Union Catalogue of Manuscripts from the Islamicate World

MS 373 (Manuscript Collections, The Fitzwilliam Museum)

The Fitzwilliam Museum

Contents

A copy of Khamsah-i Niẓāmī by Niẓāmī Ganjavī, 1140 or 41-1202 or 3

Physical Description

Form: codex
Support: Paper
Extent: 323 ff.
Dimensions (leaf): 370 × 265 mm.
Dimensions (written): 240 × 150 mm.

Layout

The poetic text is written in four columns, 22 lines to a page.

Decoration

Every page is set in a broad paper margin tinted with safflower. The text is framed by narrow fillets of gold, with a broader band of blue, and rules of red, white and blue. The manuscript opens with a fully-illuminated double-page in gold, blue and polychrome floral scrolls, with decorated title-pages for every book of the Quintet, and two separate ones for the Sharafnameh and the Iqbalnameh.

It contains 17 paintings.

Seal(s):

Numerous seals and inscriptions on folio 1r.Ursula Sims-Williams has been able to decipher the mahjority of them. It contains seals of Shāh Jahān,Aurangzeb, Emperor of Hindustan, 1618-1707, Shāh ʻĀlam Bahādur. This manuscript was part of the Mughal collection between 1639 and 1734.

History

Origin: 949

Provenance and Acquisition

The manuscript was sold as Lot. 26 at Sotheby's on 19th July 1935. Given by the Friends of the Fitzwilliam in 1935.

Record Sources

Manuscript description based on Francis Wormald and Phyllis M. Giles "A Descriptive Catalogue of the Additional Illuminated Manuscripts in the Fitzwilliam Museum acquired between 1895 and 1979 (excluding the McClean Collection)", Cambridge University Press, 1982; with corrections and additions supplied by Marcus Fraser and Giorgia M. Maffioli Brigatti.

Availability

The manuscript can be consulted in the Graham Robertson Study room at The Fitzwilliam Museum, on an appointment only basis. To request an appointment, please email collections@fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk citing the manuscript number.

Subjects


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