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Vatican, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, ar. 955

[Black-and-white microfilm scans of the textblock.]

Collection of six works with tables and smaller excerpts: Arabic. Date:

ff. 1v–37r completed on nahār al-rubūʿ (i.e., 4?) Shaʿbān 〈1〉152/6 November 1739 (37r); ff. 63v–64r copied on Friday, 11 Jumādā l-thāniya 1241/21 January 1826 (64r); ff. 129v–209v completed on Friday, 29 Dhū l-qaʿda 1152/26 February 1740 (209r).

Or.:

unknown; ff. 63v–64r copied by Muḥammad 〈b.〉 Muḥsin 〈b.〉 Aḥmad; ff. 108v–126r copied by al-faqīh Ṭ〈ā〉h〈ā〉 b. ʿAbd Allāh al-Wuṣābī, of probable Yemeni origin (cf. Regourd).

Prov.:

an ownership statement mentioning al-faqīh ʿAbd Allāh b. ʿAlī b. Yaḥyā and al-faqīh ʿAlī b. Yaḥyā …, possibly his father (211r; Regourd reads the unclear word as Ḥasan or Ḥusayn). The manuscript was acquired by Giuseppe Caprotti, an Italian merchant active in Yemen between 1880 and 1909; it was brought to Milan in 1909 but the private sponsors who were meant to acquire it for the Biblioteca Ambrosiana eventually donated it to Pope Pius XI in 1922 (Iv–IIr).

Cod.: paper, III+279 ff. (foliated with stamped Arabic-European numerals in the bottom left corner of rectos; catchwords). Several different naskh hands, generally one per work, ranging from very clear to sketchy. Hand copying the Ptolemaic work (90r–91r): quick but clear, somewhat angular handwriting, apparently using the same ink throughout; almost fully dotted ductus with several hamzas; formulaic ‘al-kalima’ occasionally oversized. A dozen sketchy horoscopes (170r–183v) and two more carefully drawn ones (212r, 216r). Tables with abjad and Hindu-Arabic numerals and greatly varying features (6v, 27v, 31v, 34v, 40r–89v, 92v–93r, 210r, 211v). Framed text on f. 37r (double) and ff. 239r–278v (triple). Codex in good condition; margins often damaged, binding occasionally detached, one or more folios lost after ff. 128 and 278. Dimensions: 32.5×23 cm; 31–32 lines per page in the Ptolemaic work.

Cont.: astronomy, astrology and divination. — Index: endowment statement by Luca Beltrami and others (Iv–IIr); a cosmological diagram (IIIv); ʿAbd Allāh al-Muthannā b. ʿAbd Allāh b. Aḥmad al-Sharjī l-Qurashī, Ghāyat itqān al-ḥarakāt li-l-sabʿat al-kawākib al-sayyārāt, or Zīj al-Muthannā (1v–37r); two astronomical chapters by the same hand (37v–39r); tables of the Zīj al-Muthannā by a different hand (40r–89v, with statements of collation and many later insertions); Ptolemaica (90r–91r); a sexagesimal multiplication table (91v–92r); a version of the Malḥamat Dānyāl (94v–107v); a work on conjunctions and mundane astrology beginning Qāla muʾallif al-kitāb iʿlam anna ḥukm iqtirānāt al-kawākib jāra (sic) bi-hi ḥukmu-hā ʿalā l-buldān allatī taḥta falak al-burūj (108v–126r); chapters on astrology and divination, two ascribed to Baṭ〈l〉amyūs, on eclipses (126v–128r, end lost); Sahl b. Bishr, Kitāb Taḥāwīl sinī l-ʿālam (129v–209v); a table on exaltations, decans, lord of triplicities and terms (210r); al-Ṣaymarī, Kitāb Aṣl al-uṣūl fī khawāṣṣ al-nujūm wa-aḥkāmi-hā wa-aḥkām al-mawālīd (211r–278v, end lost); geomancy sketches (279r); fragments of Sūras 87–89 (paper slip). Blank: 39v, 47r (except for a frame), 51r, 62v–63r (except for a religious formula), 65v, 79v (except for a frame), 108r, 129r, 210v and presumably Ir, IIv–IIIr, 51v–52r, 93v–94r, and 279v (not included in the scans).

Bibl.: Giorgio Levi della Vida, Elenco dei manoscritti arabi islamici della Biblioteca Vaticana. Vaticana, Barberiniani, Borgiani, Rossiani, Città del Vaticano: Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, 1935, pp. 97–99; Anne Regourd, ‘Eighteenth-Century Identified Copies of MāšāʾAllāh’s Kitāb Qiyām al-Ḫulafāʾ from Yemen: Text Edition and Contextualization’, Quaderni di Studi Arabi 15 (2020), pp. 270–291, here pp. 275–276. DigiVatLib: https://digi.vatlib.it/view/MSS_Vat.ar.955 (scans).

90r–⁠91r	\90r\ هذا منقول من كتاب (بياض) تصنيف الحكيم بطليموس في تأثير الكسوف ودلائل الذوائب والنيازك وهي أربع كلمات. قال المفسّر قال بطليموس كسوف النيّرين في أوتاد الطالع للمواليد وتحويلات السنين — \91r\ فدخل ابن الحكيم بعده بمدّة يسيرة وسلّط على مصر ونواحيها وحدث لمصر جميع ما ذكره بطليموس. = Abū Jaʿfar Aḥmad b. Yūsuf, Tafsīr Kitāb al-Thamara (C.3.1) , excerpt from the version with verba sorted by Ibn al-Kammād. — Title: Kitāb (blank space) taṣnīf al-ḥakīm Baṭlīmūs fī taʾthīr al-kusūf wa-dalāʾil al-dhawāʾib wa-l-nayāzik (90r). — No colophon, glosses or marginalia. The extract consists of Chapter 5 of the version by Ibn al-Kammād, which includes verba 24, 96, 99, 100, and their commentary by Abū Jaʿfar.

90r–⁠91r

\90r\ هذا منقول من كتاب (بياض) تصنيف الحكيم بطليموس في تأثير الكسوف ودلائل الذوائب والنيازك وهي أربع كلمات. قال المفسّر قال بطليموس كسوف النيّرين في أوتاد الطالع للمواليد وتحويلات السنين — \91r\ فدخل ابن الحكيم بعده بمدّة يسيرة وسلّط على مصر ونواحيها وحدث لمصر جميع ما ذكره بطليموس.

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

, excerpt from the version with verba sorted by Ibn al-Kammād. — Title: Kitāb (blank space) taṣnīf al-ḥakīm Baṭlīmūs fī taʾthīr al-kusūf wa-dalāʾil al-dhawāʾib wa-l-nayāzik (90r). — No colophon, glosses or marginalia. The extract consists of Chapter 5 of the version by Ibn al-Kammād, which includes verba 24, 96, 99, 100, and their commentary by Abū Jaʿfar.