Gregorio Dati, La sfera

Previous title, changed in June 2024: "Leonardo de Piero Dati, La sfera"

Written in an Italian cursive hand, with an ornamental initial in red at the beginning of each stanza. There are 62 water-colours drawings, 2 on each leaf, with two stanzas to each leaf.

Contents

1. ff. Gregorio Dati, La sfera in Italian [Incomplete.]

La sfera is an astronomical-geographical poem written in ottava rima, probably by the merchant Gregorio Dati (1362-1436), though some catalogues credit authorship to his brother Leonardo de Stagio Dati, friar and humanist, master general of the Dominican order from 1414-26. On this tract see Leonardo Dati, Raffaello Gualterotti, Giovanni Maria Tolosani, Gustavo Camillo Galletti, La sfera libri quattro in ottava rima scritti nel secolo 14. da Leonardo di Stagio Dati ... aggiuntavi La nuova sfera pure in ottava rima di Gio. M. Tolosani da Colle ... e L'America di Raffaello Gualterotti (Molini., 1859)

For scholarship concerning authorship of the work, see Clemens, Raymond. “Medieval Maps in a Renaissance Context: Gregorio Dati and the Teaching of Geography in Fifteenth-Century Florence.” Cartography in Antiquity and the Middle Ages: Fresh Perspectives, New Methods. Richard Talbert and Richard Unger, eds. Leiden: Brill, 2008, 237–56 and Bertolini, Lucia. “L’attribuzione della Sfera del Dati nella tradizione manoscritta,” in Studi offerti a Gianfranco Contini dagli allievi pisani. Florence: Le Lettere, 1984, 33–43.

Mid 15th Century

1 volume 32 ll. (last bl.). folio. 28 1/2 x 21 /2 cm. Levant morocco gilt binding by Rivière. The first 5 leaves and fol. 21 are wanting: most of the leaves from fol. 15 onward are damaged, especially in the lower margins.

Purchased 1935.

The Authorship of the work is disputed. The 1859 B.M. Catalogue assigns it to Leonardo Dati, and not to Gregorio [1362-1436] and this attribution was originally used in this catalogue record (though it also confused Leonardo di Stagio Dati with Leonardo de Piero Dati). However, the work is attributed to Leonardo's brother Gregorio in the G.K.W. and in Klebs and modern scholarship agrees the evidence is strongly in favour of crediting Gregorio with authorship. It was first printed at Florence in 1472, and there were a number of other 15th cent. editions.

Select images of this work were taken by the Wellcome Historical Medical Museum: WT/D/1/20/1/62/78

The La Sfera Project is the home of numerous scholarly efforts concerning the work, including a list of all known manuscript versions.

Database description transcribed from S.A.J. Moorat, Catalogue of Western Manuscripts on Medicine and Science in the Wellcome Historical Medical Library (London: Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine, 1962-1973).