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May 23, 2013

The Book of Times This is a manuscript copy of Kitāb al-Azmān (The book of times; also known as Kitāb al-Azmina) by Yuḥannā Ibn Māsawayh (died circa 857), the famous physician of the Abbasid era. The work belongs to the tradition of Islamic hemerology—the study of the calendar, especially with a view to discerning the auspiciousness of carrying out various actions at a given date or time. In his introduction, the author states: "The people of knowledge and philosophy and the physicians of Persia, India, and Rūm [Asia Minor], have said that the year is divisible into four sections: spring, summer, fall, [and] winter. They then designated for each of these sections that which pertains to it as far as zodiacal signs, and these are three, and [they designated for each as well] the stations of the moon (al-anwāʾ), and these are seven. And they expressed for each of their constituent parts the actions that are opportune in being carried out." What follows is a section on each season, listing the number of days, the zodiacal signs, the stations of the moon, and the Galenic humor associated with each season, along with the appropriate pairing of the qualities of hotness, dryness, coldness, and moistness. In the section on winter we read, for example, that it resembles "water, for it is cold and wet, and in this season coughing is evoked as well as pleurisy." A longer section follows, listing al-shuhūr al-rūmīya (the Roman months) in their Levantine forms, giving more detail about the significance and the customary practices of each day. The entry for Tishrīn al-awwal (October), for instance, states that on its first day the east wind commences to blow and that people descend from the roofs, and that the tenth day of the month is the day on which Abraham set off with his son to sacrifice him. Ibn Māsawayh states that one should minimize sexual intercourse in this month and avoid the eating of watermelons and cucumbers and cream and the flesh of cows as well as grains other than rice. He also proscribes the drinking of cold water in this month. The colophon for the current manuscript does not include a date but it lists the scribe's name as Ṣāliḥ Salīm ibn Salīm ibn Sa‘īd al-Shāmī al-Dimashqī. This copy is inscribed on the cover with the words Maktabat Taymūr (the library of Taymūr). A partially legible seal impression contains the name Taymūr and the date 1912, indicating that this manuscript was bequeathed to the Dār al-Kutub (National Library of Egypt) by the Egyptian Kurdish scholar and humanist Ahmad Taymūr (1871–1930.).

May 22, 2013

Organ Hills: View of Finger of God Peak The Thereza Christina Maria collection is composed of 21,742 photos assembled by Emperor Pedro II (1825-91) throughout his life and donated by him to the National Library of Brazil. The collection covers a wide variety of subjects. It documents the achievements of Brazil and Brazilians in the 19th century and also includes many photographs of Europe, Africa, and North America. This view of the countryside around Rio de Janeiro was taken by George Leuzinger (1813-92), one of Brazil’s foremost landscape photographers. The photograph features the Serra dos Orgaos, or Organ Hills, a national park in the state of Rio de Janeiro. The mountains were given their name by early Portuguese settlers who thought they resembled the organs in European cathedrals. In the center is the peak known as the Dedo de Deus, the Finger of God. It is considered the most famous mountain in Brazil and is 1,692 meters high.

May 21, 2013

	Study of a Girl At the beginning of the 20th century, the Russian photographer Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii (1863–1944) used a special color photography process to create a visual record of the Russian Empire. Some of Prokudin-Gorskii’s photographs date from about 1905, but the bulk of his work is from between 1909 and 1915, when, with the support of Tsar Nicholas II and the Ministry of Transportation, he undertook extended trips through many different parts of the empire.
	In Italy At the beginning of the 20th century, the Russian photographer Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii (1863–1944) used a special color photography process to create a visual record of the Russian Empire. Some of Prokudin-Gorskii’s photographs date from about 1905, but the bulk of his work is from between 1909 and 1915, when, with the support of Tsar Nicholas II and the Ministry of Transportation, he undertook extended trips through many different parts of the empire.
	Photograph of President Abraham Lincoln Abraham Lincoln (1809-65) was the 16th president of the United States. He was born on a farm in Kentucky and moved with his family to Indiana at age eight. At age 21, he moved to Illinois, where he held various jobs and began to study law. He had less than one year of formal education, but became a skilled writer by reading the King James Bible and other English classics. He practiced law in Illinois, served in the Illinois General Assembly, and was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives. In 1860, he was elected president of the United States on a platform opposing the expansion of slavery to the American West, a stance that precipitated the secession of the southern states from the Union. Refusing to accept secession, Lincoln waged war against the South to preserve the Union and ultimately to abolish slavery in the United States. He was killed by an assassin’s bullet on April 14, 1865, shortly after the South’s surrender. This photograph of Lincoln is by Mathew B. Brady (1823?-96), an early American photographer who opened a gallery in New York City in 1844. Although best known for his battlefield photographs in the Civil War, Brady first made his mark as a portrait photographer who captured many famous people on film.
	At Entrance to the Passage of the Dead. Samarkand At the beginning of the 20th century, the Russian photographer Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii (1863–1944) used a special color photography process to create a visual record of the Russian Empire. Some of Prokudin-Gorskii’s photographs date from about 1905, but the bulk of his work is from between 1909 and 1915, when, with the support of Tsar Nicholas II and the Ministry of Transportation, he undertook extended trips through many different parts of the empire.
	Head Study At the beginning of the 20th century, the Russian photographer Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii (1863–1944) used a special color photography process to create a visual record of the Russian Empire. Some of Prokudin-Gorskii’s photographs date from about 1905, but the bulk of his work is from between 1909 and 1915, when, with the support of Tsar Nicholas II and the Ministry of Transportation, he undertook extended trips through many different parts of the empire.
	Sart Schoolchildren. Samarkand At the beginning of the 20th century, the Russian photographer Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii (1863–1944) used a special color photography process to create a visual record of the Russian Empire. Some of Prokudin-Gorskii’s photographs date from about 1905, but the bulk of his work is from between 1909 and 1915, when, with the support of Tsar Nicholas II and the Ministry of Transportation, he undertook extended trips through many different parts of the empire.

May 17, 2013

Syr Darya Oblast. City of Turkestan. General View of Sultan Akhmed Yassavi's Mausoleum from the Southern Side. This photograph of the mausoleum of Khoja Ahmed Yasawi in the city of Turkestan (formerly Yasi, ancient capital of the Kazakhs) is contained in Turkestan Album, one of the richest sources of visual information on the cultural monuments of Central Asia as they appeared in the 19th century. The multi-volume edition was produced in 1871-72 under the patronage of Konstantin P. von Kaufman, a Russian army general and the first governor-general of Turkestan, as the Russian empire's Central Asian holdings were called. Kaufman held that position from 1867 to 1886, during which time he played a major role in establishing Russia's dominant position in Central Asia. The primary photographic compilers for the Turkestan Album were Aleksandr L. Kun (1840-88), an orientalist attached to the army, and Nikolai V. Bogaevskii (1843-1912), a military engineer. Khoja Ahmed (1103-66) was a renowned Sufi spiritual leader and poet who taught in the city of Yasi. In 1389 the great Tamerlane commissioned Persian masters to build a vast mausoleum over the saint's burial site. Although uncompleted at the time of the ruler's death in 1405, work resumed in the late 16th century, and the domed structure has survived as one of the best examples of Timurid architecture. In 2002 the mausoleum was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

May 16, 2013

Portrait of Author Ernest Hemingway Posing with Sailfish Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961) was an American writer who won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1954. He was born in Oak Park, Illinois, and began his writing career as a newspaperman in Kansas City at the age of 17. His experiences in Europe informed his early novels. Hemingway served with a volunteer ambulance unit in the Alps in World War I, lived in Paris for much of the 1920s, and reported on the Greek Revolution and the civil war in Spain. His sense of these events resulted in The Sun Also Rises (1926), A Farewell to Arms (1929), and, some think his greatest novel, For Whom the Bell Tolls (1940). Hemingway divided his time in much of the 1930s and 1940s between Key West, Florida and Cuba. He was an avid outdoorsman whose interest in such sports as hunting, fishing, and bull fighting were reflected in his novels and short stories. In Key West and Cuba, Hemingway discovered a passion for big-game fishing that would inspire him for the remainder of his life and that prompted his outstanding short novel, The Old Man and the Sea (1951). This photograph, taken in Key West in the 1940s, shows Hemingway with a sailfish he had caught. Many of his novels, short stories, and his nonfiction work are classics of American literature, distinctive for their understatement, spare prose, and authentic characterization.

Curious Designs Braccelli’s Bizzarie di varie figure contains a suite of 50 etchings that celebrate the human figure in geometric forms. Squares, triangles, circles, and parallelograms take the place of muscle, bone, and tissue, defining the body in a new visual vocabulary. Braccelli’s designs are unique in the history of book illustration. They represent a high point in the Mannerist style of etching that flourished in the 17th century. Mannerism incorporated the techniques of the Renaissance but rejected the classical imagery and harmonious style that is the hallmark of much 15th- and 16th-century European art. Braccelli’s work had considerable influence on later generations of artists. His figures were adopted, for example, during the 20th century by the Surrealists, who lavished praise on his geometric forms and his ability to invest mechanical images with graceful, human qualities. Some of the etchings portray human emotion, as when figures dance across the page or struggle with one another in mortal combat. Braccelli’s works are very rare. This copy from the Rosenwald Collection of the Library of Congress is the most complete copy known to exist.

May 15, 2013

Explorations in Africa, By Dr. David Livingstone, and Others, Giving a Full Account of the Stanley-Livingstone Expedition of Search, under the Patronage of the New York Herald, as Furnished by Dr. Livingstone and Mr. Stanley David Livingstone (1813-73) was a Scottish missionary and medical doctor who explored much of the interior of Africa. In a remarkable journey in 1853-56, he became the first European to cross the African continent. Starting on the Zambezi River, he traveled north and west across Angola to reach the Atlantic at Luanda. On his return journey he followed the Zambezi to its mouth on the Indian Ocean in present-day Mozambique. Livingstone’s most famous expedition was in 1866-73, when he explored central Africa in an attempt to find the source of the Nile. Not heard from for years, he was believed lost. Both the Royal Geographical Society and the sensationalist New York Herald organized expeditions to find him. Henry M. Stanley (1841-1904), a British-born reporter who was to become a noted explorer in his own right, led the Herald’s expedition. On November 10, 1871, Stanley found Livingstone in the town of Ujiji, on the shores of Lake Tanganyika, in present-day Tanzania. News of the discovery caused a worldwide sensation. This book, which appeared in Chicago in 1872, was part of the effort by publishers to capitalize on the demand from the public for information about Livingstone and Stanley and about Africa in general.

A Map of the Great Forest Region, Showing the Routes of the Emin Pasha Relief Expedition, from the River Congo to the Victoria Nyanza After his successful search for David Livingstone in 1871-72, the journalist Henry M. Stanley went on to become a celebrated African explorer in his own right. He led two further expeditions, an Anglo-American expedition in 1874-77, in which he explored the lakes of central Africa, and a relief expedition in 1887-90, ostensibly to rescue Emin Pasha (1840-92). Emin, a German explorer whose original name was Eduard Schnitzler, was the governor of Equatoria, the southernmost district of the Sudan, then ruled by Egypt. He was cut off from the outside world by a Mahdist uprising in 1885. Amid a public outcry in Europe, Stanley set out to find him and in 1889 managed to bring him out of the Sudan. This map traces Stanley’s route, which took him up the Congo River, overland to Sudan, and then to the Indian Ocean port of Zanzibar. Although Livingstone and Stanley have been joined together by history, they were very different people. Livingstone was venerated in Britain and by many in Africa for his anti-slavery efforts and his concern for the people of Africa, while Stanley became a controversial figure, widely criticized for his violent methods and well-documented mistreatment of indigenous peoples.

May 11, 2013

The Encyclopedia of Medicaments This book is a printed edition of the Pandectarum Medicinae (Encyclopedia of medicaments) by Matthaeus Sylvaticus (died circa 1342), consisting of an alphabetized list of medications (primarily of herbal origin). Sylvaticus relies on the work of Simon of Genoa (flourished end of 13th century), who provided a lexicon of Latin, Greek, and Arabic medical terms in his dictionary, Clavis Sanationis. Sylvaticus also draws upon works by Greco-Roman authorities such as Galen, Dioscorides, and Paulus Aegineta (seventh century). Among his other sources were the writings of important scientists from the Islamic world, including the Persian physicians Ibn Sīnā (known in the Latin West as Avicenna, 980–1037) and al-Rāzī (or Rhazes, circa 865–circa 925), and the Andalusian scientist Ibn Rushd (or Averroes, 1126–98). For each of the 702 entries in this work, Sylvaticus provides the Arabic and Greek name of a plant or other material and information about its medicinal properties. As in Clavis Sanationis, for each letter of the Latin alphabet there is a short introduction with notes on transliterating from the Greek and Arabic into Latin. This edition was commissioned by Ottaviano Scotto of Modena and printed in Venice in 1498 by Boneto Locatello, who appears to have printed more than 100 works for Scotto, most of them versions of important pre-modern texts. The Pandectarum Medicinae does not have illustrations, although the Locatello-Scotto edition of the Cyrurgia by Abū al-Qāsim Khalaf ibn ʻAbbās al-Zahrāwī (or Albucasis, circa 936–1013) includes what may be some of the earliest examples of woodcut illustrations embedded in a text.

Works of Medical Science Opera medicinalia (Works of medical science) is a collection of pharmacological treatises by several authors. The main work, Canones (Canons), was attributed to an Arab physician in the 11th century and was later published in Europe under the name Johannese Mesue of Damascus. Also known as Mesue the Younger, the Pseudo-Mesue, and Yahya Ibn Masawayh, he was a monophysite Christian who died in Cairo in 1015, and who is said to have written pharmacological works. The first part of this book, Canones universalis (Universal canons), deals with treatment regimens. The second part, De simplicibus (On simple medicines), is about the properties of various drugs. The book also includes works by various authors of the 12th–14th centuries, such as Petrus de Abano, Nicolaus Salernitanus, and Mondino dei Luzzi. Canones was an influential medical text, used in Europe until the 17th century. This edition was printed in Venice in 1495 by Bonetus Locatellus, a priest from Bergamo, Italy, for the publisher Octavianus Scotus. Locatellus and Scotus formed an important partnership in the Venetian printing industry in the last two decades of the 1400s.

May 10, 2013

	Introduction to the Art of Judgments of the Stars Abu al-Saqr Abd al-Aziz Ibn Uthman Ibn Ali al-Qabisi (known in Latin as Alcabitius, died 967), was a famous Arab astrologer and mathematician who lived in the palace of Saif Al-Dawla Al-Hamdani in Aleppo, Syria. He is best known for his Introduction to the Art of Judgments of the Stars, a treatise on judicial astrology or the forecasting of events from the positions of planets and stars. The book was translated into Latin in the 12th century by Johannes Hispalensis and was highly prized in medieval Europe for its astrological lore. A revised translation into Latin was made in the 13th century. The first Latin printed edition appeared in 1473. Shown here is the edition of 1512, published in Venice by the printer Melchiorre Sessa, identifiable by his printer’s mark: the initials “MS” beside a crown above the image of a cat that has just caught a mouse. The edition includes a 14th-century commentary on Alcabitius by John Danko of Saxony (active, 1327–55), an astronomer at the University of Paris. Danko was also known for his important revisions to the Alfonsine Tables based on the work of the 11th-century Arab astronomer Ibrahim Ibn Yahya an-Nakash al-Zarqali (Latinized as Arzachel).
	The Book on the Properties of Precious Gems The title page identifies this manuscript as a copy of Kitab khawas al-jawāhir (The book on the properties of precious gems), written by Yaqūb ibn Ishāq al-Kindī in the ninth century. The work has 25 chapters, which are titled “On the knowledge of gems in general,” “On knowledge of rubies,” “On knowledge of emeralds,” “On knowledge of lapis,” and so forth. Each of these chapters gives basic information about these precious stones and their properties, as understood at the time. Information on the pricing of gems and the location of mines adds to the appeal of the work. The manuscript also contains a separate work on minerals by al-Kindi entitled Kitāb fi al-ahjār (The book on stones).
	An Arabic Translation of the Astronomical Tables of Ulugh Beg This manuscript contains a 15th–16th century translation from Persian into Arabic by Yaḥyā ibn Alī al-Rifā‘ī of the introduction of the celebrated zīj (astronomical tables or records of daily occurrences) by Ulugh Beg (1394–1449). In the introduction to his work, al-Rifā‘ī states that he undertook the project at the behest of Egyptian astronomer Shams al-Dīn Muḥammad ibn Abū al-Fatḥ al-Ṣūf ī al-Miṣrī (died circa 1494), who was involved in studying and revising Ulugh Beg's zīj for Cairo's geographical coordinates. The present manuscript copy of al-Rifā‘ī’s translation consists of 29 pages with 31 lines to a page. The title page bears the stamps of previous owners, including Uthmān al-Fanawī, a judge in Egypt, and Muḥammad ‘Alī Pāshā, the wālī (ruler) of Egypt during the period of 1811–48. The colophon indicates that the transcription was completed at the end of Muḥarram, 1134 AH (mid-November 1721) and gives the scribe's name as Yūsuf ibn Yūsuf al-Maḥallī al-Shāfi‘ī, known as al-Kalārjī. Appended to this work is another manuscript in the same binding, but by a different hand, which begins at page 43. The slightly garbled colophon for the second manuscript indicates that it is also an Arabic translation from the Persian of a portion of Ulugh Beg's zīj, but the translator in this case is Ḥasan ibn Muḥammad al-Faṣīḥī al-Niẓāmī, known as Qāḍī Ḥasan (Judge Ḥasan). The date for the translation appears to be the end of 1015 AH (1607), and this copy dates from 1126 AH (1714). The earlier statement suggests that the surviving portion of this manuscript relied on a translation other than Qāḍī Ḥasan's.
	The Book on Medicine Dedicated to al-Mansur This manuscript preserves one of the most famous medieval Arabic medical treatises, the Kitab al-Mansouri fi al-Tibb (The book on medicine dedicated to al-Mansur), which was composed by the well-known Persian physician, natural scientist, philosopher, and alchemist Abu Bakr Muḥammad ibn Zakariya al-Razi (865–925) early in the 10th century. As apparent in the title of the book, this work is dedicated to the governor of the province of Rayy (in present-day Iran and the birthplace of al-Razi), Al-Mansur ibn Ishāq. Al-Razi (also known by Latinized versions of his name, Rhazes or Rasis) lived in Rayy for at least 30 years and became director of its hospital. He later moved to Baghdad, capital city of the Abbasid caliphate, where he directed the famous local hospital and composed an impressive number of medical, philosophical, and alchemical works. The Kitab al-Mansouri is one of his two most influential books, the other being the extensive medical encyclopedia Kitāb al-Hāwī fī al-Tibb (The comprehensive book on medicine), which gained fame in the West under the Latin name Liber Continens. The content of the 10 chapters of the Kitab al-Mansouri is both theoretical and practical and is organized as follows: chapters one to six deal with diet, hygiene, anatomy, physiology, general pathology, and surgery, subjects that were somehow considered as mainly theoretical by the author. The last four chapters of the treatise are devoted to more practical aspects of medicine, such as diagnosis, therapy, special pathology, and practical surgery. In the late 12th century, the Kitab al-Mansouri was translated into Latin by Gherardo da Cremona, then active as a translator of Arabic scientific works in Toledo, Spain. The title under which this work circulated in the West is Liber medicinalis ad almansorem or simply Liber almansoris. The ninth section of the book, a detailed discussion of medical pathologies of the body from head to toe, became particularly famous and circulated in autonomous Latin translations as the Liber Nonus. This section of Al-Razi's work was extensively copied and commented upon until the 17th century. The manuscript presented here is embellished by rubricated headings and shows various marginal notes, including a very interesting extensive note in Amharic letters preserved early in the work.
	Commentary of Hugo of Sienna on the First [Book] of the Canon of Avicenna Together with His Questions Ugo Benzi (also known as Hugo of Siena) was born in Siena about 1370. Educated in the liberal arts, he later developed an interest in medicine and undertook formal studies at the University of Bologna. He became a renowned physician, scholar, and teacher of medicine at several universities in Italy. He prepared commentaries on the medical classics of the time, works by the Greek Hippocrates, the Roman Galen, and the famous Islamic scholar Abū ‘Alī al-Ḥusayn ibn ‘Abd Allāh ibn Sīnā (980–1037), commonly known as Avicenna. These texts formed the basis of medical education in the West from about 1300 to 1600. Benzi’s extensive studies and reputation as a man of learning and scholarship helped to shape the growth of medicine as a respected profession based on a repository of authoritative knowledge. This early printed book is a commentary on al-Qānūn fī al-ṭibb (The canon of medicine), Avicenna’s encyclopedic masterpiece summarizing all of the medical knowledge of the time. The commentary deals with the most important sections of Avicenna’s work. These concern the fundamental concepts of medicine and general symptoms of disease in: Book One, “Things in the overall knowledge about medicine;” Treatise One, “Medicine and the themes of nature;” and Treatise Two, “Diseases, causes, and symptoms.”