Catalogue: Belles Lettres
[Story of Moses] (MS P 28, item 3)
A short, anonymous, and untitled Persian story concerning Moses.
No other copies identified.
Physical Description
Persian. 2 leaves (fols. 13b-14a). Dimensions 18.2 x 12.2; central text area 11.8 x 7.7, with text written also around margins) cm; 16-17 lines per page. No author or title are given.
The text was copied by the same hand as copied the first item in the volume, was completed on 20 Dhu al-Qa‘dah 959 (= 7 November 1552) and was copied by Ṣadr al-Dīn al-mutaṭabbib [the medical practitioner].
The text is written in a small naskh tending toward ta‘liq script in black ink with headings in red and with red overlinings. The text is written around the margins as well as in the central text area, which is frame-ruled. There is a catchword.
The glossy brown paper has only laid lines visible. The same paper has been used throughout the volume. It is waterstained, especially at the bottom. The paper is stained with grime and thumbing. The edges have been trimmed from their original size. Many folios have had the edges repaired, sometimes using recent watermarked paper.
The volume consists of 290 leaves and three preliminary leaves. Fols. 1a-10a (item 1) is an anonymous Persian illustrated treatise on astronomy copied in 1552/959 by the copyist Sadr al-Din al-mutatabbib (MS P 28, item 1) and fols. 10b-11a (item 2) is an anonymous treatise on vomiting (MS P 28, item 2). Fols. 11b-13a are blank except for later miscellaneous notes. Fols. 13b-14a (item 3) is the story concerning Moses, here catalogued, and fols. 14b-289b (item 4) is the Kifāyah-i Mujāhidīyah by Manṣūr ibn Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad ibn Yūsuf Ibn Ilyās (MS P 28, item 4). Fol. 290 has miscellaneous notes. The preliminary fol. [1a] is blank except for a penciled title for item 4 of the volume; preliminary fol. [1b] is blank, but for a casual note dated 1284 [= 1867-8]; preliminary fol. [2a] has a recipe and two owners's notes and a stamp; preliminary fol. [3a] has miscellaneous notes written at different angles on the page; preliminary [3b] has miscellaneous notes, including a horoscope for 29 Jumadá I 1070 [= 11 February 1660]. There is also a small loose sheet (15 x 11 cm) of watermarked (GAIGLIOTTI) paper with 15 lines of alternating black and magenta writings, with instructions for a talismanic and magical procedure.
Binding
The volume is bound in pasteboards covered with light-brown leather. On each cover there is a blind stamped medallion and two pendants, enclosed by a blind-tooled frame filled with s-shaped stamps; the space between the frame and the medallions has stamped diagonal lines. The spine has been repaired. There are dark-blue paper pastedowns and modern endpapers.
Provenance
The volume was in the collection of the Army Medical Library in 1946. No further information is available on its provenance.
References
Schullian/Sommer, Cat. of incun. & MSS., p. 339 entry P 28, item 3.
