BOB2024MOOT

This catalogue collects Italian biblical works issued from the beginning of print to the middle of the 17th century. The abundant literature had multiple uses: the transmission of the sacred text, its interpretation, preaching, religious education, and devotional uses (meditation and prayer). It was also used as a foundation of learning and general knowledge, ethics, professional practices (i.e. in medecine and politics), domestic piety and everyday life, as well as literary and theatrical entertainment. This catalogue will help to reconstruct the access to the Bible by Italian lay people. It contributes to the historiographical debate on how Italians could read the Bible after the ban of biblical translations. It represents an extremely rich source of information for future research about authorship, readership and the very nature and use of this production, shedding light on forgotten bestsellers of Italian Renaissance.

The Scythians have fascinated investigators since the time of Herodotus. This study examines the bronze and silver coinage of the kingdom of Scythia Minor in Dobruja at the mouth of the Danube River, a Scythian successor state that emerged in the second century bce after the breakup of Scythia Magna. It is based on a corpus of over 1,500 coins, more than ever before, and draws upon scholarship in nine languages, including hard-to-find sources from Bulgaria, Romania, USSR, Ukraine, and Russia. The much-debated chronology of the six kings of Scythia Minor (Kanites, Tanousas, Charaspes, Ailis, Sariakes, and Akrosas) is determined through literary evidence, inscriptions, die linkage, shared monograms, coin hoards, and counterstamps. Metrological analysis distinguishes four denominations, plus the alterations and debasements of the weight standard during the troubled reigns of Ailis and Sariakes. Fifteen counterstamps that appear on Scythian coins are attributed to the local Greek poleis of Callatis, Tomis, Istros, and Dionysopolis. An inventory of four hoards and 47 findspots of single coins identifies the mint site, Dionysopolis. The volume concludes with a catalog of 63 major coin types and 15 counterstamps, plus bibliography and index.

The Liber de ordine creaturarum is an anonymous Latin work with an Irish provenance that dates back to the seventh century. It presents the creation as the divine handiwork and is notable for serving as both a commentary on the Hexaemeron (Six-day Work) in Genesis and as one of the earliest works of systematic theology. Although previously attributed to Isidore of Seville, the Liber de ordine creaturarum is far more than a mere compilation of 'authorities.' Instead, it emphasizes the inherent order that exists within the creation itself.

Prajñāraśmi  (1518-1584), ou « Lumière de Sagesse », est le nom de plume sanskrit d’un auteur tibétain qui vécut durant une période de crise politico-religieuse située entre la pleine assimilation du bouddhisme indien par les Tibétains et l’instauration du régime des Dalaï-Lamas. Dans ce contexte d’instabilité, Prajñāraśmi se distingua par une formation éclectique exceptionnelle et un enseignement qui, centré sur l’idée de sagesse – ou gnose –, chercha à montrer l’unité des différentes traditions du bouddhisme au Tibet.

Ses grands textes sont présentés et traduits dans cet ouvrage, notamment l’Ambroisie de l’étude, de la réflexion et de la méditation, et la Lampe qui illumine les deux vérités, qui traite de la philosophie de la voie du milieu (Madhyamaka). Sa biographie, ainsi que l’étude de son oeuvre et de son héritage, révèlent une filiation entre les renouveaux de l’école des Anciens (Rnying ma pa) durant la réunification du Tibet sous le Ve Dalaï-Lama (xvii e s.), la nouvelle révélation de ’Jigs med gling pa (xviii e s.), et la floraison du mouvement « impartial » (ris med, xix e siècle) avec la collection transsectaire du Trésor des instructions spirituelles.

Il se dessine ici une quête tibétaine de la sagesse qui, conjuguant l’histoire des traditions, le discours philosophique, le yoga et la contemplation, visait à une liberté intérieure conçue au-delà de tout parti pris, « intention unique » de tous les enseignements du Bouddha, ou, selon sa propre lignée de la Grande Perfection (Rdzogs chen), « sphère de la libération ».

Coins of the Ptolemaic Empire, Part 1, Volumes 1 and 2 (Precious Metal and Bronze) by Catharine Lorber, is the massive, long-anticipated catalogue of coins struck by the first four Ptolemaic kings. It essentially rewrites the sections on these rulers in J. N. Svoronos’ classic, but now much out of date,　Ta Nomismata tou Kratous ton Ptolemaion (1904). The body of coinage catalogued by Svoronos is enlarged by more than 300 further emissions in precious metal and more than 180 emissions in bronze, recorded from subsequent scholarship, from hoards, from commercial sources, and from private collections, and constituting about a third of the total catalogue entries. Lorber’s attributions, dates, and interpretations rest on numismatic research since Svoronos, or on the latest archaeological and hoard information. She also provides extensive historical and numismatic introductions that give the coins deeper context and meaning. The coinage of Ptolemies I through IV is supplemented by a few issues possibly attributable to Cleomenes of Naucratis, the predecessor of Ptolemy I in Egypt, as well as by coinages of Ptolemy Ceraunus, Magas, and Ptolemy of Telmessus, members of the Lagid dynasty ruling their own kingdoms outside of Egypt.