An Interactive Astronomical Manuscript.

Codex D.II.6 of the National University Library of Turin

Abstract

This article aims to bring to scholarly attention the existence of manuscript D.II.6 preserved at the National University Library of Turin. Produced in the first half of the sixteenth century and consisting of only a few folios, the codex contains astronomical diagrams enriched with numerous movable parts (volvelles), made of both parchment and paper. The article provides a codicological and palaeographical description of the artifact, followed by a reconstruction of the manuscript’s history. After examining the specific topics addressed in the text, the work is contextualized within the treatise genre to which it belongs, with the aim of highlighting the value of a document that is both highly distinctive and yet largely overlooked by scholarship.