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Sloane MS 702
- Record Id:
- 040-002113053
- Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:
- 032-002112337
- MDARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100000000547.0x0002f3
- LARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100192320401.0x000001
- SLARK:
- Format:
- ISAD(G)
- Reference (shelfmark):
- Sloane MS 702
- Title:
- Collection of texts, excerpts and notes on astrology and astronomy, with accompanying tables and diagrams
- Scope & Content:
-
Contents:
f. 1r: Added ownership inscriptions and former shelfmarks.
ff. 1v-33v: A collection of texts, excerpts and brief notes on astrology and astronomy, using or citing authorities including Al-Qabisi (or Alcabitius), Mashallah ibn Athari (or Messahallah), Abu Ma'shar al-Balkhi (or Albumaser), and Pseudo-Ptolemy. They include the following:
f. 1v: A T-O map of the world and astronomical diagram.
ff. 2r-3r: An excerpt from Mashallah ibn Athari's Epistola de rebus eclipsium et conjunctionibus planetarum, beginning, 'Quoniam Dominus altissimus fecit terram...'
f. 3v: A set of notes on the movement of the planets.
f. 4r-v: A set of notes on the signs of the zodiac and the planets.
f. 4v: An excerpt from Al-Qabisi's Introductorius on the exaltations of the planets, beginning, 'Hec sunt exaltaciones...'
f. 5r-v: A short astrometerological text, beginning, 'In consideratione Solis et Lune, considera signum ascendens…'
f. 5v: An excerpt from Al-Qabisi's Introductorius on the aspects of the Zodiac signs, beginning, 'Dicuntur etiam signa se aspicere...'
f. 6r: A short astrological text concerning the Moon, beginning, 'Qui cursum Lune recte scire voluerit...'
f. 6r: A note on the ascendant sign at the time of a boy's birth, beginning, 'Item nota quando puer nascitur consideratur illa hora…'
ff. 6v-7r: An astronomical calendar.
f. 7v: Verses on the astrological signs, beginning, 'Nihil capiti facias, Aries dum luna refulget...'
f. 8r-9v: A set of prognostications concerning the planet Saturn, attributed to al-Kindi, beginning, 'Saturnus in Ariete sub radiis...'
f. 9v: Definitions for the terms, 'ortus', 'occasus', 'progressio' and 'retrogradatio'.
f. 10r: A short text on the rectification of nativities, attributed to Pseudo-Ptolemy, beginning, 'Ptholomeus et Hermes dixerunt quod locus Lune...'
f. 10r: A note on astronomy, beginning, 'Dicit quid astronomus et expertum est…'
f. 10v: An excerpt from Henry Bate of Mechelen's translation of Abraham Avenezra's De mundo vel seculo, beginning, 'Omnes sapientes astrorum dicunt...'
f. 10v: A short text on the prognostications of grain and wheat, beginning, 'Dicit Messehala si Luna se prius coniungit Iovi…'
f. 11r-v: An astronomical calendar for the calculation of the conjunctions from the years 1482 to 1500, with accompanying explanatory notes in Latin.
ff. 12r-13r: A set of tables containing terms, decans, and degrees, derived from Al-Qabisi's Introductorius.
f. 13r: Verses on the Sun and planets, beginning, 'Sol est masculinus et diurnus…'
f. 13v: A set of notes on the 12 houses, beginning, 'Primum domus initium corporis et vite…'
f. 13v: A set of notes on the regions of the Zodiac signs, beginning, 'Regio Arietis est Persa et Babilonia…'
ff. 14r-16r: Mashallah ibn Athari, Epistola de rebus eclipsium et conjunctionibus planetarum, beginning, 'Dixit Messahala, quod Dominus altissimus fecit terram...'
f. 16r: A horoscopic diagram summarising the 12 houses.
f. 16v: A short text on the four elements.
ff. 17r-18r: An added bifolium containing a short text on comets, beginning, 'Utrum cometa sit exaltatio calida et sicca…'
f. 19r: A short text on comets, beginning, 'Cometes licet appareat quasi stella…'
f. 19v: A table of retrogradations, stations and directions.
f. 20r: A brief note 'de domino anni', beginning, 'Nota de domino anni sunt due opiniones...'
ff. 20r-22v: A set of astronomical diagrams, some with moveable parts.
f. 23r: A brief note 'de domino anni', beginning, 'Notandum est de domino anni. Qui vult invenire dominum anni…'
ff. 23r-24v: A short treatise on the twelve signs of the Zodiac, beginning, 'Cum Luna fuerit in Ariete, signo orientali, calido et sicco…'
f. 25r-v: A short text on the seven planets, beginning, 'Saturnus est nobis remotissimus, frigidus est...'
f. 25v: A short text on the good and evil qualities of the planets, beginning, 'Planetarum alii boni, alii mali…'
ff. 25v-26r: A short text on the influence of the planets on a foetus in the womb, beginning, 'Saturnus mense primo naturam coagulare…'
f. 26r: A short text summarising the coordinates of the seven climates.
f. 26v: A short text on the Caput Draconis, followed by an excerpt from the Alchandrea on the dragon, beginning, 'Capud Draconis est masculus…'
f. 27r-v: A short text and table of the 28 lunar mansions, summarising their names, asterisms and elemental qualities, beginning, 'Sciendum quod 28 sunt mansiones Lune...'
f. 28r: An excerpt from the Alchandrea on the planets, beginning, 'Luna est frigide nature...'
f. 28r: A short text on the planets, beginning, 'Saturnus habet pro domibus Capricornum et Aquarium…'
f. 28v: A short text 'De minutione brachiorum', beginning, 'Pro minuendo melius quod esse potest…'
f. 29r: A 'Zodiac man', with explanatory notes.
f. 29v: A set of astrological notes on combustion and aspects of the planets.
f. 30r: A short text on the planets, beginning, 'Omnis planeta dum tegitur radiis Solis donec appareat…'
f. 30r: A short text on necromantic books, beginning, 'De libris vero nigromanticis prime preiudicio melioris…'
f. 30v: A short text on the nature of the planets, beginning, 'Saturnus planeta malivolus, nocturnus, ponderosus…'
f. 31r-v: A short text on the seven climates, citing Mashallah ibn Athari, beginning, 'Initium primi climatis est ex parte orientali…'
ff. 31v-32r: A short text on the weather, the causes of rain and changes in the air, beginning, 'Temperies causas pluviarum et aeris mutationem et causas ventorum et nubilorum…'
f. 32v: An excerpt from Abu Ma'shar al-Balkhi's Flores Albumasaris on weight and lightness, beginning, 'Dicit Albumaser Scies hoc ex utrisque planetis superioribus...'
f. 33r: A table of coordinates for 23 cities, including Jerusalem, Rome, Constantinople and Alexandria.
f. 33v: An unfinished horoscopic diagram.
f. 18v is blank.
Decoration:
5 diagrams on thick paper with moveable parts, in yellow, brown and/or black (ff. 20v-22v), including a volvelle (f. 21v) and a diagram to calculate the date of Easter, featuring a moveable disk, with the figure of a man, in colours, pointing with outstretched arms (f. 20v).
1 half-page miniature of a 'Zodiac man', drawn in pen-and-ink with colours, holding a sun and crescent moon in each hand, the names of the Zodiac inscribed in red (f. 29r).
Diagrams (ff. 1v, 3r, 16r, 20r, 33v), including a T-O world map (f. 1v) and horoscopic diagrams (16r, 33v), and astronomical tables (ff. 6v-7r, 11r-v, 19v) in brown and red.
Small initials, paraph marks and highlighting of letters in red.
Rubrics.
- Collection Area:
- Western Manuscripts
- Project / Collection:
- Sloane Collection
- Hierarchy Record Ids:
- 032-002112337
040-002113053 - Is part of:
- Sloane MS 1-4100 : Sloane Manuscripts
Sloane MS 702 : Collection of texts, excerpts and notes on astrology and astronomy, with accompanying tables and diagrams - Hierarchy:
- 032-002112337[0716]/040-002113053
- Container:
- View / search within Archive / Collection: Sloane MS 1-4100
- Record Type (Level):
- File
- Extent:
- 1 volume
- Digitised Content:
- http://access.bl.uk/item/viewer/ark:/81055/vdc_100192320401.0x000001 (digital images currently unavailable)
- Thumbnail:
-
- Languages:
- Latin
- Scripts:
- Latin
- Start Date:
- 1460
- End Date:
- 1499
- Date Range:
- Late 15th century
- Era:
- CE
- Access:
-
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- User Conditions:
- Letter of introduction required to view this manuscript
- Physical Characteristics:
-
Material: Paper.
Dimensions: 270 x 190 mm (written space: 165 x 130 mm) (ff. 1-16, 19-33); 150 x 110 mm (written space: 110 x 80 mm) (ff. 17-18).
Foliation: ff. 33 (+ 2 unfoliated paper flyleaves at the beginning and 3 at the end); ff. 17-18 are contemporaneous paper folios inserted into the volume and mounted on a modern paper guard.
Script: Gothic cursive.
Binding: British Museum in-house. Brown half-leather binding, with the Sloane arms gold-stamped on the upper and lower covers.
- Custodial History:
-
Origin:
England.
The manuscript was probably made in the late 15th century, suggested by the reference to the year '1469' in one of the astronomical diagrams (f. 20r) and the astronomical calendar and accompanying notes concerning the calculation of the conjunctions for the years 1482-1500 (f. 11r-v).
Provenance:
Augustensis Georgius Herlin: inscribed, 'a Georgio Herlin augusten' (f. 1r).
Sir Hans Sloane (b. 1660, d. 1753), baronet, physician and collector: inscribed with his former shelfmarks, 'XXVII', 'MS A 134', and 'XVIII D' (f. 1r); listed in the catalogue of Sloane's manuscripts (now Sloane MS 3972 B, f. 11r).
Purchased as part of the Sloane collection from Sloane's executors and incorporated into the newly-founded British Museum in 1753.
- Publications:
-
Catalogus Librorum Manuscriptorum Bibliothecae Sloanianae(Manuscripts 1-1091), ([London: British Museum], no date), no. 702.
The Kalender of Shepherdes: The Edition of Paris 1503 in Photographic Facsimile, ed. by H. Oskar Sommer (London: Kegan & Paul, 1892), pp. 89, 96.
Lynn Thorndike, 'Notes on some less familiar British Astronomical and Astrological Manuscripts', Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, 22 (1959), 157-71 (p. 160).
David Juste, 'Neither Observation nor Astronomical Tables: An Alternative Way of Computing the Planetary Longitudes in the Early Western Middle Ages', in Studies in the History of the Exact Sciences in Honour of David Pingree, ed. by Charles Burnett et al (Leiden: Brill, 2004), pp. 181-222 (p. 217 n. 97).
David Juste, Les Alchandreana Primitifs: Etude sur les plus anciens traités astrologiques latins d'origine arabe (Xe siècle) (Leiden: Brill, 2007), pp. 331, 393, 412.
Charles Burnett, 'Weather Forecasting, Lunar Mansions and a Disputed Attribution: The Tractatus Pluviarum et Aeris Mutationis and Epitome Totius Astrologiae of 'Iohannes Hispalensis', in Islamic Thought in the Middles Ages: Studies in Text, Transmission and Translation, in honour of Hans Daiber, ed. by Anna Akasoy and Wim Raven (Leiden: Brill, 2008), pp. 219-66 (p. 228).
Shlomo Sela, Abraham Ibn Ezra Latinus: Henry Bate's Latin versions of Abraham Ibn Ezra's astrological writings (Leiden: Brill, 2022), pp. 61-62 n. 308.
- Material Type:
- Archives and Manuscripts
- Legal Status:
- Not Public Record(s)