Collection ID: 0002 | Metadata type: TEI | TEI XML | Data

Title

Ars artium

Authors

• Schopper, Hartmann, 1542-
• Bry, Johann Theodor de, 1561-1623?

Other related names

• Hassia, Maurice, dedicatee

Call number

Ms. Codex 1636
(Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania, Rare Book & Manuscript Library)

Alternate identifiers

• bibid: 5962051
• http://hdl.library.upenn.edu/1017/d/medren/5962051

Publisher

The University of Pennsylvania Libraries

Language

Latin, with some Hebrew characters

Origin

Date

between 1690 and 1750?

Place

Italy?

Summary

17th- or 18th-century copy of a treatise dated to 16th-century Frankfurt am Main (1564, f. 1r; 1569, f. 37r) on cabalistic gematria (the mystical interpretation of language), in which strings of letters, in this case Latin sentences, are assigned a numerical value. The first part begins with a dedication to Maurice Hassia, Landgraf of Katsenelnbogen, Dietz, Zitgen-Hain, and Nidda from 1592 to 1627, in which the author cites Giovanni Pico della Mirandola and Johannes Reuchlin as transmitters of the cabalistic tradition in western Europe, and the main text explains gematria using Hebrew letters. The first 3 of the 6 tables at the end of the first part have values, and the remaining 3 are blank (f. 33r-35v). The first part also has a table of contents at the end (f. 36r). The second part begins with a letter by Joannes Theodorus de Bry (1561-1623?), in which he refers to the second part as a posthumous work; another authorial letter of dedication to a descendant of Maurice Hassia; and a table of contents without folio numbers before a presentation gematria using Latin equivalents for Hebrew letters. The dates of the dedicatees and of Joannes Theodorus de Bry suggest that the 16th-century dates of the supposed source material on the title pages of the first and second parts are unlikely. A bifolium and single leaf of related calculations and notes in Italian, in a late 18th- or 19th-century hand, is laid in the second part (after f. 73).

Notes

• Ms. codex.
   
• Title from title page (f. 1r).
   

Watermark

Fleur-de-lis enclosed in a circle surmounted by a smaller circle (similar to Heawood Watermarks, no. 1573 (1752); see nos. 1566-1573 (Italy, 1690-1752)).

Extent

80 leaves : 335 x 225 (285 x 188) mm. in folder 350 x 245 mm. +

Collation

Paper, 80; 1-12⁶ 13⁸; [i], 1-34 (Part 1), [i-ii], 1-42 (Part 2), [i]; contemporary foliation in ink, upper right recto; modern foliation in pencil, lower right recto. References in this record are to modern foliation. Catchword lower right verso on most leaves.

Support

Paper

Binding

Not bound but wrapped in a contemporary (late 17th- or 18th-century) leather folder (perhaps once the leather covers of the binding of another volume), blind-tooled, with a flap extending from the back to fold over the front decorated with an undulating edge.

Layout

Written in 40-41 long lines; possibly ruled using a frame pressed into the page with pricking along the side margins.

Decoration

Diagrams and tables throughout; a few manicules of different readers (f. 3r, 17r (with later note), 32r, 43v, 45r).

Script

Written in cursive script by a single hand.

Provenance

• Possible ownership stamp: Vachini[?] (f. 1r, 37r).
   
• Sold at auction at Tajan (Paris), 14 May 2004, lot 90.
   
• Sold by Les Enluminures (Paris and Chicago), 2013.
   

Subjects topical

• Cabala--Early works to 1800
• Gematria--Early works to 1800
• Mathematics--Early works to 1800
• Algebra--Early works to 1800

Genres

• Codices
• Diagrams
• Tables (documents)
• Treatises
• Manuscripts, Latin--17th century
• Manuscripts, Latin--18th century
• Manuscripts, European

Licenses

• Text

  These images and the content of Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Ms. Codex 1636: Ars artium are free of known copyright restrictions and in the public domain. See the Creative Commons Public Domain Mark page for usage details, http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/.

  URL

  http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/

• Text

  Metadata is ©2017 University of Pennsylvania Books & Manuscripts and licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License version 4.0 (CC-BY-4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode. For a description of the terms of use see the Creative Commons Deed https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.

  URL

  https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode