Liber dietarium universalium et particularium Electronic version according to TEI P5.1 Fragmentarium - Digital Research Laboratory for Medieval Manuscript Fragments

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 Victoria, B.C. University of Victoria Libraries Fragm.Lat.4 Liber dietarium universalium et particularium 1250–1300 France Fragm.Lat.4 recto Latin Liber dietarium universalium et particularium Constantine the African, Isaac Israeli The leaf records part of the Latin version of Isaac's Arabic text on diets ( Kitāb al-aghdhiya ), as translated by the eleventh-century Benedictine monk Constantine the African. The full text of the fragment - on the medicinal and nutritional uses of melon, cucumber, squash, watermelon, and lettuce - can be verified through comparison with what is still the only edition of the complete Liber dietarium , printed in the 1515 Opera omnia Ysaac in Lyon by Andreas Turinus. Isaac Judaeus, Omnia opera Ysaac, ff. 124r–125r (Lyon: A. Turinus, 1515). Parchment 1 leaf255 x 150 mm

Fragm.Lat.4 appears to have been cut out of its original codex and reused as a wrapper or binding aid, such that, in the initial assessment, the orientation of its recto and verso were misunderstood (Kwakkel, UVic, 2006). When the fragment was reused, its orientation was correctly preserved (judging by stitching holes), but it was also sloppily trimmed along the opposite margin, so that marginal corrections are cut off on both sides. The current margin measurements, before identification of the text and its order, were therefore misleading. This copy of the Liber dietarium , however, was never a pristine production: the parchment is of “mediocre quality” (per Kwakkel) and the scribe made many errors.

 Description by: Adrienne Williams Boyarin and James Kendrick, University of Victoria, 2021 Adrienne Williams Boyarin, Ravana Eagleheart, James Kendrick, Lynnea Ness, and Merridy Peters. "Medieval Manuscripts and Fragments at the University of Victoria: An Early Grant of Hubert de Burgh, Constantine the African's Translation of Isaac Israeli, and a Mendicant Breviary between Italy and Croatia." Florilegium 33 (2016): 193-232, at 200-203 [descriptive information] and 210-14 [transcription]. James Kendrick, "A Newly-Identified Fragment of Constantine the African at the University of Victoria," MA thesis, University of Victoria, 2016.