Incipit arithmeticha boetij [manuscript]

Boethius, -524, Burndy Library, donor. DSI · 3 pictures

A manuscript copy of Boethius's Latin arithmetic treatise, written by hand in a scribal text block with decorated initials, donated to the Smithsonian Libraries by the Burndy Library. The pictures show red and blue penwork initials with ornamental staves and a red-ruled diagram of numbered boxes arranged around a circle, a designer might take from the interlocking hand-drawn initials a sense of early pen-and-ink ornament and the orderly layout of a diagram.

Early works to 1900 · Arithmetic

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