Latin alphanumerical notation, and annotation in Italian, in the twelfth century: MS London, British Library, Harley 5402 (Q2737641)

As we know from earlier work by the same author, a few Latin manuscripts from the early twelfth century make use of the Latin letters as numerals, as done in Greek, Hebrew and Arabic. These were copied in Antioch in the 1120s, are due in part to one Stephanus philosophus from Pisa, and expect the system to be known by a public located in Italy. The present paper describes two astronomical tables in MS Harley 5402 which make use of the same system but explain it. These tables were copied from a source making use of the same notation before 1160, and annotated around that year in Lucca. NEWLINENEWLINENEWLINEThe annotation is of independent interest: it is written in a mixture of ungrammatical Latin and a rather Tuscan Italian. As observed, a similar language appears in merchants letters from the times; most likely, it also represents the kind of language in which Jewish scholars or Arabic speakers interpreted texts for the Latin-educated translators, who then put them into grammatical ! Latin (p. 80).NEWLINENEWLINEFor the entire collection see [Zbl 0963.00039].