Notes on the Arabic Manuscript III.C.4 in the Central Library of the Sicilian Region

Abstract

Among the Arabic manuscripts preserved in the Alberto Bombace Central Library of the Sicilian Region in Palermo there is an anonymous and acephalous document, the ms. III.C.4., which provides, as its only identification signs, the shelf-mark S.M.43., indicating that it used to belong to the Library of the Benedictine Abbey of San Martino delle Scale, and a cursory Italian explanatory annotation provided in 1796 by the Archbishop of Aleppo. As a preliminary step toward the critical analysis of the above-mentioned document, which will be the subject of further study, this paper will attempt to provide a codicological description of the manuscript together with a philological and historical reconstruction of its arrival to the Central Library of the Sicilian Region.