This Imperial original would seem to be more nearly represented by the Vatican copy[97] than by any other which remains in the libraries of Europe. From it we discover that the Arabic names with which the Abbreviatio abounds were given in Latin in the margin of the original manuscript, which Scot sent to the Emperor.[98] These hard words and their explanations were afterwards gathered in a glossary, and inscribed at the end of the treatise; an improvement which was probably due to Henry of Colonia. The glossary has, however, been quite neglected by later copyists, nor does it appear in the printed edition of the Abbreviatio Avicennae. The completeness with which it is found in the Vatican manuscript shows the close relation which that copy holds to the one first made by the Emperor’s permission. The Chigi manuscript[99] seems to be the only other in which the glossary is to be found. It therefore ranks beside that of the Vatican, but is inferior to it as it presents the glossary in a less complete form.
The originality of the Vatican text perhaps appears also in the curious triplet with which it closes: ‘Liber iste inceptus est et expletus cum adiutorio Jesu Christi qui vivit, etc.
Frenata penna, finito nunc Avicenna
Libro Caesario, gloria summa Deo
Dextera scriptoris careat gravitate doloris.’[100]
Several other copies of the Abbreviatio have the first two lines, but this alone contains the third. In the Chigi manuscript, the place of these verses is occupied by a curious feat of language:—
| latinum | arabicum | sclauonicum | teutonicum | arabicum |
| Felix | el melic | dober | Friderich | salemelich.[101] |
To whatever period it belongs, the writer’s purpose was doubtless to recall to the mind the four nations over which Frederick II. ruled, and the splendid kingdoms of Sicily, Germany, and Jerusalem which he gathered in one under his imperial power.
In the Laurentian Library there is a valuable manuscript, written during the summer and autumn of 1266, for the monks of Santa Croce.[102] It contains the De Animalibus ad Caesarem; the Abbreviatio Avicennae, and, as a third and concluding article, an independent version of the Liber de Partibus Animalium, corresponding, as has been said, to books xi.-xiv. of the other versions which the volume contains. Bandini, in the printed catalogue of the library, asserts that this third translation, unlike the two which precede it, was made from the Greek. This is probably correct, as it was only the Greek text which treated these four chapters of the Natural History as a distinct work. He further ascribes the version to Michael Scot, relying no doubt on the general composition of the volume, for this particular translation does not seem to contain any direct evidence of authorship. Thus the doubt expressed by Jourdain in this matter[103] is not without reason, though the balance of probability would seem to incline in favour of Bandini’s opinion; for such a volume can scarcely be assumed to have been a mere miscellany without clear evidence that the contents come from more than one author. Taking it for granted then that the De Partibus Animalium came from Scot’s pen, then this is the third form in which his labours on the Natural History of Aristotle appeared.