The first word fig 1 p 36 l palace book. then “dona pises simul atque cirona: for Chiron, the Sagittarius having as in Dante, the specific name

This passage is corrupted in the Ruskin Library Transcript T7A. However it is very closely followed in Stones of Venice Volume II at Works, 10.413, and that makes it possible to reconstruct a plausible reading of the manuscript. Ruskin interprets as ‘Then the house of Jupiter gives (or governs?) the fishes and Chiron’. Chiron is a bowman or ‘sagittarius’.

‘dead’ in the transcript instead of ‘dona’ seems a simple mistake. ‘dona’ is the reading in the published version at Works, 10.413. ‘doma’ is a possible reading.

Compare Palace Book p.36L for the beginning of the inscription. The reading ‘dona’ is the basis for Ruskin’s interpretation ‘gives’; ‘doma’ seen as a form of the verb ‘dominare’ is presumably the basis for his suggestion that ‘governs’ is a possible meaning.

‘Leaving’ rather than ‘having’ in the last line of the transcript is implausible. The point appears to be that the inscription, like the text of Dante at Inferno XII, 52, gives the name of the archer. It follows that ‘leaving’ in the sense of ‘omitting’ is impossible. ‘Having’ seems to be a better reading of the manuscript. ‘Bearing’ would also make sense. However the word ‘hand’ above on this page shows an identical form of the letter ‘h’ at the beginning of a word, so ‘having’ seems more plausible.

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