A catalogue of Western manuscripts at the Bodleian Libraries and selected Oxford colleges

MS. Canon. Misc. 47

Summary Catalogue no.: 19523

Contents

Giovanni Fontana, De trigono balistario (autograph; abbreviated from a larger work which does not survive)
Colophon: (fol. 220v:) Editus et explectus est tractatus iste […] anno gratie mºccccºxlº. in utino [Udine] die ultimo februarij per Johannem fontanam \Venetum/ physicum medicum eodem in loco salariatum […]

On fol. 221 is 'tabula stellarum fixarum . . . 1440'. The work was 'abreuiatus ex libro majore' and the date is evidently the date when this was done; there is much alteration throughout.

Language(s): Latin

Physical Description

Form: codex
Support: paper
Extent: i + 222 medieval leaves
Dimensions (leaf): 291 × 220 mm.

Layout

1 col., c. 38-40 lines, written space c. 195-210 × 150-66 mm.

Hand(s)

Copied by Giovanni Fontana himself. (Pächt and Alexander ii. 975). Humanistic script.

Decoration

Diagrams, tables. (Pächt and Alexander ii. 975)

Coloured initials.

Rubrics.

Binding

15th century, Italian (as MS.): wood boards, left bare in quarter-leather style; the original leather spine (lost) had extended across one third of each board and was secured with a vertical row of (lost) tightly-spaced nails, 1+12+1 (front) and 1+11+1 (back); central strap of red tawed leather, mostly lost, with a back-cover metal catch-plate moulded with ‘yh’s’ in a sunburst under monogram ‘SS[?]’. Spine of rough plain brown leather, ?18th century, Italian, now preserved inside front cover; again rebacked in light brown leather, 20th century, Bodleian. 290 × 218–220 × c. 63 mm. (book closed).

History

Origin: 1440 (new style, 1441: see Kranz, pp. 3-4) ; Italian, Udine

Provenance and Acquisition

Matteo Luigi Canonici, 1727–1805

Giuseppe Canonici , -1807

Purchased by the Bodleian in 1817

Record Sources

Description adapted (July 2022) from the following sources, with additional reference to other literature as cited.
B. C. Barker-Benfield, Bookbindings of Canonici manuscripts : a survey of early and non-standard bindings, mostly Italian, in the Canonici collection of the Bodleian Library, University of Oxford (Oxford, privately printed, 2020)
A. Watson, Catalogue of Dated and Datable Manuscripts in Oxford Libraries (1984), no. 292
Previously described in the Quarto Catalogue.

Digital Images

Digital Bodleian (full digital facsimile)

Bibliography

    De trigono balistario – Das Ballistendreieck. Technische Kapitel und ausgewählte Anwendungen. Texterstellung, Übersetzung und Zeichnungen, ed. Horst Kranz (s.l., 2021) https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4481358

    Printed descriptions:

    Otto Pächt and J. J. G. Alexander, Illuminated Manuscripts in the Bodleian Library Oxford, II (1970), no. 975

Last Substantive Revision

2022-07: Incorporated additional information from Dated and Datable catalogue.