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Astrological miscellany

Title
Astrological miscellany.
Created
Northern France or Flanders, [ca. 1505]
Physical Description
ff. i + 242 + i : parchment ; 402 x 290 (298 x 190) mm.
Language
Latin
Notes
Script: Written by a single scribe in a large and clear hand in Gothica textualis formata and Bastarda.
Rubrics, and occasional headlines in red, diagrams in the text in brown and red inks. Full illuminated border, outlined in red, on f. 1r of leafy sprays in colors and gold, the white spaces filled up with black dots and small burnished gold circles each with three or four small tendrils; a large initial in burnished gold and colors at the beginning of the text in the first column, with gold band extending downward and then around three sides of the page forming an inner border, completed by a red line at top; a lozenge at the center of the lower band of the border containing a pattern of platelike discs, quatrefoils, and a leafy spray on a dull gold ground, this segment almost certainly a later replacement of an original coat of arms which has been erased. Elsewhere in the manuscript smaller illuminated initials in the style of the first frequently occur, and larger ones with descenders to partial borders at the foot of the page occur. Each of the ninety-six pages from f. 191r through 238v has four drawings in colors (six on those pages which open each of the signs of the Zodiac), placed within diagrams accompanied by slight text.
Binding: Nineteenth century, English. Marbled paper boards, green calf back with six heavy (false?) bands, the compartments with patterns of small tools impressed in gold and with gold-stamped titles, a small rectangular label with the printed number 1037 and a small round label with the inked number 894 glued to the bottommost compartment. All edges gilt. Preserved in a modern green cloth folding box, probably French, with leather label.
In Latin.
Provenance
Collection of Sir Thomas Phillipps. Mellon MS 155, acquired from C. A. Stonehill, Inc. (bookseller), New Haven. Gift of Paul and Mary Mellon, 1965.
Access and use
Material is open for research.
Summary
Manuscript on parchment of astrological texts drawn largely from Arab astrology of the early Middle Ages, and transmitted in medieval Latin translations; in addition Ptolemy's Centiloquium is present, transmitted not in Greek but through the Arabic, along with a single contemporary component, the Astrolabium planum of Johann Engel.
Format
Archives or Manuscripts
Added to Catalog
July 28, 2011
References
Alchemy and the occult Mellon MS 25.
Astrological Miscellany. General Collection, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University.
Cite as
Astrological Miscellany. General Collection, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University.
Genre/Form
Manuscripts, Renaissance - Italy - 16th century.
Citation

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