Nasir al din Tusi 
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A412) Nasir al din Tusi: on the Calendar Complete Persian manuscript on laid polished paper, containing the astronomical and, to a good extent, astrological primer-work commonly known as Sī Faṣl (‘The Thirty Chapters’, extensively titled Moḫtaṣar dar maᶜrefat-e taqvīm dar sī faṣl, i.e.: ‘Compendium on the Knowledge of Calendars in Thirty Chapters’) of the great Persian polymath Naṣīro’d-Dīn Ṭūsī (AD 1201-74) during his last years in activity as courtly astronomer (likely in the 1260s; s. infra). This codex comes from either Central or Eastern Persia, and is dated at the day of Tuesday, the fifth of the month of Ǧumādá al-‘ūlá of the Islamic year 1231, corresponding in the Gregorian calendar to April 3rd, 1816. Leaf measurements: mm. 180 x 130 ca.; written space: mm. 130 x 80 ca. (at ll. 1 -7: mm. 150 x 90 roughly, for full-page schemes: mm. 145 x 110 ca.); 41 leaves overall (81 pages, from 1v. to 41v.), apparently complete. Persian text arranged on an average 17-line single column by two different hands (later for ll. 1v. – 7v., from the original copyist at ll. 8r. – 41v.), both of them in a neat and quite refined Persianate nastaᶜlīq calligraphy in black ink with significant figures and terms rubricated, as well as the boxes of schematics, tables (ǧadval), and diagrams. One single page appears to have been cut off between ll. 7 and 8, as the beginning of the work had been in all likelihood reestablished by copying it anew. Covered with flapless brown leather binding. Illustrated with 67 schemes, tables, and diagrams (s. infra) as well as a sheer number (74) of marginal notes in Persian, ranging from glosses of tricky technical terms to textual comments – and even Qur’anic quotations copied in the traditional nasḫ writing style employed for Qur’ans. The manuscript has been preserved in extremely good condition, set aside the trimmed margins, perhaps due to some previous restoration works. As expressly indicated in the title by which it is known, this popular (perhaps even didactic) work by the great Persian astronomer and mathematician Naṣīro’d-Dīn Ṭūsī, is subdivided into 30 short, functionally structured chapters, written in a succinct and streamlined syntax. The main purpose of this introductory manual to the then virtually indistinguishable disciplines of astronomy and astrology, was to provide the reader with a solid, concise text that would include the whole of the basic knowledge needed to understand how a calendar system works as well as for further in-depth studies regarding some related fields of research. The information provided in this text is therefore, in line with the state of art of the science of that time, both accurate and foundational.
3500,- EUR
Differenzbesteuert/Subject to margin taxation
Sachgebiete: Astronomie, Illustrierte Bücher, Islam, Handschriften
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