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

MS. Add. A. 2

Summary Catalogue no.: 28744

Contents

Johannes de Sacro Bosco, Tractatus de sphera
Rubric: Incipit spera secundum M. Joannem Gallicum de Sacra Busco
Incipit: ⟨T⟩ractatum de sp⟨er⟩a quatuor capitulis distinguimus
Language(s): Latin

Physical Description

Form: codex
Support: paper
Extent: i + 56 leaves
Dimensions (binding): 7.25 × 5 in.

Hand(s)

Humanistic script (Pächt and Alexander ii. 820)

Decoration

Pächt and Alexander ii. 820

Geometric diagrams (e.g. fols 8r and 49v). A representational diagram on

fol. 10r

  • Type diagram
  • Subject Geometric diagram with walled city and boat on water

Additions: With notes in the margins in various hands, from differing dates, and some correction of the main text; e.g. fol. 7v and fol. 28r

Binding

Red leather on boards with blind tooling, brass bosses and fore-edge clasp fittings (15th century)

History

Origin: 15th century, middle ; Italy North

Provenance and Acquisition

Fol. 56v: '1452 (?) Visto; per mi Zohanne de Ipesoadan (?)'. For similar inscriptions, see MS. Canon. Misc. 486, MS. D'Orville 36, and MS. Laud Lat. 48; also Edinburgh, Nat. Lib. Scotland, MS. Adv. 18. 3. 15. Apparently to be read as Giovanni dei Pescadori: see Giuseppe Billanovich, 'Il testo di Livio', Italia medioevale e umanistica 32 (1989), 53-99 at 85 and n. 93.

'V. g. 51', 'Pº xix. f. 3', 'V. E. 6'

Bought for 6s. at Sotheby's 20-1 June 1860, lot. 245, among lots 'formerly in the archives of two princely Roman families'.

Record Sources

Description adapted (November 2024) by Stewart J. Brookes from the Summary Catalogue (1905). Decoration, localization and date follow Pächt and Alexander (1970)

Last Substantive Revision

2024-11-13: Description revised to incorporate all the information in the Summary Catalogue (1905)