Beinecke MS 399               Louvain, 1514
Ciruelo, Opusculum de Sphera mundi Ioannis de Sacro Bosco

1.  ff. 1r-15r  Johannis de sacro busto [sic] Spere mundi opusculum vna
cum addicionibus peroportune intersertis ac aliquali textus expositione Petri
Ciruelli darocensis felici sidere inchoat Prohemium Authoris.  Dixit
i[crossed out:  h]ohannes tractatum de spera mundi 4^^or capittulis
distinguimus.  Dicturi primo (quorundam terminorum expositione premissa) de
forma mundi...[Cap. 1 begins, f. 1r:] Capitulum de forma mundi...Spera (ut
geometre aiunt) est corpus rotunditate perfectum...Aut deus nature patitur aut
mundi machina dissoluitur.  Et sic est finis Louanij Anno 1514 incompleto.
circa festum paulj.  f. 9v blank

     Pedro Sanchez Ciruelo, Opusculum de Sphera Mundi Ioannis de Sacrobosco;
has the same divisions, but is shorter than the edition done by Guy Marchand for
Jean Petit (Paris, 1498) a. vi, verso - m. vi, recto.

2.  ff. 15v-16r  [Text:] Circulus ecentricus uel egresse cuspidis uel
egredientis centri dicitur qui non habet centrum suum cum centro mundi...
[commentary:] Circulus huius libri.  Incipit theorica id est scientia
speculatiua de motibus planetarum....  ff. 16v-18v blank, except for short note
on f. 18r concerning the planets

     Unidentified commentary on Gerard of Cremona (Sabbionetta?), Theorica
planetarum; F. J. Carmody, ed., Theorica planetarum Gerardi (Berkeley,
1942).  The commentary is incomplete, discussing only the first three sentences
of Gerard's treatise.

The manuscript is bound with two early printed texts:

I.  Bartolomeo Vespucci, comp., Oratio de laudibus astrologiae; Textus Spherae
Joannis de Sacro Bosco, with commentaries of Bartolomeo Vespucci, Franciscus
Capuanus de Manfredonia, J. Le Fevre d'Etaples, Pierre d'Ailly, Robert of
Lincoln, and Joannes Regiomontanus.  Venice:  J. Rubeus and Bernardinus
Vercellenses, 1508.  The Ciruelo manuscript is bound in between ff. 70 and 71 of
the printed text, between the commentaries of J. Le Fevre and Pierre d'Ailly.

II.  Egidio Colonna, De materia celi questio and De intellectu possibili
contra Averoim quaestio aurea.  Padua:  Hieronymus de Durantis, 1493 (Hain
114).

     Paper (watermarks similar in design to Briquet Lettre P 8538 and Piccard
Buchstabe  P II.268), ff. ii (part of quire I) + 18, 299 x 206 (245 x 160) mm.
Written in ca. 60 long lines, frame-ruled in hard point; prickings at corners of
written space.
     I^^10, II^^8, III^^2.
     Written in small, cramped cursive of 2 sizes, for text of Sacro Bosco and
commentary; headings by the scribe, in a larger more formal script related to
batarde.
     Simple initials in outline by the scribe (3- or 2-line).
     Stain on f.8v does not affect text.  Discoloration on ff. i recto and 18v
suggests that the manuscript was once a separate booklet.
     Binding:  s. xix [?].  Vellum case with stubs of two ties.

Written in 1514 (see f. 15r) in Louvain.  Early modern provenance unknown.
Purchased from H. P. Kraus (Cat. 107, no. 27) in 1970 by Edwin J. Beinecke for
the Beinecke Library.

Barbara A. Shailor