• De firmamento et aquis opusculum / Bernardini Baldi.

Extent:
  • 161 leaves : paper, illustrations ; 281 x 200 (240 x 150) mm bound to 294 x 214 mm.
Date:
  • 1595
Language:
Author:
  • Baldi, Bernardino, 1553-1617
Abstract:
  • Autograph manuscript by the Renaissance humanist Bernardino Baldi, of Urbino, abbot of Guastalla, concerning the second day of creation according to Genesis 1:6 and considers Scriptural accounts in relationship to ancient, medieval, and Renaissance interpretations in Latin, Greek, and Hebrew.
Description:
  • Incipit: "Bernardini Baldi Urbinatis Abbatis Guastaliae De Firmamento Et Aquis Opusculum. MDXCV. Illustrissimo et Reuerendissimo Domino Ruberto Bellarmino S[anctae] R[omanae] E[cclesiae] Cardinali amplissimo Bernardinus Baldus Abbas Guastallie S[alutem] P[lurimam] D[icit]. Diuinus ille uir atque idem Summus Pontifex Gregorius qui cum propter sapientie gloriam tum etiam ob res in Ecclesia Dei preclarissime gestas ..."
  • Explicit: "... quatenus humani rationes [ ] aperte affirmamus"
  • Ms. codex.
  • Title from title page (fol. 1r.).
  • Author's corrections by erasing, crossing out words, and rewriting on or above the line, as well as textual additions in the margins, in some cases quite extensive (e.g., fols. 19v, 152r, 160r-161r). Quotations in Hebrew, Greek, and Arabic.
  • Collation: Paper ; fol. ii + 161 + i ; foliation in ink ; modern foliation in pencil.
  • Layout: 20-24 long lines per page.
  • Description: Watermarks (circle divided by a vertical line; acorn in a circle).
  • Decoration: Contains 21 cosmological diagrams spread throughout the text. On fol. 94r, Baldi made a correction by affixing a slip of paper with a new diagram over the original one.
  • Origin: Dated MDXCV (fol. 1a).
Binding note:
  • Later binding. Italy, 18th century. Green-stained half-calf over pasteboard covered in paper that has been painted in a faux-wood-grain pattern; sewn on five raised bands, separated by gold-tooled bands and fleurons. Multi-colored endbands.
Provenance:
  • Unknown early and intermediate provenance. It has an unidentified cardinal's stamp on fol. 3r, and old shelf marks on the front pastedown ("P.11" and "23") and flyleaf ("MS. 632"). In 2006 the Princeton University Library purchased the manuscript from the New York antiquarian bookseller Martayan Lan, which had acquired it from a European private collector.
Source acquisition:
  • Purchase, 2006. AM 2006-120.
Contributor:
  • Princeton University. Library. Manuscript. Princeton MS. 191
References:
  • Medieval & Renaissance manuscripts in the Princeton University Library, volume 2, pages 473-474.
Alternative:
  • Baldi De firma
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