A University of Bologna textbook precisely datable to 1430 contains key texts in mathematics and astronomy in Italian and Latin. The Vatican Library has just upgraded its digitization of this treasure, Vat.lat.4825, to full color and high resolution, and you will see below how welcome this is. This codex is a festival of visualization, including; mnemonic hands stemmata mathematical squares and rotae: There are also scatological illuminations of the sort long favoured by discerning male student customers: See Jordanus for a full listing of the content. It is one of the stars of a release ov ..read more

Ascension Week seems to have slowed the output of the Vatican Library's digitization programm. My unofficial list contains only 16 items for the past seven days: Ross.128, an Old Testament, with upper headings mostly guillotined off in rebinding: notable initialsS.Maria.Magg.26 (reloaded, but still only in black and white), liturgical musicVat.lat.2532, Andrae's commentary of DecretalsVat.lat.2550, decretals text with space left for commentary still entirely emptyVat.lat.4761, Renaissance, book of hours?Vat.lat.4810, Vat.lat.4834 (Upgraded to HQ), contains text of Tommasuccio da FolignoVat.lat ..read more

Two boats with sails and oars are depicted in the Madaba Mosaic Map, a miraculously preserved sixth-century giant floor map of Palestine. One has a cargo of white stuff, the other of a vibrantly coloured substance being shipped over the Dead Sea. The tesserae depicting the boatmen have been smashed and replaced with a random red-and-yellow mix of mosaic pieces: The boat at left carries salt, which is there for the digging on the Dead Sea coast. Recently I asked an archaeologist friend what he thought was aboard the boat at right and he promptly said: bitumen. This surprised me, but he explain ..read more

A post two years ago highlighted records in the Vatican Library illuminating the doomed attempt to establish a Christian kingdom in Palestine after the Crusades, the finale of a conflict many Muslims angrily remember to this day. One of those manuscripts is a book of genealogies containing the Lignages d'Outremer, a French-language compilation describing the leading settler families and their descents. This week that work, at folios 276-296 of Vat.lat.4789, has been re-released in high resolution and full color after only a microfilm in black and white had been available. Arlima informs us t ..read more

One of the Vatican's finest manuscripts of the Decretrum Gratiani, a great collection of laws, has just been digitized. The high resolution lets you zoom in close to figures like this rosy-cheeked bishop: Here's a king from the copious initials: This 14th century codex from Toulouse is made up of 404 folios and contains the commentary of Bartholomew of Brixen in the margins. Mirabile has details on its former owners. My full list of new digitizations: Chig.A.VIII.231 (Upgraded to HQ), Ross.130, Urb.lat.581, Urb.lat.1029.pt.2, Vat.estr.or.124, Vat.lat.2493, Decretum Gratiani (above)Vat.lat.2 ..read more

The fortunes of  some manuscripts take them to the very brink of destruction, as we see with a Neapolitan part-bible, Vat.lat.8183, digitized in the past week by the Vatican Library. The miniaturist is believed to have been Matteo Planisio. This codex containing Prophets and Psalms once contained gorgeous colourful 14th-century miniatures, but many were snipped out by a "collector". Check it out, because the vandal did not get them all. This week 26 manuscripts were scanned and put online for all the world to enjoy. My list: Ross.118 (Upgraded to HQ), an exquisite book of hours in mint cond ..read more

Among the well-loved old books digitized in the past week by the Vatican Library is a missale plenum of the late 10th or early 11th century from somewhere in central Italy. Vat.lat.4770 provided a bishop, or abbot or senior priest with liturgical rites for most occasions including for dedication of a church. Although it has a loose appearance, it is well planned in layout, with space set aside for initials and the text spaced where required for the necessary musical notation: It has one particular curiosity: a sudden change in script from the ordinary Carolingian minuscule of the period to B ..read more

Here we have the 24 Easter releases from the Vatican Library's digital portal: Ross.398, Ross.425, Urb.lat.1292, commentary on AristotleUrb.lat.1500, Urb.lat.1505, life of Andres Avelino of BasilicataUrb.lat.1621, printed newsletters, 1641-43Urb.lat.1762, missal I disagree on your ID of urb lat 1762, it's a Book of Hours, missing the calendar (probably) and the beginning of the Hours of the virgin, it begins part way through Matins for the Hours of the BVM— AaronM (@gundormr) April 21, 2019Vat.lat.2345, legal, Egidius de BellameraVat.lat.2509 (Upgraded to HQ), Compilation 1 with Apparatus of ..read more

One of the many curious features of the Tabula Peutingeriana is a depiction of Monte Tifata, a holy mountain in Campania, Italy. Tifata is a strong point, a ridge 600 metres high with steep slopes. From the top you get a view both ways along the Via Appia, and also to Vesuvius to the south and the River Volturno below (Corryx, Wikipedia, 2016). The Tabula depicts Tifata Mons with two notable temples and a sacred spring:From left to right (west to east) these places are the Baths of Sulla, a Temple of Diana (Diana Tifatina) and a Temple of Jove (Iovis Tifatinus). The whole drawing seems to be ..read more

A de luxe Renaissance atlas containing Ptolemy's Geography in Latin translation has just shown up online. The maps are as beautiful as any from the period. Here's Cyprus, Palestine and Syria: These hand-drawn illuminations are believed to be the earliest surviving maps from the cartographer Heinrich Martellus Germanus and although the manuscript is not explicitly dated, are thought to have been drawn in 1480 in Florence. The Latin translation is by Iacopo d'Angelo da Scarperia. The codex dates from the period when the West was rediscovering the 2nd-century scientist Ptolemy. Curiously, Pto ..read more