Penn in Hand: Selected Manuscripts

Averroës, 1126-1198.

[Commentaries on Aristotle] [manuscript].

[Germany?], 1446.

269 leaves : paper ; 303 x 201 (201 x 120) mm. bound to 311 x 225 mm.

15th-century copies of 13th- and 14th-century Hebrew translations of 12th-century commentaries by Averroës on scientific works attributed to Aristotle (De caelo, De mundo, De generatione et corruptione, Meteorologica) and a Hebrew translation of Aristotle's Book 9 of Historia animalium, with frequent marginal notes, some of which show signs of trimming (f. 182r). The end of the volume, with a different scribe and different readers, may have been bound with the rest at some later date; it includes a Hebrew translation of Aristotle's De somno et vigilia, Abraham ibn Ezra's commentary on the Song of Solomon, and a Hebrew translation of Maimonides' letter to the Jews of Yemen. The letter of Maimonides has marginal notes in Latin by a reader comparing a few leaves of the manuscript to a printed version of the text (f. 261r-263r) and a concluding note in a combination of Hebrew and Latin (f. 269v), by the same hand that converted dates in the main section of the manuscript to the Gregorian calendar (f. 84v, 162r, 250v).

Ms. codex.

Title supplied by cataloger.

Foliation: Paper, ii (modern) + 269 + ii (modern); [1-269], modern foliation in pencil; 1-97 foliated lower center recto, followed by foliation upper left recto on the leaves before and after the beginning and ending of component works (foliation for 162-176 all one higher than actual, with later foliation correct again). Catchwords on each leaf, lower left verso.

Layout: Written in 28 long lines; ruled in lead with vertical bounding lines; running titles, top center recto (f. 1r-250v). End of manuscript written in 40 long lines (f. 251r-269r).

Script: Written in Ashkenazi semi-cursive script with headings in a larger script in the hand of Judah ben Jacob (f. 1r-250v, colophon f. 250v), with a second hand at the end of the volume (f. 251r-269r).

Decoration: Possible remnant of a marginal diagram in ink (f. 9v); marginal sketch of a face, perhaps a demon, in ink (f. 15r); manicules only in the works at the end written by a second hand (f. 252r-253r, 262r, 263r).

Binding: Modern morocco.

Origin: Probably written in Germany, with a colophon dated 1446 (f. 250v); the following pages (f. 251r-269r) may have been written elsewhere and at another time.

UPenn Oversize LJS 453.

Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts University of Pennsylvania Oversize LJS 453