[Commentaries on Aristotle].

Format:

Book

Manuscript

Author/Creator:

Averroës, 1126-1198, author.

Contributor:

Solomon ibn Ayub, translator.

Qalonymos ben Qalonymos ben Meʼir, 1286- translator.

Ibn Tibbon, Jacob ben Machir, approximately 1236- translator.

Solomon ben Moses, of Melgueil, active 13th century, translator.

Nahum, active 13th century, translator.

Judah ben Jacob, 15th century, scribe.

Itzig, Daniel, 1723-1799, former owner.

Hirschel, Solomon, 1761-1842, former owner.

Jews' College (London, England), former owner.

Bet din tsedeḳ London ṿeha-medinah (Great Britain), former owner.

Lawrence J. Schoenberg Collection (University of Pennsylvania)

Language:

Arabic

Hebrew

Subjects (All):

Aristotle--Criticism and interpretation--Early works to 1800.

Aristotle. De caelo--Early works to 1800.

Aristotle. De mundo--Early works to 1800.

Aristotle. De generatione et corruptione--Early works to 1800.

Aristotle. Meteorologica--Early works to 1800.

Aristotle.

Bible. Song of Solomon--Early works to 1800.

Bible. Song of Solomon.

Criticism and interpretation.

Genre:

codices (bound manuscripts)

annotations

commentaries

translations (documents)

Manuscripts, Hebrew -- 15th century.

Manuscripts, Renaissance.

Penn Provenance:

Formerly owned by Daniel Itzig, manuscript collector and court Jew in Prussia (ownership stamp, with Hebrew text and roman initials DI, f. 39r).

Probably formerly owned by Solomon Hirschell, later chief rabbi of London, who bought many of Itzig's manuscripts (ownership label, with Hebrew text and number 126, f. 1r).

Formerly held in the library of Jews' College (London; stamp, f. 1r).

Formerly held in the library of the Bet din tsedeḳ London ṿeha-medinah (Ashkenazi rabbinical court, London), no. 41 (spine).

Sold at auction at Christie, Manson & Woods as part of the collection of the Bet din tsedeḳ London ṿeha-medinah, 23 Jun. 1999, lot 15, to Lawrence J. Schoenberg.

Sold at auction at Sotheby's, 17 June 2003, lot 76, to Lawrence J. Schoenberg.

Gift of Lawrence J. Schoenberg and Barbara Brizdle Schoenberg, 2015.

Physical Description:

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

Production:

[Germany?], 1446.

Language Note:

Hebrew.

Summary:

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).

Contents:

1. f.1r-84v: [Hebrew translation of Averroës' Tafsīr al-Samāʼ wa-al-ʻālam (commentary on Aristotle's De caelo and De mundo) / Solomon ibn Ayub]

2. f.84v-118v: [Hebrew translation of Averroës' Kawn wa-al-fasād (commentary on Aristotle's De generatione et corruptione) / Kalonymos ben Kalonymos]

3. f.118v-162r: [Hebrew translation of Averroës' Jawāmiʻ Kitab al-Āthār al-ʻulwīyah (commentary on Aristotle's Meteorologica) / Kalonymos ben Kalonymos]

4. f.163r-250v: [Hebrew translation of Aristotle's Historia animalium, Book 9 / Jacob ben Machir Ibn Tibbon]

5. f.251r-259v: [Hebrew translation of Aristotle's De somno et vigilia / Solomon ben Moses of Melgueil or Avicenna]

6. f.259v-260v: [Perush Ibn ʻEzra ʻal Shir ha-shirim (commentary on the Song of Solomon) / Abraham ibn Ezra]

7. f.261r-269r: [Hebrew translation of Moses Maimonides' Igeret ha-Rambam (letter to the Jews of Yemen) / Nahum ha-Maʻaravi]

Notes:

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.

Local Notes:

Lawrence J. Schoenberg & Barbara Brizdle Manuscript Initiative.

Cited in:

Described in Transformation of knowledge: early manuscripts from the collection of Lawrence J. Schoenberg (London: Paul Holberton, 2006), p. 19 (LJS 453).

Publications about:

Pearce, S.J., "Matter, meaning, and Maimonides: the material text as an early modern map of medieval debates on translation and esotericism,” in Elisheva Baumgarten, Ruth Mazo Karras, and Katelyn Mesler, eds., Entangled histories: knowledge, authority and transmission in thirteenth-century Jewish cultures (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2016), p. 218.

Cited as:

Averroës, Commentaries on Aristotle (Oversize LJS 453). Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts, University of Pennsylvania.

Contains:

Averroës, 1126-1198. Tafsīr al-Samāʼ wa-al-ʻālam. Hebrew.

Averroës, 1126-1198. Kawn wa-al-fasād. Hebrew.

Averroës, 1126-1198. Jawāmiʻ Kitab al-Āthār al-ʻulwīyah. Hebrew.

Aristotle. Historia animalium. Selections. Hebrew.

Aristotle. De somno et vigilia. Hebrew.

Ibn Ezra, Abraham ben Meïr, 1089-1164. Perush Ibn ʻEzra ʻal Shir ha-shirim.

Maimonides, Moses, 1135-1204. Igeret ha-Rambam.

OCLC:

842409174

Online:

The Lawrence J. Schoenberg and Barbara Brizdle Manuscript Initiative Fund Home Page