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This is the presentation copy of a work on cryptography made for Alfonso da Borgia (1378–1458) during his three-year reign as Pope Callixtus III. The text demonstrates two methods for encrypting text based on alternate words supplied in tables, to which both communicating parties would have exclusive access. During his brief pontificate, Callixtus was preoccupied with countering Ottoman Turkish advances in the Mediterranean, calling for a new crusade in the wake of the fall of Constantinople. The intricate bianchi girari or white-vine decorations, depicted here on the manuscript’s first folio, were created by Gioacchino di Giovanni di Gigantibus (act. ca. 1450–85). Originally from Rothenberg, this professional illuminator worked for members of the papal court from 1448 onward, and his involvement indicates that Zopello was in Rome to coordinate the production of his manuscript.

Jacobus de Voragine’s Golden Legend was among the most widely reproduced late medieval texts. This manuscript reproduces an Italian translation of all 182 of de Voragine’s chapters. The present copy, which is dated in its anonymous colophon to 19 April 1459, predates the first printed edition of the work (Cologne, 1470) by over a decade. This volume bears several ownership inscriptions, including the from the library of the Dominican convent of Santa Maria degli Angeli in Ferrara from an early date. This foundation was home to the firebrand preacher Girolamo Savonarola (1452–98) who would serve as assistant master of novices from 1478 to 1482. Such a provenance is unsurprising, as the Golden Legend was used extensively by members of the Preaching Orders as a source book for constructing sermons.

This short, rhymed work in French by the Burgundian chronicler and poet Georges Chastellain (ca. 1402/1415–75) is entitled L’oultré d’amour pour amour morte, or “The Lover’s Lament over the Death of his Love” in English. Chastellain was a prominent figure at the Burgundian court, serving dukes Phillip the Good and Charles the Bold with distinction. This copy was likely produced in Western France in the 1460s or 1470s, possibly dating from Chastellain’s lifetime. Given the popularity of this text in Renaissance France, this manuscript is especially notable because of its subsequent presence in an important humanist library, that of Jacques Thiboust (1492–1555), a noted book collector in early sixteenth-century France who served as a notary and secretary to King Francis I and his sister Marguerite de Valois.

This manuscript is the sole surviving copy of the anonymous L’arte del navegare, a wide-ranging original treatise in four parts on navigation and the operation of seagoing vessels. The author dedicates the work to the Senate of the Venetian Republic and to the Doge of Venice, Cristoforo Moro (r. 1462–71), for whom this manuscript was a presentation copy. The unknown author benefited from an excellent humanist education, as the preface includes references to a diverse array of authorities, such as famous Greek philosophers, as well as Arab and medieval thinkers. Book I presents an account of the whole habitable world known to the author, at the dawn of the age of exploration. Book II deals with ship designs and the role of various officers on board. Book III discusses meteorology and astronomy as they relate to navigation. Book IV is dedicated to cartography, acting as a verbal portolan chart.

Publius Vegetius Renatus (ca. 383–450 AD) is principally known as the author of two surviving works: the Epitomata rei militaris, whose influence on military tactics endured in the post-Classical world; and the Mulomedicina, a concise summary of ancient veterinary science derived in part from two earlier works. As a high-ranking Roman official, Vegetius traveled extensively throughout the Roman Empire, learning from the Barbarians and the Huns he encountered, and acquiring a working knowledge of horses and bovines, including the different breeds and the various equine diseases and their remedies. Veterinary activity chiefly dealt with the health of beasts of burden: horses, mules, donkeys, and cattle, for much economic and military activity depended on their wellbeing. The Mulomedicina maintained its popularity in the later Middle Ages, and four distinct dialectal Italian translations of the text appeared in the Renaissance. The present manuscript contains the first vernacular adaptation in a Tuscan dialect.

Gerbert of Aurillac (ca. 945–1003) was the first Frenchman elected to the papacy and reigned as Sylvester II for the final four years of his life. His renown, however, stems from his prowess as a mathematician and pedagogue. Among his achievements were the reintroduction of the abacus and armillary sphere to Western Europe, via the Islamic civilization of Al-Andalus. He is also thought to be responsible for introducing the Hindu-Arabic numeration system to the Latinate world. This volume contains texts such as Gerbert’s correspondence with Adebaldus of Utrecht on the isosceles triangle, and a short treatise on the astrolabe, another instrument that he helped familiarize to Christian audiences. This manuscript is an excellent example of Renaissance engagement with scholarship from the High Middle Ages. An assiduous reader of classical authors, including Virgil, Cicero, and Boethius, Gerbert of Aurillac was an outstanding conduit of classical thought for much later readers.

This manuscript features decrees and grants relating to the jurist Giovanni Faella of Verona and his family. The main portion begins with copies of grants and titles relating to the Faella family and their castle at Sona, near Verona, the originals of which ranged in date from 1332 to 1406. There follows the text of a charter from Emperor Frederick III (1415–93), issued at Padua in 1468, conferring on Faella, his brothers, and their descendants the titles of Counts of Sona and Counts Palatine, and granting the title of doctor of canon and civil law to Giovanni. The final, later section includes two letters from the Emperor Maximilian I instructing Giovanni Faella to proceed to Mantua to accompany the bishop of Gurk on his embassy to Pope Julius II, 1511, and a copy of a lengthy contract of purchase of land by Giovanni di Jacopo Faella in 1440.

Farissol’s Igeret orḥot ʻolam, reproduced in this manuscript, is the first modern Hebrew work on geography. It reflects the author, the Jewish geographer and cosmographer, Abraham Farissol’s (ca. 1451–ca. 1525) enduring interest in the topic and is largely concerned with locating the Jewish peoples dispersed throughout the world. It includes the first mention of the New World in Hebrew when discussing the newly discovered American Indians as perhaps being one of the lost tribes of Israel. Farissol was fluent in both Italian and Latin and undoubtedly performed research in the great ducal libraries of Florence and Ferrara while working for the courts of Lorenzo de’ Medici (1449–92) and Ercole I d’Este (1431–1505). He was familiar with portolan charts and drew upon accounts of Columbus’s recent journeys and to the letters of Girolamo Sernigi describing Vasco de Gama’s voyage around the Cape of Good Hope.

This manuscript was produced in Tournai in the first half of the eleventh century and contains the texts of Gregory the Great’s Ten Homilies on Ezekiel, Radbod II’s Sermo de nativitate Mariae Virginis, and selected brief moral maxims and exhortations. A note on the first folio, “Liber Radbodi epi,” was likely written by Radbod II himself. Radbod II was elected Bishop of Noyon and Tournai in 1067–68 and died in 1098. The existence of two manuscripts of Radbod’s Sermo de nativitate has been noted, one in the Vatican and the other in the library of Saint-Martin at Tournai. Given that this exemplar once belonged to Radbod, our manuscript may be the Saint-Martin copy.