Palatino 766 pipes, pools, cliffs, streams... (by Taccola)

[Bernd]

Looking for provenance of Palatino 766, I came across this entry I must have overlooked:
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Machine translated to:

On the occasion of Emperor Sigismund of Luxembourg’s stay in Siena, while he was traveling to Rome to be crowned by Eugenius IV, Mariano di Iacopo took the opportunity to give a definitive form to the third part of his Liber de ingeniis, a work on which he had been engaged for some time. It seems that portions of the Munich manuscript—Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, CLM 197.II, containing Books I–II—can be dated to 1427.

From a larger work that must have been lying on his desk in the form of loose sheets—or perhaps only lightly bound—he then gathered the sheets relating to Book III, removed a bifolium that was probably blank (the jump in the numbering in his own hand described above does not appear to have resulted from an error), and added a dedication, paratextual material, and decorative elements:
“This book contains within it many questions posed to me by the most serene prince and unconquered king of the Romans, Lord Sigismund, by the grace of God, awaiting his coronation with the imperial diadem. I see that these questions contain measurements made with the compass. And whenever my mental capacity lacks the ingenuity to understand them, I submit to being reproached by him and always instructed in matters in which I am deficient, as well as in all other weights and measures. And with all due reverence I, Mariano, ask for indulgence, that I may be forgiven if I have been too bold in the matters stated above and in every single one of them.” (fol. 1r)

There is also a drawing of the emperor in armor, in the act of receiving from God the task of defending his flock and crushing the tail of the Marzocco (fol. 1v); and a dedication beside a drawing of Saint Dorothy walking with the Christ Child. In this dedication, the saint speaks in the first person, offering Mariano’s services to the sovereign:
“For you, most serene prince Sigismund, king of the Romans, ever august, I beseech almighty God and the Word of the Father, through whom all things were made, to preserve you in faith, long-lasting health, and charity, so that you may be able to fight against our enemies and gain victory over them, and receive the imperial crown of the whole world; and at the end of the age may He lead you to eternal life. Amen.
To your sacred Majesty I continually commend Sir Mariano Iacobi, chamberlain of the House of Wisdom of Siena, who composed this little book and depicted me. May you deign to receive him into your household as one of the members of your court, and approve him, by the authority of your privilege, as master of the arts of waterworks. His intention is to live in your lands in Hungary and there bring his days to an end, to devote himself to all constructions involving water, and to describe in books all the deeds and actions carried out by you, the kings of Hungary, and your predecessors; to gather them, as far as he is able, from every place, and to mark them and illuminate histories in those books, at the beginning and in the margins.” (fol. 42r)

After supplying the manuscript with these elements and signing it, he had it bound—or bound it himself (see above)—in order to present it to the emperor.

Whether the gift was ever actually presented, or whether Sigismund subsequently lost interest in the manuscript, is difficult to determine with certainty. The Palatino 766 was still in Tuscany several years later, when it was copied in Palatino 767, a parchment copy enriched with drawings from another source.

Later, at least by the eighteenth century, it was in the private Florentine collection of the Niccolini family, whose inventory, drawn up in 1730 by Luca Giuseppe Cerracchini, lists it as De aedificiis tractatus cum figuris (“Treatise on buildings with illustrations”). On fol. 1r there is an oil stamp bearing the initials M.N., to be expanded as Maggiorasco Niccolini.

The Niccolini family’s scientific, literary, and manuscript library was auctioned in 1824 and was apparently purchased by the Florentine bookseller Giuseppe Pagani for 12,500 lire (see Guida, Plinio e Poliziano, 292–293, and Moroni, Antica gente, 182–183 n. 87).

On December 24, 1828, Giuseppe Molini proposed the purchase of three manuscripts for the Palatine Library—Palatino 161, Palatino 774, and Palatino E.B.15.6—selected from the catalogue sent by Pagani to the Library. The approval of the chief steward, Prince Rospigliosi, arrived on January 1 of the following year (see Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale, Archivio Palatino, I, fols. 220r–222r).

Inside the front cover, in pencil, are the old Palatine shelfmark, “21.2 vecchio 366,” together with the current one, “numero nuovo 766.”

So if this is correct, Taccola worked with loose parchment sheets which he later amended, compiled, numbered and bound. At least one bifolio was removed, resulting in a jump in numbering. Does this sound familiar?
Unfortunately, the text does not cite sources. Also is it really true that the later copybook Palatino 767 contains imagery that is exclusively found in Taccola's Palatino 766, but not in his earlier works Book I+II? I imagine having looked into this but found nothing remarkable. I currently lack the time for this research but maybe someone wants to give it a look.

Palatino 766
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Palatino 767
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What is the implication of this?

• Taccola began work on De ingeneis I-II as early as 1419 and continued to make amendments until the completion of De machinis in 1449. The Munich manuscript containing Book I-II (BSB, Clm 197,II) dates from 1427 and is the earliest known book from Taccola.
  
• Book III-IV (Palatino 766) was created 1432-33. and finished on Jan. 13, 1433. Loose precursor sheets of parchment may have existed since 1430.
  
• Palatino 766 remained in Italy with near-certainty and never made it to Sigismund. There is a gap in provenance until 1730 when it shows up in a Florentine collection.
  
• Palatino 767 draws on Taccola's works, but in my opinion is not a direct copy of Palatino 766. Same goes for all alleged copies of Palatino 766. All dated to the late 15th century. None of their imagery is even remotely as close to the VM as Taccola's original:
  Urb. Lat. 1757 (ca. 1465–1470)
  British Library Add. MS 34113 (ca. 1470s)
  MS Ob. 13 (ca. 1470-1500)
  Siena S.IV.5 (ca. 1470-1500)
  Palatino 767 (ca. 1475-1500)
  

That leaves us with 2 possible paths:
1) The VM author used Palatino 766 as reference. This places at least the Balneo section post-1433.
2) The VM author had direct access to Taccola's workplace in Siena and copied the imagery from there. This would place a lower bound for the Balneo section in the 1420s. Due to the similarities in structure between the VM and Taccola's works, I'd actually favor this hypothesis now.

• created as loose sheets
  
• later binding with missing page numbers
  
• continuous amendments and revisions
  

I'm not saying Taccola made the VM, but the possibility that it was someone close to him has substantially increased.