<p style='text-align: justify;'><p>Gift of Alexander II to the Imperial Public Library in 1876.</p><p>The binding is European and very pretty. The outer sides of the covers are made of the dark pink velvet leather with the double gold frame (one row of a very simple ornament – a chain of small gold balls, another of a sophisticated geometric design). The leather is mounted on the thick cardboard. The doublures are covered with deep emerald thin leather with a stamped gold rectangle in the centre with a design of grapes and leaves and the frame of the “ball” pattern.</p><p>According to the colophon (f. 626r), the MS was copied on 20 Dhu ’l-Qa‘da 1031/1 July 1630. The text was restored in Muharram 1257/23 February-24 March 1841 (according to the colophon of the first part of the MS (f. 287v). The restored folia are as follows: ff. 161-163, 287, 288, 472-474 and 492.</p><p>The paper is glossy of different quality. Condition is good, restored ff. 288-289 are brownish, very glossy, mostly remagined, the restoration of the miniatures, where executed, is not of high quality.</p><p>Only some folios have numbers, but it is impossible to realise the system whereby they were indicated.</p><p>The text is in good medium size nasta‘liq in Indian ink, headings in the same script in white over a thick layer of faded gold in the rectangular cartouches (about 20 x 73 mm), the foreground of which is decorated with the geometric ornament in the corners in blue and gold, and covered in the middle with flowers in pink, yellow, orange and blue. There are many chalipa pages, where the whole interlinear surface is filled in with gold and floral ornament over it (e.g. f. 264v). Usualy they are executed on the pages opposite those containing the miniatures.</p><p>Almost a full copy of the text, with many interpolations and omitted passages (especially in the part about the Sasanians). The text opens with the full Baysunghur preface (ff.2v-12r), incipit: Iftitah-i sukhan…</p><p>Satire on Mahmud (ff.8v-9v) contains 82 baits.</p><p>The incipit of the poem is normative (12v).</p><p>The next page (f. 288r) after the colophon of part one (f. 287v) is empty but prepared for the calligraphy (4 columns in frames of gold, silver, red, blue, orange and green lines) – and was added later to restore the missing fragment.</p><p>There is some confusion at the end: the last part with the title of the last chapter “Avardan-i Sa‘d-i Vaqqas dirafsh-i Kaviyan” is mentioned in the middle of the previous page (f.625v, which is organized in chalipa format), while the end of the manuscript is already in the middle of the next one with the explicit:</p><p>‘Umr ya rabb ravan-ash ba atash bisuz / dil-I banda-yi mustahaqq bar furuz</p><p>There are several empty spaces (e.g. f. 289r), and parts of incorrect text, which was added during the restoration.</p><p>Ff. 165v-170r: Faramurz-nama (details see Gyuzalyan-Dyakonov, 1934, p. 69)</p><p>Ff. 237r-287v: Barzu-nama, before the story about Twelve Knights</p><p>Ff. 410r-426v: Bahman-nama</p><p>Illumination: The MS is richly decorated, with three ‘unvans: ff. 2v, 12v and 288v (restored). The first two are quite similar in design and palette, with dominating gold and blue and very close to the arabesque ornament of the margins around two frontispiece paintings (ff. 1v-2r). Fol. 288v is in a neat hand in light blue, yellow, peach, turquoise, pink and gold. The gold is needled with dots. The folia containing the miniatures and the opposite pages have ornamented text surfaces, so called gold clouds, surrounding the text. There are also flowers in polychrome executed over the gold clouds. The gold is in a very thin layer. The same ornamentation was imitated by another hand around the composition of the last two miniatures at the end of the MS, which are not connected with the poem by their subjects. The text is in frames of orange, blue, brown and wide gold lines; the borders, dividing the columns have additional decoration of vertical geometrical ornament.</p><p>The manuscript contains 75 miniatures. According to their peculiar features they can be divided into 6 groups: A, B, C, D, E, F. The most valuable are the miniatures of the first group, then group B and E. The others belong to the typical commercial style. Those of the groups D and F were added later (maybe in the 18th c.). The condition of the miniatures is good. The miniatures of the group D are in the worst condition, where paints are missing in many places.</p><p>There is something strange is about the frontispiece paintings, especially with the gold. It seems it was repainted, or removed partly - the figure of the man in dark lilac with a yellow belt and green high hat: he has a strange gold “hair”, hanging down from both sides of his head. Gold mountains and blue sky are also quite unusual.</p><p>See Gyuzalyan-Dyakonov, 1934.</p></p>
