The Intellectual Interests Reflected in Libraries of the Fourteenth and ...

FOURTEENTH AND FIFTEENTH CENTURY LIBRARIES 287
at Mantua with twenty-eight,'29 and that of the Visconti-Sforza at
Pavia, with some twenty-four such tracts are especially outstanding
for the number and variety of their books on astrology.'30 The
library of the Spanish potentate, Martin V, shows a conspicuous
leaning toward astrological tracts. In his collection there were, out
of a total of two hundred and ninety-four volumes, some forty-four
on astrology and astronomy. Included were four copies of Ptolemy,
two of them in Catalan, and a third, the Quadripartitum, in a
Latin translation. There were five almanachs, the tables of Toledo,
and the Alfonsine tables, the work on judicial astrology by Leopold
of Austria, and several anonymous treatises on the same subject.'3'
Under the classification, mathesis, and astronomy, the library of
Nicholas of Cusa had treatises by Haly, Zehel (Zael), Ptolemy,
Alkindi, Messahala, Geber, Albumasar, and John de Lineriis, who
wrote about 1322.132 The library of Amplonius Ratinck was especially
wealthy in this regard since as far as scientific or pseudoscientific
works were concerned those on astrology were surpassed
in number only by those on medicine. Also well provided with such
writings was the abbey church of St. Augustine at Canterbury, with
forty-four relating to astrology. This collection at Canterbury
which dates back to the ninth century, according to M. R. James,
contained a considerable number of books donated by John of
London, whom James would identify with the protege of Roger
Bacon.'33
Mathematical arts were the subject of a number of books found
in various of the Renaissance libraries, despite the aspersion cast
on mathematics for theologians by Pico della Mirandola,'34 whose
view was not especially representative of his contemporaries.
129 Pia Girolla, in Atti e memorie, R. Accad. Virgiliana di Mantova, N. S., XIV-
XVI (1921-23), 67-69.
130 [Girolamo d'Adda], Libreria Visconteo-Sforzesca del Castello di Pavia, nos.
203, 246-53, 287-94, 358, 930-31, 971, 973, 980, 986; G. Mazzatinti, "Inventario dei
codici della biblioteca Visconteo-Sforzesea," Giornale storico della lett. ital., I (1883),
42-43.
131 J. Masso Torrents, "Inventari dels bens mobles del Rey Marti D'Arago,"
Revue hispanique, XII (1905), 414 ff. See particularly nos. 93, 29, 83, 86, 127, 156,
157, 30, 45, 139, 148, 149, 160, 161, 238, 251, etc.
132 L. Thorndike, op. cit. (1934), III, 253 ff.; Kraus in Serapeum, XXV (1864),
353; XXVI (1865), 85-89. See also p. 84, no. 25.
133 M. R. James, The ancient libraries of Canterbury and Dover, lxxiv-lxxv; 305,
319-332, 375-73.
134 P. Kibre, op. cit., 100.
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