<p style='text-align: justify;'><p>This manuscript is of extreme interest as it is the oldest illustrated copy known with a firm date: 30 Jumada I 733/23 February 1333, from Injuid Shiraz. It came to St Petersburg as a part of the Ardabil collection. There are no interpolations and the total number of the baits is about 47,000 (even more modest than the Vullers edition). There are, however, several lacunae that may account for about 5,000 baits: between ff. 55 and 56 (2 ff.), 60 and 61 (3 ff.), 66 and 67 (2 ff.), between 148 and 149 (2? ff.), 196 and 197 (15ff.), 300 and 301 (5 ff.), 313 and 314 (10-11 ff.). The beginning is missing. Folio1r starts with the end of the introduction and the list of the kings.</p><p>Incipit (f. 1r): Chahardah sal budh padshahi-yi Iskandar. Pisar-i Darab…</p><p>The poem starts on the f. 2v with the incipit, adopted as the normative one: bih nam-i khudavand-i jan-u khirad…</p><p>Explicit: har an kas kih darad hush-u ra-yu din…</p><p>The codex now has 369 folios, but presumably had contained around 400 ff. The text is divided into columns by double red lines.</p><p>The calligrapher is ‘Abd al-Rahman al-Hasan b. ‘Abd al-Rahman b. al-Zahir</p><p>The text is in archaic large naskh in Indian ink, slightly faded to the sepia tint, headings in large thulth (the cartouches left for such headings are from 17 mm to 208 high) in red with black decorative diacritics or in blue with red or/and black diacritics, or in black with red diacritics, or without any diacritics. The headings in the introduction part are even bigger: 300 and 304 mm (f. 1r); they are written in red with gold diacritics and in gold or silver, which is oxidized, with red diacritics.</p><p>Condition. First 100 ff. were read a lot and restored carefully (margins changed, torn places are glued). The margins on ff. 208-235 spoiled by beetles. In general, especially from f. 100 the MS is in a poor condition.</p><p>Paper is thick, yellowed, slightly glossy. Water stained in many places.</p><p>Binding is simple, of black smooth leather mounted on thick cardboards with the clip. The exterior sides of the covers were decorated with the stamped gilded frame. The interior sides are covered with the thin light brownish yellow leather. The edge was restored recently with the piece of simple black leather. The lamentable remains of the original edge are kept in the envelope and put into the folder together with the manuscript.</p><p>Illuminations: f. 2v contains an archaic unvan, a rectangular cartouch (400 x 220 mm) of simple shape with the inscription: ba nam-i izad-i chashanida. The inscription is in decorative thulth with tapering ends of the alifs, in gold over the golden foreground; actually the letters are double drawn by the black qalam: first the inscription itself and then the surrounding “clouds” and decorated with two quadrangular fillings on both sides in the same geometric design, but painted in different palette: the right one is in gold and green over the blue foreground, the left one in blue and gold over the faded green.</p><p>Miniatures: the copy contains 52 miniatures of high artistic value executed in a manner close to the fresco wall painting and ceramics of the Rayy style. Miniatures are damaged in places. Paintings are all published in black and white and in fragments in colour by Gyuzalyan and Adamova.</p></p>
