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• 1 2017-07-26T09:18:32-07:00 Codicology 16 Features of the book's production plain 2017-07-27T12:03:13-07:00
  •There was either one scribe working in different inks or two scribes trained in the same scriptorium.
  
  
   

  •The scribes were probably copying the layout of their exemplar: Liber de pulsu has a different layout from the rest.
  
  

   

  •However, they did make small changes.  Both these initials appear in Diete universales:
  
  
  

  •Text division does not correspond to quire division except in 2 cases: Diete universales begins with Quire 3, Liber urinarum begins with Quire 9. 
   

  •There are no indications that they circulated separately.

   

  •Missing text:

  –Likely a singleton was lost before Quire 9 (the beginning of Liber urinarum is missing).

  –Two leaves have been cut out after 90v (also Quire 9): the end of Liber urinarum is missing; stubs of the two leaves are visible.
  
  

  •Oddity 1:

  Only three quires have signatures, all very different.
  -Quire 3 has signatures in blue ink:
  
  
  -Quire 4 has very large signatures in light brown ink that looks to be the same as the unusually large guide letters in this quire:
  
  
  
  -Possible explanation: the finishing work on this quire may have been done by a different scribe, possibly at a later time?
  
  -Quire 8 has large signatures in light brown ink, but they are bizarre in form and do not reflect the modern collation:
  
  
  
  
  
  
  -Possible explanation: the first two leaves in this quire are singletons; if the first leaf was originally stitched to Quire 8, the signatures would be correct.
  
  •Oddity 2:
  –Except for Liber de pulsu (different layout), space has been left for rubrics throughout, but only in Quires 11-13 (not following divisions in text) are there guides for the rubricator written into the bottom margin.  These rubrication guides seem to be written less formally but in the same ink as the one that made textual corrections in the margins throughout the book.
  
  
  
  -Possible explanation: the proof-reader checked the text out of order, beginning in Quire 11 and writing rubrication guides as he went, but his diligence gave out after Quire 13.

  –The first rubrication with a guide (111r) was filled in by a later hand.
  
  
• 1 2017-07-27T12:08:04-07:00 Codicology 8 Physical features of the book's original production plain 2017-07-27T14:18:52-07:00
  •Text division only corresponds to quire division in 2 cases: Diete universales begins with Quire 3, Liber urinarum begins with Quire 9. 
   
  •Of these two instances, the break after Quire 2 is significant because the texts of Quires 1 and 2 are the only ones in the manuscript not written by Isaac Israeli.  The layout of Liber de pulsu (ff. 7v-15r) is different from the rest of the texts in the collection and the last leaf of Quire 2 is very thick and its verso left blank, like a cover.  
  
   
  •Also, the last leaf of Quire 4 is signed with a "II" as though it was once the second quire in the group.  Hence, the first two Quires may have been intended as a separate book.
  
  
  •However, the styles are so similar that they were likely produced in the same scriptorium, and the quires were all bound together early in the manuscript's life: there is no damage to the first leaf of Quire 4, and there are wormholes in the first and last quires of the book as it is currently bound, but none in the back of Quire 2 or the start of Quire 4.