Layout: At least 2, possibly 3 hands with breaks (esp. of density or style of writing, but perhaps not always of hand?) occurring often in the middle of textual sections; the text of the Canon ends incomplete as if the next scribe wasn’t to be found. 2 columns of 57-58 lines, ruled in drypoint or lead with single straight rule between columns. Annotations in outer margins. Script: Gothic Decoration: Major initials red and blue ink, with jigsaw colors on the initial, and with extensive penwork in the margin in both colors. 3- and 2-line pen-flourished initials in red and blue ink, placed outside the textual block; rubricated throughout. Binding: Bound, s. XVIII, in mottled calfskin; spine gilt; page edges tinted blue. According to medieval foliation, the manuscript now lacks 19 leaves originally numbered 19, 20, 25, 26, 32, 37-41 (=5 leaves), 45-52 (=8 leaves), and 58; ff. 70-72 are bound after f. 48; ff. 76 and 77 are bound in reverse order (with note on f. 77: "Hoc folium post subsequens ponendum est"). Provenance: On f. 1, “1 Duc”: Inscription in a 15th-century hand possibly listing 1 ducat for the price of the book. On f. 78v, a heavily lined-out ownership inscription, s. XV, no longer legible (only: in the first line, “Reverundus” and in the last line “vivat”). Provenance: Jacques Rosenthal, Bibliotheca Medii Aevi Manuscripta, Pars Altera. Einhundert Handschriften des Mittelalters vom zehnten bis zum fünfzehnten Jahrhundert. Katalog 90 (Munich, 1928), pp. 15-16, n. 115; purchased from Rosenthal by the New York Academy of Medicine in December 1928. 1(of 8 leaves) 2(of 10) 3(of 8, but -1, 2, 7, 8) 4?(ff. 23 + 24) 5(of 8 but -4) 6?(ff. 32-34) 7?(3+2) 8-9(of 8) 10(of 4). Catchwords on ff. 8v, 18v (does not match), 36v (does not match), 66v, 74v. Red leaf signatures 2, 3, and 4 in the middle lower margin of gathering 8. See the first printing of this text: Avicenna, Canon medicine, trans. Gerardus Cremonensis [Strassburg: The R-Printer (Adolf Rusch), after Feb. 1473], in multiple volumes ISTC ia01417700, for Book 2 and for Book 3 until the incunable’s f. 23v, col. 2, line 6 (within Book 3, fen 1 (“De egretudinibus universis capitis”), treatise 4 (“Quartus de egritudinibus capitis et ipsius nocumento in operationibus sensus et motus”), chapter 8 (or 10? “De mania et canina”) breaking incomplete in the manuscript, perhaps because the next scribe wasn’t to be found.
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