Incipit: Deus cum tua sapientia et benedictione. Incipimus librum de uenatione substantie et accidentis et compositi. Quoniam logica est scentia difficilis labilis et prolixa ...
Transcribed in northern Italy, possibly Padua or Venice, at the end of the 14th century.
The text was carefully corrected after it was copied. The corrections, mostly supplying omitted passages, many quite lengthy, are not in the hand of the original scribe, but are almost certainly contemporary, suggesting that the manuscript was made in a commercial shop. Later notes in an elegant Italic hand may be by Nicolaus Pol.
Early foliation in Arabic numerals.
Boxed horizontal catchwords.
Written by two scribes in a small gothic book hand, influenced by cursive scripts or semitextualis. The second scribe begins at leaf 75 recto.
Red rubrics, alternating red and blue paragraph marks; three- to two-line initials, alternating red and blue, all with red pen decoration, except leaf 1 verso, which is red initial with blue penwork. Includes two seven-line illuminated initials on leaf 1 recto and 75 recto. Initials are pink, edged in black, filled acanthus curls and other foliate motifs in red, pink, green, and yellow on deep blue with white tracery, on highly polished gold grounds, with curling acanthus at the corners and sides and polished gold balls with black rays or spikes. The initial on leaf 75 recto extends into a short bar border in the same decorated style with knots.
Early wallet binding, with the back cover continuing to form a flat fore-edge flap and then extending three-quarters over the front cover, of blind-tooled brown leather over pasteboard; spine with four raised bands including one at the top for the head band; head and tail bands tooled in blind. Front cover with three sets of quadruple fillets forming a narrow outer panel with intertwined vines, filled with floral and leaf stamps; a middle border with small quatrefoil stamps, and a rectangular panel with eight large diamond stamps of a unicorn, arranged in pairs, the last row slightly cut off. Back cover with similar outer border, middle border with round floral stamps and diamond-shaped fleur-de-lys stamps, and a narrow inner panel of rope interlace. Fore edge flap tooled with similar motifs, with a narrow central panel of diamond-shaped fleur-de-lys stamps, restored.
Leaf 154 blank.
Purchase; Les Enluminures; 2018; MS.18.009.
Previously owned by the physician and Llull aficionado, Nicolaus Pol (d. 1532). Pol's ownership inscription was on the verso of the front flyleaf when the manuscript was in the Biblioteca Collegiata at San Candido, Innichen; it can be seen in the digital reproduction of the manuscript available at the Reproducció digital del Raimundus-Lullus-Institut de Freiburg. The original flyleaves were removed and replaced by modern paper flyleaves by a subsequent owner. After Pol's death, the manuscript was transferred to the Biblioteca della Collegiata (Stiftsbibliothek) San Candido, Innichen, South Tyrol. The volume was purchased by Haven O'More in 1978 from Quaritch. It latterly belonged to Joost R. Ritman who acquired it from Sotheby's in 1989.
