Cambridge, University Library, MS Ll.5.4

Diktyon no.: Diktyon 12224

Contents

Introduction: This manuscript contains a Compilation of notes and transcriptions of Greek texts, copied by the 17th-century clergyman and writer Abednego Seller, around 1686. Most of the content was copied from identified manuscripts at Lincoln College, Oxford, where Seller studied, and at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge. The principal text is a commentary on Aristotle's Metaphysics which is the primary surviving work of the 5th-century Neoplatonist philosopher Syrianus. The rest of the manuscript's content consists of excerpts, from texts including other commentaries on the works of Plato and Aristotle, a commentary on the Odyssey, mathematical and astronomical works and Procopius of Caesarea's history of the building works of the Emperor Justinian I. The excerpts from the Topographia Christiana of Cosmas Indicopleustes, which include a number of descriptions of animals, have been illustrated with two ink drawings of animals on p. 6 bis. One other work appears in full, a short medical text from the Hippocratic corpus. The works featured are mainly of ancient or Byzantine origin, but include an excerpt from a commentary on Aristotle's De caelo by Theophilos Korydalleus (c. 1570-1646), a rare text which can have been only a few decades old when this manuscript was produced, but whose authorship was unknown to Seller and his English contemporaries..

Language(s): Greek, with some Latin

1. p. v

Contents list

pp. i-iv, vi are blank

2. pp. ix-x

Notes on Cosmas Indicopleustes

3. pp. 1-11

Cosmas Indicopleustes, Topographia Christiana

Filiation: Copied from a manuscript in the library of Isaac Vossius (1618-1689) in Windsor, possibly Leiden, Bibliotheek der Rijksuniversiteit, MS Voss. gr. O° 11.

Excerpts from Books 1, 2 and 11

TLG 4061.002

CPG 7468

PG 88, coll. 51-461

4. p. 12

Notes on Cosmas Indicopleustes

5. pp. 13-16, line 4

Proclus, Commentary on Plato's Republic

Filiation: Copied from Cambridge, Gonville and Caius College, MS 495/264

Excerpt: ed. Kroll, vol. 1, pp. 5-10

TLG 4036.001

6. p. 16, line 5-p. 165

Syrianus, Commentaries on Aristotle's Metaphysics

Filiation: Copied from Cambridge, Gonville and Caius College, MS 495/264

TLG 4017.001

p. 166 is blank

7. pp. 167-168

Commentary on Aristotle, Analytica priora, Book 2 Quaestiones et solutiones

Filiation: Copied from Cambridge, Gonville and Caius College, MS 495/264

Traditionally erroneously attributed, as here, to Alexander of Aphrodisias

Excerpt: Quaestio 1.25 (ed. Kroll, pp. 39-41)

TLG 0732.012

8. pp. 169-171

List of authors cited by Syrianus in his commentary on Aristotle

9. pp. 172

Notes on Procopius of Caesarea

10. pp. 173-186

Procopius of Caesarea, De aedificiis

Filiation: Copied from Cambridge, Gonville and Caius College, MS 76/43

Book 1

TLG 4029.003

11. p. 187

Libanius, Brief excerpts

Filiation: Copied from Cambridge, Gonville and Caius College, MS 76/43

12. pp. 172

Notes on Didymus Chalcenterus

13. pp. 189-191

Didymus Chalcenterus, Interpretatio in Odysseam

Filiation: Copied from Cambridge, Gonville and Caius College, MS 76/43

Excerpted scholia

Ed. Franciscus Asulanus, Didymi antiqvissimi avctoris interpretatio in Odysseam (Venice 1528)

14. p. 192

Proclus, Commentary on Plato's Timaeus

Filiation: Copied from Cambridge, Gonville and Caius College, MS 76/43

Excerpt: ed. Diehl, vol. 1, p. 35

TLG 4036.010

15. pp. 193-200

Hippocrates, De officina medici

Filiation: Copied from Cambridge, Gonville and Caius College, MS 76/43

TLG 0627.008

p. 201 is blank

16. pp. 202

Notes on the authorship of the following text

17. pp. 203-209

Theophilos Korydalleus (c. 1570-1646), Commentary on Aristotle's De caelo

This text is also found in Paris, Bibliothèque Jean de Vernon, ICP, Institut français d'études byzantines (IFEB), MS 7

p. 210 is blank

18. p. 211

Leo Choirosphaktes (d. c. 919), Carmen Chiliostichum Theologicum

Filiation: Copied from Oxford, Lincoln College, MS gr. 33. The present manuscript was used for the edition of Vassis.

Excerpt: lines 14-19, with scholia of Michael Psellos

TLG 3068.004

p. 212 is blank

19. pp. 213-221

Nikephoros Blemmydes (1197-1272), Epitome physicae

Filiation: Copied from Oxford, Lincoln College, MS gr. 33

Excerpts

TLG 3092.009

20. pp. 221-224

Proclus, Hypotyposis astronomicarum positionum

Filiation: Copied from Oxford, Lincoln College, MS gr. 33

Excerpts

TLG 4036.002

21. pp. 225-253

Nicomachus Gerasenus, Introductio arithmetica

Filiation: Copied from Oxford, Lincoln College, MS gr. 33

With commentary by Ioannes Philoponos

Physical Description

Form: codex

Support: Paper, folded in folio

Extent: Codex: ii + 2 + 146 + 1 + ii leaves. 310 × 200 mm.

Foliation:

18th-century pagination:

[a-b] + i-iv + v-vi, ix-x, 1-6, 6bis, [-], 7-79, 90-298 + [c] + [d-e]

Partial pagination, written in ink in the outer corners of most of the rectos and versos, supplemented on blank leaves by 20th-century numbering in pencil. The inserted leaf 6bis has not been paginated on the verso. Several stubs follow p. 298 and, unusually, these were paginated in the 20th century, 299-320.

Collation

In its present form, the manuscript comprises 15 quires, mostly of eight leaves. It is possible that Quire 13 originally comprised eight leaves as well, with a blank bifolium having been removed at some stage.

Quire 1^6-1 (pp. v-x, 1-6; 2nd leaf excised, probably blank)
Quire 2^8+2? (pp. 6bis-24; partial leaf (6 bis=[-]) added before p. 7; leaf (pp. 7-8) inserted before p. 9
Quires 3-4⁸ (pp. 25-56)
Quire 5⁴ (pp. 57-64)
Quires 6-10⁸ (pp. 65-154)
Quire 11^8-1 (pp. 155-168; 8th leaf excised, probably blank)
Quires 12-17⁸ (pp. 169-264)
Quire 13⁶ (pp. 265-276)
Quire 14⁸ (pp. 277-292)
Quire 15^6-3 (pp. 293-298; 4th-6th leaves excised, probably blank)

Layout

280-290 × 140-160 mm. Vertical bounding lines ruled in hardpoint, occasionally crayon (pp. 204-209). Single columns (except pp. 169-170, 202, 211, 219), 43-52 lines to the page.

Hand(s)

The manuscript was copied by Abednego Seller (Hand A), the Greek text in western European mixed minuscule script, similar to early printing.

Decoration

Diagrams drawn in black ink, by the main scribe (pp. 26-27, 30, 44, 93-94, 203, 242-243, p. 248).

Sketches drawn in black ink of two animals (p. 6 bis).

Additions

There are marginal annotations by Abednego Seller, including on p. 1 his own name and a note identifying the work beginning here as having been copied from an exemplar in the library of Isaac Vossius in Windsor in 1686 (‘Ex bibliotheca V.cl. Isaaci Vossii Windesore. 1686’), and a number of other notes indicating the manuscripts from which individual items of content were copied.

Binding

Late 17th-/18th-century binding, brown leather over millboards, blind-tooled central panel and gold-stamped centre-piece and fleurons at the corners on both front and rear covers. Re-backed 1963 by J.P. Gray and Son of Cambridge.

History

Origin: Second half of the 17th century (after 1662 and before 1705). ; England.

Seller matriculated at Lincoln College, Oxford, in 1662, where one of the source manuscripts for this compilation was held, and died in 1705. Other source manuscripts were held in Windsor and Cambridge. The text appearing first in the manuscript was copied in 1686, as indicated by a note on p. 1.

Provenance and Acquisition

The inclusion on the front pastedown of the donation bookplate engraved by John Pine in 1736 suggests that the manuscript may have been part of the collection of John Moore (1646-1714), bishop of Ely and came to Cambridge University Library via the gift of George I in 1715. However, the manuscript is not recorded among the list of Moore's books published by Edward Bernard, Catalogi librorum manuscriptorum Angliæ et Hiberniæ (c. 1697), nor among the handwritten supplementary list of Moore's manuscripts, now CUL Oo.7.50.2, compiled by Thomas Tanner (1674-1735) . (See David McKitterick, Cambridge University Library: a history. The eighteenth and nineteenth centuries (1986) for further details).

Additional Information

Record Sources

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, 4, Cambridge University Press, 1861)

Chiliostichos theologia : editio princeps, , (Berlin, Walter de Gruyter, 2002)

Eliminazioni diagrammatiche Scripta: an international journal of codicology and palaeography, Acerbi, F. (13, 9-37, 2020)

Funding of Cataloguing

The Polonsky Foundation

Digital Images

Cambridge Digital Library

Abbreviations

View list of abbreviations and editorial conventions.