Sa’dī: Golestān (The Rose Garden). Iran 1630’s.
Department of Oriental and Judaica Collections, Cod. Pers. 84

Fols. 25v-26r

The text of this Persian manuscript is Golestān (The Rose Garden), originally written in 1258 by the Persian poet Sa’dī. The manuscript was copied at the request of the German scholar Adam Olearius (1603-1671) during his stay in Iran on his “Moskowitische und Persische Reise” 1633-1639. It is bound in vellum and has a flap in Oriental style.
The Persian text is written in a column that only occupies half of each page, and Olearius used the other half for his own Latin notes and some transcriptions of the Persian text. He later based his German translation of Sa’dī’s famous work on these notes. The translation was published in 1654 with the title Persianischer Rosenthal.
Sa’dī (d. 1292) is one of the great figures of classical Persian literature and Golestān is without a doubt his most famous work. It contains a collection of moralizing poems and anecdotes written in a mixture of prose and verse. Sa’dī’s prose, which is partly rhymed and very ingenious, became the standard by which later Persian artistic prose was measured. Among Sa’dī’s other, somewhat less known works are Būstān (The Scented Garden) from 1256 and a Dīvān (collected poems), which did not become nearly as influential as Golestān.

23 x 17 cm.

© Det Kongelige Bibliotek 2003