The Sphere

La sfera

Dati, Gregorio

around 1425

Copy of cosmography, astrology, and geography textbook written in verse by the Florentine silk merchant Gregorio Dati; illustrated with astrological charts, geographical diagrams, world maps, and portolan chart sections of the southern Mediterranean and Black Sea coasts.

Italy

Manuscript book

Maps
Poetry
Textbooks

24 leaves; 29 cm

Vellum

Humanistic

Frequent marginal notes in brown or red ink, mostly repeating place names included in the text.

Pen-and-ink and paint (blue, green, brown, red, yellow, gold); page [1] includes elaborate white vine-stem border and and an unidentified coat-of-arms; bound in possibly 19th-century gold papier boards.

Cartography

Geography--Textbooks
Astrology
Cosmography
Poetry
Manuscripts maps

Collation: fol. iiii + 24 + iiii (original foliation in roman numerals). 1¹² 2¹². Parchment with guard leaves in paper. Layout: one column, 26 transcriptional lines per facade (three stanzas of 8 lines each are separated by one blank line). Text: Cited as "La sfera" or "La spera" in secondary literature. In this copy (one of some 200 ms. copies extant), the first book is not titled, but books 2-4 are headed: "Libro secondo della spera" (f.7r), "Libro terzo della spera" (f.13r) and "Libro quarto della spera" (f.19r). Incipit: "Al padre al figlio allo spirito sancto" (f.1r).

The Newberry Library

Newberry VAULT slipcase Ayer MS map 1

Unidentified bookdealer’s description (in French) trimmed from printed catalog and pasted inside front cover. Forms part of both the Edward E. Ayer Manuscript Map Collection and the Edward E. Ayer Manuscript Collection (Newberry Library).