Project update 6 - Manuscripts and incunabula

A varied week looking at Manuscripts (not Australian) and incunabula. An incunabulum is a book, single sheet, or image that was printed before 1501 in Europe.
There are a number of manuscripts and incunabula in the Richardson collection that have only brief records on the original catalogue cards. I have spent time following up information and potential sources of provenance. For example, we know that Richardson purchased the Rimini Antiphonal in 1923, however, unlike many of his bible purchases, he has not made any notes on the purchase of this item. There was a very helpful note on a Library file from the 1930s which said that notes on items from Richardson received in 1928 had been destroyed after cataloguing! Below are a couple of interesting items from my week.

According to the brief entry on the catalogue card, Richardson 253 is a poem by Mir Hasan (172 7- 1786 AD). If you can read Urdu you may understand this title "Kissa i Badr i Munir was Bai Nazir". Mir Hasan ( 1736 - 1786) wasone of the important poets from the "Golden Period" of Urdu poetry. He specialised in long romantic poems in rhyming couplets. According to the brief catalogue record the manuscript dates from the 1830s. It has a number of beautiful hand-coloured images with plenty of gold leaf. It is good condition but needs some love.

There are a number of incunabula in the SRL, Mitchell and Dixson collections. The image on the right, depicting Ptolemy and Regiomontanus sitting beneath an armillary sphere, is from Epitoma in Almagestum Ptolomei, 1496, by Joannes Regiomontanus. Regiomontanus (1436 – 1476), was an important mathematician, astronomer and astrologer. Perhaps we could tempt Adam Spencer and Dr Karl Kruszelnicki into the Libary with our collection of early works on science and mathematics! The oldest incunabula in the collections is the Librari feudorum by Obertus de Orto (MRB/F348/B), possibly published in Strassburg in 1470.