The Schoenberg Institute for Manuscript Studies at Penn brings manuscript culture, modern technology and people together.

Category Archives: Video


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Manuscript Monday: LJS 483 – Questions on Aristotle’s Physics

Dot Porter, Curator, Digital Research Services at the University of Pennsylvania Library, offers a video orientation to Penn Library’s LJS 484, Questions on Aristotle’s Physics. This manuscript was written in Ingolstadt, circa 1480, in Latin, and it is a commentary on Aristotle’s Physics in the form of questions and answers following the content of the 8 books of the Physics.

You can see the full online facsimile of this work in Penn in Hand and you can download all of the images and metadata from OPenn. You can also download a copy of this video from ScholarlyCommons, the University of Pennsylvania’s open access institutional repository.

 


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Sacred Texts: Codices Far, Far Away – Episode 5, LJS 43

On October 8, 2018, Dr. Brandon Hawk and curator Dot Porter met to talk about these ancient books, and to compare them with manuscripts from the collection of the Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts at the University of Pennsylvania. This series is a record of those discussions.

LJS 43 – Qaṣāʼid, a collection of Lyric Poems

In this video we talk about at LJS 43, a sixteenth-century collection of poetry from Persia. We compare the illuminated headers and the framing of the text with the design of the Star Wars manuscripts, and how the headers and frames in the Jedi texts would help Rey (or anyone else) read and understand them.

Online record and digital images of LJS 43: http://hdl.library.upenn.edu/1017/d/medren/9954043173503681

A video orientation to this manuscript can be found at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aKS6bcyUo3s

Screenshots from the film and images from The Art of Star Wars are used under the Fair Use doctrine described in Section 107 of the Copyright Act (https://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap1.html#107)


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Manuscript Monday: LJS 392 – Taḥrīr al-majisti

Nicholas Herman, Curator of Manuscripts at the University of Pennsylvania Library, offers a video orientation to Penn Library’s LJS 392, Taḥrīr al-majisti, by Ṭūsī, Naṣīr al-Dīn Muḥammad ibn Muḥammad (1201-1274). This manuscript was written around A.H. 813 (1411), in Arabic, and it is a 13th-century recension of Ptolemy’s Almagest with the early 14th-century commentary of the Iranian scholar and astronomer Niẓām al-Dīn al-Nīsābūrī.

See the full online facsimile of this work in Penn in Hand and you can download all of the images and metadata from OPenn. You can also download a copy of this video from ScholarlyCommons, the University of Pennsylvania’s open access institutional repository.

 


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Manuscript Monday: LJS 404 – Jawāmīʻ al-ʻulam

Dot Porter, Curator, Digital Research Services at the University of Pennsylvania Library, offers a video orientation to Penn Library’s LJS 404, Jawāmīʻ al-ʻulam, by Rāzī, Fakhr al-Dīn Muḥammad ibn ʻUmar. This manuscript was written in Iran, between 1200 and 1225, in Persian, and it is a summary of the branches of knowledge, including the Koran, hadith, and history of Islam; grammar, rhetoric, and logic; medicine, anatomy, and pharmacology; gems and talismans; agriculture and veterinary science; geometry, geodesy, weight, arithmetic, and algebra; music; astronomy, astrology, and magic; theology, ethics, and political science.

You can see the full online facsimile of this work in Penn in Hand and you can download all of the images and metadata from OPenn.  You can also download a copy of this video from ScholarlyCommons, the University of Pennsylvania’s open access institutional repository.


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Manuscript Monday: LJS 188 – Ynstruction of the ephimeredes

Dot Porter, Curator, Digital Research Services at the University of Pennsylvania Library, offers a video orientation to Penn Library’s LJS 188, Ynstruction of the ephimeredes. This manuscript was written in England ca. 1540 and it includes instructions in 22 chapters for the use of ephemerides, astronomical tables giving the positions of planets, the sun, and the moon. It also includes tables for the latitude of the moon, hourly motion of planets, duration of lunar eclipses, and lunar motion.

You can see the full online facsimile of this work in Penn in Hand and you can download all of the images and metadata from OPenn.  You can also download a copy of this video from ScholarlyCommons, the University of Pennsylvania’s open access institutional repository.


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Manuscript Monday: LJS 38 – Prayers and commentary

Dot Porter, Curator, Digital Research Services at the University of Pennsylvania Library, offers a video orientation to Penn Library’s LJS 38, Prayers and commentary. This manuscript was written in Turkey, A.H. 889 (1484), in Arabic, with commentary in Ottoman Turkish. It is a collection of prayers in Arabic, each preceded by a commentary in Ottoman Turkish, with a diagram (f. 217v) and information at the end for calculating the direction of Mecca from different latitudes.

You can see the full online facsimile of this work in Penn in Hand and you can download all of the images and metadata from OPenn.  You can also download a copy of this video from ScholarlyCommons, the University of Pennsylvania’s open access institutional repository.

 


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Sacred Texts: Codices Far, Far Away – Episode 4, LJS 26

On October 8, 2018, Dr. Brandon Hawk and curator Dot Porter met to talk about these ancient books, and to compare them with manuscripts from the collection of the Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts at the University of Pennsylvania. This series is a record of those discussions.

LJS 26 – Algorismus and Tractatum de sphaera, by Joannes de Sacro Bosco

In this video we compare the diagrams in the Star Wars manuscripts to LJS 26, a thirteenth-century astronomical manuscript that contains several diagrams illustrating how medieval people (specifically Sacro Bosco, the author of the texts in this manuscript) conceived of the system of the earth, moon, and sun, and how those celestial bodies related to each other. When we look at the Star Wars manuscript diagrams what we see is a similar attempt to illustrate how those celestial bodies relate to each other, only – we think – across systems instead of within them.

Screenshots from the film and images from The Art of Star Wars are used under the Fair Use doctrine described in Section 107 of the Copyright Act (https://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap1.html#107)