Medieval Manuscripts in Cambridge Libraries: Cambridge, University Library, MS Dd.15.27

Diktyon no.: Diktyon 12174

Introduction: This manuscript, produced in 1584, contains the Treatise on the Astrolabe of Ioannes Philoponos, a 6th-century Alexandrian writer on philosophy and theology, who had a particular interest in the natural sciences. It was copied by Maximos Margounios (whose name before becoming a monk had been Manuel), a humanist scholar and poet from Venetian-ruled Crete, who taught in Venice and wrote on theology and Aristotelian philosophy, and edited Greek patristic and Byzantine texts for print publication. He also copied numerous manuscripts or portions of them. In late 1583 or early 1584 he was appointed Bishop of Kythera, another island then under Venetian rule. A proponent of rapprochement between the Orthodox and Catholic Churches, whose mother came from the noble Italian Colonna family, Margounios was in contact with various western European humanists, including Martin Crusius, as well as leading dignitaries of the Orthodox Church. His pupils included the future Patriarch of Constantinople Cyril Loukaris (1572-1638), who was exceptionally active in advancing intellectual and religious contacts between East and West. The main text of this manuscript is preceded by a dedicatory letter addressed to one of Margounios's Italian associates, Giacomo Germinino , and was presumably intended for him. In a fashionable scholarly affectation, in dating this text Margounios uses the ancient Athenian civil calendar, giving the day as the 6th of the month of Metageitnion, which fell partly in August and partly in September, though giving the year by the Christian era. The revived usage of these months was highly erratic, so this cannot be used to place the manuscript's completion at a definite point in the year. Margounios still describes himself here as a hieromonachos (a monk and priest), suggesting that the manuscript dates from before his episcopal appointment, placing its completion early in the year and indicating that his elevation occurred in 1584 rather than 1583. Dr Christopher Wright

Language(s): Greek

1. ff. 4r-6r, line 7

Maximos Margounios, Letter on Ioannes Philoponos, to Giacomo Germinino

Rubric: f. 4r Τῷ ἐκλαμπρωτάτῳ, καὶ μεγαλοπρεπεστάτῳ ἀνδρὶ, κυρίῳ Ἰακώβῳ τῷ Γερμινίνῳ, Μάξιμος ἐλάχιστος ἱερομόναχος ὁ Μαργούνιος, εὖ πράττειν

Incipit: f. 4r Οἱ μὲν πολλοὶ τῶν ἀνθρώπων, οἷς ἡ πᾶσα τοῦ βίου

Explicit: f. 6r ψυχῆ τε καὶ σώματι πρέσβεων ἐκλαμπρότατε

Colophon: f. 6r Ἐκ τοῦ ἡμετέρου μουσείου· Μεταγειτνιῶνος ἕκτη ἱσταμένου, καὶ τὸ ͵αφπδʹ ἔτος, ἀπὸ τῆς τοῦ Σωτῆρος ἡμῶν ἐνσάρκου οἰκονομίας:- Τοῦ αὐτοῦ Μαξίμου ἐλαχίστου ἱερομονάχου, εἰς τὸν αὐτὸν ἐκλαμπρότατον καὶ μεγαλοπρεπέστατον, κύριον Ἰάκοβον τὸν Γερμινῖνον

ff. 1r and 3v are blank apart from brief notes regarding ownership and content; ff. 1v-3r are blank.

2. ff. 6r, lines 8-13

Epigram

Incipit: f. 6r Ἠύγε φανοτάτου λαμπρὸν σέλας ἠελιόνο

Explicit: f. 6r εἵνεκα σῶν ἀρετῶν, εἵνεκα σῶν χαρίτων

ff. 6v-7v are blank.

3. ff. 8r-36v

Philoponus, John, active 6th century, De usu astrolabii

Rubric: f. 8r Ἰωάννου Ἀλεξανδρέως τοῦ Φιλοπόνου περὶ τῆς τοῦ ἀστρολάβου χρήσεως, καὶ τί τῶν ἐν αὐτῷ καταγεγραμμένων σημαίνει ἕκαστον

Incipit: f. 8r Προοίμιον. Περὶ τῆς ἐν τῷ ἐπιπέδῳ καταγραφῆς

Explicit: f. 36v καὶ πόσαις τούτου μοίραις διέστηκεν ἐπὶ θάτερα

Final rubric: f. 36v Τέλος, τῷ δὲ Θεῷ δόξα αίωνία

TLG 4015.020

4. ff. 37r-44v

Blank folios

Physical Description

Form: codex

Support: Western paper, folded in octavo.

Extent: Codex: 44 leaves. 150 × 105 mm.

Foliation: The manuscript is foliated with the numbers 1-44, in pencil, in Arabic numerals, recto, upper right.

Foliation: ff. 4-38 are foliated with the numbers 1-20, 22-36 (the number 21 has been erroneously omitted from this sequence), in brown ink, in Arabic numerals, recto, upper right. These numbers have later been crossed out in pencil.

Collation

The manuscript consists of 6 quires, of which two are ternia and the rest are quaternia.

Quire 1⁶ ff. 1-6
Quires 2-5⁸ ff. 7-38
Quire 6⁶ ff. 39-44

There are modern quire signatures in Arabic numerals at the beginning of each quire, in pencil, recto, lower right. Catchwords appear on the verso of each folio. Some have been lost to cropping.

Condition

ff. 39-40 and 41-42 remain largely uncut. There are tears to the edges of the last few folios (ff. 39-44), and two holes through ff. 43-44, corresponding to holes in the inside of the right board. There is significant water staining, patches of dirt and traces of mould.

Layout

A single column of 20 lines. 85 × 54 mm.

Hand(s)

The manuscript was copied by Maximos Margounios in a mixed minuscule script, slanting to the right, in grey-brown ink, with modest variation in letter size.

Syllabic abbreviations and superscript word endings usually appear only at the end of lines, but occasionally elsewhere. Breathings are round and mute iota is subscript. There is occasional decorative use of the double dot or of a single dot on iota, and accentuation of all nomina sacra . Accents are sometimes joined to letters, breathings and nomina sacra strokes. Horizontal strokes appear over names.

The modern eta, modern nu, sigma telikon and loop epsilon are present.

Punctuation used includes the middle and upper points, lower and middle commas and full stop.

Decoration

The main text begins with a plaited headpiece in brown ink (f. 8r).

Additions

Brief scholia in Greek have been added by another hand to f. 9r. There are notes on ownership and content in three different hands: Front pastedown ‘Philoponus de Astrolabio J. B. Hautin’; f. 1r ‘Φεδερίκου Μορέλλου κτῆσις’; f. 3v ‘Iohannes Gromtea (Grammatica?) de Astrolabio’.

Binding

Full leather binding, late 16th or 17th-century, with red leather covering over hard boards of unknown material and plain pastedowns. The boards bear blind-tooled borders. Two holes through the outer corners of each board suggest the previous presence of fastenings. A sheet of plain paper has been pasted to the outer surface of each board, later than the removal of these fittings. The rebacked spine, covered with brown leather, bears decorative gold tooling and the classmark and the title ‘Phil. De Astr.’ are tooled in gold on a red leather label on the spine.

152 × 112 × 26 mm.

The binding has been rebacked, and some of the leather covering has been lost from the spine. Both boards have become distorted into a concave shape.

History

Origin: The manuscript was copied by Maximos Margounios (1530/49-1602) , Bishop of Kythera (RGK I 259; II 356; III 427), and completed in 1584, according to the dedicatory epistle on f. 6r. The manuscript is erroneously dated to 1484 in the 19th-century catalogue, due to an apparent misreading of the date given by Margounios. This error has been replicated in the most recent edition, by Jarry, which includes this in the list of existing manuscripts, but not among those consulted.

Provenance and Acquisition

Owned by Fédéric Morel (ca. 1552-1630) ..

Owned by one J.-B. Hautin , probably the grandson of Jean-Baptiste Hautin (ca. 1580-1640). (Easterling, 'Two Greek MSS.', p. 111, n. 1)

Probably owned by John Moore (b. 1646, d. 1714), bishop of Ely . Although it carries the Royal Library bookplate usually (but not invariably) indicating that a book belonged to the Moore collection, this manuscript is not recorded as part of that collection in Bernard, Catalogi librorum manuscriptorum Angliæ et Hiberniæ (1697), nor in the handwritten supplementary list of Moore’s manuscripts, now MS Oo.7.50(2), compiled by Tanner, Thomas, 1674-1735. However, since many other books previously owned by Hautin reached Cambridge University Library via the Moore collection, it is likely that this manuscript too was part of that collection.

Supposing it was indeed part of the Moore collection, the manuscript was presented in 1715 by George I .

Additional Information

Availability

Entry to read in the Library is permitted only on presentation of a valid reader's card. For information on eligibility and admissions procedures, see Joining the Library). For further enquiries, and to confirm the availability of the manuscript, please contact the Special Collections Reading Room.

Bibliography

A catalogue of the manuscripts preserved in the library of the University of Cambridge, (Cambridge, 1, Cambridge University Press, 1856)

Die griechischen Schreiber des Mittelalters und der Renaissance, Vogel, MarieGardthausen, Victor (Leipzig, O. Harrassowitz, 1909)

Repertorium der griechischen Kopisten, 800-1600. I. Grossbritannien Veröffentlichungen der Kommission für Byzantinistik;, Gamillscheg, ErnstHarlfinger, Dieter (Wien, Bd. 3, Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1981)

Traité de l'astrolabe, Philoponus, John (Paris, Les Belles Lettres, 2015)

Funding of Cataloguing

The Polonsky Foundation

Digital Images

Cambridge Digital Library

Abbreviations

View list of abbreviations and editorial conventions.

Medieval Manuscripts in Cambridge Libraries

Cambridge, University Library, MS Dd.15.27

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