É. Apor (ed.): Codex Cumanicus. Ed. by Géza Kuun with a Prolegomena to the Codex Cumanicus by Lajos Ligeti. (Budapest Oriental Reprints, Ser. B 1.)

L. Ligeti: Prolegomena to the Codex Cumanicus

PROLEGOMENA TO THE CODEX CUMANICl'S 5 To start with, he has established that the name Petrarca Codex, was an inveterate error. This Nolhae also pointed out in a book published in 1892, but which passed completely unnoticed by Turcologists. Petrarca did indeed leave his books to Venice in his will, but they never arrived there since he lived near Padua at the time of his death in 1374, and the adversities between the two towns prevented the book collection from ever reaching Venice. Nolhae, incidentally, studied each of the 17 manuscripts in the San Marco Library allegedly belonging to the Petrarca collection, including the Codex Cumanicus, and maintained that none of them could have come from the Petrarca library. This is certainly true of the Codex Cumanicus, whose paper (not parchment) pages and leather binding from the 18th century did not blend in at all with the rest of the bibliophile Petrarca's books. Györffy examined the pages of the manuscript, their water marks, and the former fascicules of the manuscript now bound in one volume. His research led him to conclude that the manuscript originally consisted of three fascicules. Both Teza and Györffy stress this fact, which means more precisely that the Codex was written on three types of fascicules, the first two of which were of equal size, and contained the same watermark. The third fascicule, however, was larger and apparently clipped round at the time of stitching or binding, which damaged the writing on a few pages. The watermarks of the latter differ from those of the other two types of paper. Apart from this proof, a view had earlier evolved to the effect that the Codex had two parts, a «German» and an «Italian» part. Let it be noted here that the Codex today consists of 164 pages. This subsequent, modern pagination was used by G. Kuun, A. v. Gabain, Grönbech (in his dictionary) and Monchi-zadeh. We will also adhere to this pagination, as the arbitrary mediaeval paging seems gratuitous and anachronistic, using 82 r-v folios. The «Italian part» comprises pages 1 110, which simply means that the Italians left pages 111 118 of the second fascicule blank. This is how the next owners obtained the Codex. According to this conception, the new owners started adding their notes on page 119, and continued through to page 164 of the third fascicule. This part, therefore, contains only their material. The first, or Italian part, offers several chronological clues, first at the very beginning of the manuscript : the date June 11th, 1303 apparently refers to the manuscript from which the present Codex was (either directly of indirectly) copied. This work was undoubtedly not an autograph one, as amply evidenced by the mistakes arising from copying. Györffy has pinned down the date of copying by showing that the paper was of North Itaian origin, the watermark dating around 1330. This may be considered the copying date of the extant Italian part. Earlier an older chronological clue was thought to have been discovered, in the names of the months in Latin, Persian and Coman in the Codex. The