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The marbled decorative borders of this manuscript are unusual. The only other known manuscript to include similar borders is a translation of Tarikh’i Iskandar (The History of Alexander the Great) that was copied by Ibn Muhammad Khan Safdar ‘Ali in Kabul on Monday 8th Rabi’ II 1291 AH (25th May 1874 AD). A reference to the Voltaire translation is given in the preface to the Tarikh’i Iskandar: ‘Ibn Muhammad Khan Safdar ‘Ali is to produce this text as well as the History of Peter the Great’, confirming that the two volumes were made in this style at the bequest of the same patron. The Tarikh’i Iskandar was produced in Kabul, Afghanistan while this manuscript was produced in Iran, suggesting that their shared patron was a Qajar figure significant enough to travel with a large enough retinue to include a calligrapher.
The translation of Voltaire’s work forms part of a collection of works by Eugenios Voulgaris.
The text was first translated for the original French into Greek by Eugenios Voulgaris. His translations are included in this addition via the annotation on f.25r-116v and commentary on the text entitled Iḥtimāl al-madhhab on f.117r-163v. Voulgaris’ translation was later translated into Arabic.
The copy was produced by Stöterogge. This could either be Leonhard Georg V. Stöterogge (b. 1671) or his brother Hieronymus Hartewich V. Stöterogge (b. 1672).
The collection is divided into two parts. Part one contains excerpts from François Fénélon’s Les Aventures de Télémaque, partial translations from French and English editions of this text, and notes (especially vocabulary lists).
Part 2 includes excerpts from works by eighteenth-century French writers. The authors include: Jean-François Marmontel, Arnaud Berquin, Denis Diderot, Voltaire, Charles de Montesquieu, Antoine Condorcet, Jacques Antoine Guibert, Charles Pinot-Duclos, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau.
The collection was likely compiled around 1800 by Michael Fischer, a student at the time.
The translation is part of a wider collection of ‘strange and curious’ writings (verschiedene merckwürdige und curieuse Schrifften).