālāt li-Baṭlamyūs fī l-qaḍāʾ bi-l-nujūm ʿalā l-ḥawādith (IIIv, 1r); Kitāb al-arbaʿ maqālāt … Baṭlamyūs dūna Sharh (1r, in Sephardic script). — Additional titles: Ptolomeo Astrologia Judicíaria 4 Libros (IIIv), Astrulugia Judiciaria autor batlamyus (131v), Astrolugia Judicíaria Abrahim abu al Bacen (IIr). — Index: Book I, 6v–35v; II, 35v–58v; III, 59r–96r; IV, 96v–118r. — Undated authorial colophons (in rectangular shape) for Books II and IV (with additions by the scribe). Numerous glosses quoting Thābit b. Qurra in the margins of Books I to III. Several glosses quoting a certain al-Ḥasan b. Yūnus; extracts from ʿAlī b. Riḍwān’s commentary referred to by ‘sharḥ ʿAlī〉’ (e.g., 76r); glosses attributed to all three authors and unidentified annotations, also on inlaid sheets and often trimmed; notes in Latin by David Colville (mostly 100r–115r), who also compares the text to the Greek version (105r). Further notes in Latin (38v–39r), probably stemming from an earlier date.

118v–⁠129v

\118v\ كتاب الثمرة لبطلميوس القلوذي. قال بطلميوس: قد قدّمنا لك يا سورس كتبًا فيما تؤثّره الكواكب في عالم التركيب — \129v\ وان لم يكن سائرًا فان الخارج من حضرة الإقليم.

= Pseudo-Ptolemy, Kitāb al-Thamara (B.1.1)

, version with 100 verba. — Title: Kitāb al-Thamara li-Baṭlamyūs al-Qalūdhī (118v). — Index: author’s introduction, 118v; 100 verba, 118v–129v. — Short undated scribal colophon. The Thamara is followed by a subject index by a different hand (130r, see above). Numerous glosses referring to Abū Jaʿfar Aḥmad b. Yūsuf’s commentary (C.3.1, sometimes reformulated or abridged) in a script similar to Mūshā b. Waqār’s hand. Very few corrections indicated by sigla ṣḥ and kh.