The manuscript has the ex libris of the Fitzwilliam Museum on the back flyleaf. There are Chinese seal marks and inscriptions on several guard leaves (ff. 272v-273v, etc.).
The ms. has a prose Preface on ff. 1v-6r and the text of the poem from ff. 6v to 440r. Preface has half a page of formal ornament, on the title page; there is a double page spread on ff. 6v-7r at the start of the poem.
A scribe's note on the last page states that there are 82 pictures in the book, though now there are only 68 miniatures left. This implies some text/folios must be missing too, presumably from the beginning of the ms. - it is unusual that the first painting is not till f. 56, but thereafter it is quite heavily illustrated.
This is an interesting and idiosyncratic mansucript that deserves fuller study.
Project Notes
Included in the exhibition, Epic of rhe Persian Kings: the art of Ferdowsi's Shahnameh, Sept. 2010 - Jan. 2011.
References
General Ref:
Wormald, F. & Giles P.M.
A descriptive catalogue of the additional illuminated manuscripts in the Fitzwilliam Museum acquired between 1895 and 1979. 1
pp. 301-302 Cambridge. UK.
General Ref:
Robinson, B.W.
Persian miniature painting from the collections in the British Isles. (in Large Picture Book No. 33)
HMSO. London. UK.
General Ref:
Robinson, B.W.
A descriptive catalogue of the Persian paintings in the Bodleian Library.
pp. 171 Clarendon Press. Oxford. UK.
Dating Ref:
Colophon
Extracted from the colophon of the work.
Origin Ref:
Wormald, F. & Giles P.M.
A descriptive catalogue of the additional illuminated manuscripts in the Fitzwilliam Museum acquired between 1895 and 1979. 1
pp. 301-302 Cambridge. UK.
