2017-09-25

Humanist's Astronomy Book

The personal library of the great Florentine humanist Coluccio Salutati (1331-1406) was scattered after his death. It remains a thing of fascination for every scholar. It's the definitive overview of what an early Renaissance man with the income to buy books read, with Coluccio's own notes scattered in the margins.

Coluccio's private copy of the Great Stemma formed for a while the title picture on my Twitter account. (I replaced it with the current gaudy recreation because parchmenty pictures don't work as panoramas.)

Thanks to digitization a good many of his books are now online to inspect.A real treasure among their number is Collucio's private copy (in Latin) of the Almagest by Ptolemy the Geographer, Vat.lat.2056, which has just arrived online at the Vatican Library digital portal.The diagrams are fascinating. The first image below is from a celebrated rota used by astrologers; you can read off the climates here, starting with the mouth of the Dniepr at top:

We continue to wait for Vatican's DigiVatLib to do color versions of the Florentine notary's books, such as his Seneca, Reg.lat.1391, which is still only available in black and white.
  1. Reg.lat.675
  2. Reg.lat.901
  3. Reg.lat.997
  4. Reg.lat.1072
  5. Reg.lat.1082
  6. Reg.lat.1110
  7. Reg.lat.1115, a major compendium of magic (Jacobus Faber Stapulensis), astrology and astronomy (John of Glogau); this was on the site in murky black and white, but is new in color; a vital improvement since it is far from easily legible. See eTK for contents.
  8. Reg.lat.1119
  9. Reg.lat.1122
  10. Reg.lat.1126
  11. Reg.lat.1144
  12. Reg.lat.1152
  13. Reg.lat.1156
  14. Reg.lat.1159
  15. Reg.lat.1160
  16. Reg.lat.1161
  17. Reg.lat.1162
  18. Reg.lat.1170
  19. Reg.lat.1184
  20. Reg.lat.1196
  21. Reg.lat.1207
  22. Reg.lat.1226
  23. Reg.lat.1234
  24. Reg.lat.1246
  25. Reg.lat.1257
  26. Reg.lat.1266
  27. Reg.lat.1267, contains the only complete text of Dracontius, the African author, and his Satisfactio. One of the Beneventan script examples compiled by Lowe (and a prime exhibit in a mistaken theory that Visigothic and Benevantan script are linked), it is composed of different parts, miniscule at first, then Beneventan from folio 139:
    1. Euclid, Boethius, ff 1-135, 13th century, including the glorious diagram below
    2. Beda, ff 136-138, 11th century
    3. Calendarial matter, ff. 139-140v and part of 143, 9th-10th century
    4. Versus Marci Poetae de S. Benedicto, ff 141v-142v, 10th century 
    5. Dracontius, Satisfactio, ff  143v-150v, 9th-10th century 
  28. Reg.lat.1269
  29. Reg.lat.1275
  30. Reg.lat.1289
  31. Vat.lat.1927
  32. Vat.lat.1944
  33. Vat.lat.1954
  34. Vat.lat.1956
  35. Vat.lat.1965
  36. Vat.lat.1980
  37. Vat.lat.1982
  38. Vat.lat.1987
  39. Vat.lat.1999
  40. Vat.lat.2006
  41. Vat.lat.2007
  42. Vat.lat.2024
  43. Vat.lat.2032
  44. Vat.lat.2042
  45. Vat.lat.2046
  46. Vat.lat.2047
  47. Vat.lat.2056, Ptolemy's Almagest, see above
  48. Vat.lat.2069
  49. Vat.lat.9484
  50. Vat.lat.15399
This is Piggin's Unofficial List number 128. If you have corrections or additions, please use the comments box below. Follow me on Twitter (@JBPiggin) for news of more additions to DigiVatLib.

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