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    • Reviews
    • Highlights
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      • Manuscript Studies: Contents List
    • International Congress on Medieval Studies
      • Abstracts of Congress Papers
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    • Mission
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      • Adelaide Bennett Hagens
    • Activities
      • Events
      • Congress Activities
        • Sponsored Conference Sessions (1993‒)
          • Panels at the M-MLA Convention
        • Co-sponsored Conference Sessions (2006‒)
    • History
      • Seals, Matrices & Documents
      • Genealogies & Archives
  • Bembino
    • Multi-Lingual Bembino
  • Congress
    • Sponsored Conference Sessions (1993‒)
    • Co-sponsored Conference Sessions (2006‒)
    • Abstracts of Congress Papers
      • Abstracts Listed by Author
      • Abstracts Listed by Year
    • Kalamazoo Archive
    • Panels at the M-MLA Convention
      • Abstracts of Papers for the M-MLA Convention
  • Events
    • The Research Group Speaks: The Series
    • Seminars, Workshops, Colloquia & Symposia (1989–)
      • Seminars on ‘The Evidence of Manuscripts’
      • Symposia on ‘The Transmission of the Bible’
      • The New Series
        • 2019 Anniversary Symposium Program: The Roads Taken
        • 2019 Anniversary Symposium Registration
        • 2019 Anniversary Symposium Registration Open
    • Abstracts of Papers for Events
      • Abstracts of Papers for Seminars on ‘The Evidence of Manuscripts’
      • Abstracts of Papers for Symposia, Workshops & Colloquia
    • Receptions & Parties
    • Business Meetings
    • Photographic Exhibitions & Master Classes
    • Events Archive
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    • Journal Description
    • ShelfMarks: The RGME-Newsletter
    • Publications
      • “Insular, Anglo-Saxon, and Early Anglo-Norman Manuscript Art at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge” (1997)
        • Mildred Budny, ‘Catalogue’
        • The Illustrated Catalogue (1997)
      • The Illustrated Handlist
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      • No Snap Decisions: Challenges of Manuscript Photography
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Photograph of the stems and white blooms of Snowdrops emerging from a patch of bare ground in the sunlight. Photograph Ⓒ Mildred Budny.
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Façade of the Celsus library, in Ephesus, near Selçuk, west Turkey. Photograph (1910): Benh LIEU SONG, via Creative Commons.
2023 International Congress on Medieval Studies: Program
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Two Pages from a Roman Breviary in Gothic Script
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Verso of Leaf from the Dialogues of Gregory the Great, Book III, chapter 7. Photography by Mildred Budny
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The Weber Leaf from “The Warburg Missal” (Otto Ege Manuscript 22)
Folio 4 with Latin Blessings for Holy Water and an Exorcism for Salt
Portfolio 93 of Ege’s “Famous Books in Eight Centuries” in the Collection of Richard Weber
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Two Ege Leaves and Two Ege Labels in the Collection of Birgitt G. Lopez
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Two Old Testament Leaves from ‘Otto Ege Manuscript 14’ at Smith College
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A Leaf in Dallas from “Otto Ege Manuscript 14” (Lectern Bible)
How to Be Indiana Jones in the Catalog
Southern Italian Cuisine Before Columbus
Florence, Galleria degli Uffizi, Anonymous, Still Life of an Illuminated Book, German School, 15th century. Oil on Wood. Opened book with fanned pages. Image via Wikimedia, Public Domain.
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J. S. Wagner Collection, Leaf from Ege Manuscript 22, verso, bottom right: Ege's inscription in pencil.
Another Leaf from the Warburg Missal (‘Ege Manuscript 22’)
More Leaves from a Deconstructed Sinhalese Palm-Leaf Manuscript
Otto F. Ege: Fifty Original Leaves from Medieval Manuscripts, Leaf 40, Printed Label, Special Collections and University Archives, Stony Brook University Libraries.
Otto Ege Manuscript 40, Part II: Before and After Ege
rivate Collection, Koran Leaf in Ege's Famous Books in Nine Centuries, Front of Leaf. Reproduced by permission.
Otto Ege’s Portfolio of ‘Famous Books’ and ‘Ege Manuscript 53’ (Quran)
Grapes Watermark in a Selbold Cartulary Fragment.
Selbold Cartulary Fragments
Smeltzer Collection, Subermeyer (1598), Vellum Supports Strip 2 Signature Surname.
Vellum Binding Fragments in a Parisian Printed Book of 1598
Church of Saint Mary, High Ongar, Essex, with 12th-Century Nave. Photograph by John Salmon (8 May 2004), Image via Wikipedia.
A Charter of 1399 from High Ongar in Essex
J. S. Wagner Collection. Leaf from from Prime in a Latin manuscript Breviary. Folio 4 Recto, Initial C for "Confitimini" of Psalm 117 (118), with scrolling foliate decoration.
A Leaf from Prime in a Large-Format Latin Breviary

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A Leaf of Deuteronomy from ‘Otto Ege Manuscript 14’ in the Rosenbrook Collection

February 8, 2022 in Manuscript Studies, Uncategorized

Brent Rosenbrook Collection, Leaf from Ege Manuscript 14, ‘Recto’ (original Verso), top: Running title.

An Old Testament Leaf
from ‘Otto Ege Manuscript 14’
with part of Deuteronomy
in the Rosenbrook Collection

Large-format Latin Vulgate Lectern Bible
made in France
late 13th- or early 14th century

Single Leaf within a matted frame
Double columns of 50 lines

Maximum measurements circa 16 1/8″ × 10 11/16″ <written area circa 11″ × 7 3/8″>

Deuteronomy 11:21 ([quam iuravit] /) dominus patribus)
– 14:15 (strutionem ac noc-(/tuam et larum])

With bichrome running titles and chapter numbers,
polychrome decorated initials and border ornament with geometric and foliate motifs,
and added lection marks

[Posted on 8 February 2022, with updates]

Virginia Lazenby O’Hara Fine Books Division, Dallas Public Library, Framed Leaf from Otto Ege MS 14, ‘Recto’ (original Verso).

Brent Rosenbrook Collection, Matted Leaf from Otto Ege Manuscript 14, ‘Recto’ (original Verso).

Continuing the series of posts for our blog on Manuscript Studies, Mildred Budny describes another leaf from ‘Otto Ege Manuscript 14’, a large-format copy on vellum of the full Latin Bible in the Vulgate Version.

A leaf from this manuscript recently reached the collection of Brent Rosenbrook, who generously sent images and information about it, in response to the blogpost reporting More Discoveries for ‘Otto Ege Manuscript 14’.

A similar response several months ago brought to our attention the Dallas Leaf from the same manuscript, now kept at the Virginia Lazenbury O’Hara Fine Books Division of the Dallas Public Library in the City of Dallas, Texas. A report of that leaf, which carries the end of the Book of Joshua and the beginning of Judges in the Old Testament portion of the manuscript, appears in our blog on A Leaf in Dallas from ‘Otto Ege Manuscript 14’.

The ‘new’ leaf likewise comes from one of the early Books of the Old Testament. In the sequence, it stood one Book ahead.

Otto Ege Manuscript 14 and Manuscript Studies

Some discoveries for the manuscript have been reported in our blog.

  • A New Leaf from ‘Otto Ege Manuscript 14’
  • More Discoveries for ‘Otto Ege Manuscript 14’
  • A Leaf from ‘Otto Ege Manuscript 19’ and Ege’s Workshop Practices
  • Updates for Some ‘Otto Ege Manuscripts’ (Ege MSS 8, 14, 41, and 61)
  • Some Leaves in Set 1 of ‘Ege’s FOL Portfolio’ (Ege MSS 8, 14, 19, and 41)
  • Patch Work in ‘Otto Ege Manuscript 14’
  • A Leaf in Dallas from ‘Otto Ege Manuscript 14’.

See also The Illustrated Handlist (Number 4).

Brent Rosenbrook Collection, Leaf from Ege Manuscript 14, ‘Recto’ (original Verso), middle right: Deuteronomy 14 opens.

The Rosenbrook Leaf

When contacting me about the Leaf, its collector described the origins of his collecting spirit and the development of his book-collecting.

I wanted to give you a little bit of backstory and brief history. I am a layman in this field but have always been a collector of things since my childhood. I was a bibliophile long before I ever heard the term or would have understood its meaning. And although I am new to collecting illuminated manuscripts, I have always felt drawn to the beauty of them. As a teenager and young man I was especially stuck by the intricate, amazing imagery and knotwork in the Book of Kells. In 1998 I was fortunate to have visited Trinity College in Dublin and see it firsthand along with other books on display. It was a moment of wonder to finally be in the presence of that book. Although I never lost that sense of awe, for the next many years that was the extent of my experience and attention concerning manuscripts.

In December of 2016 my wife and I were visiting a friend’s home for the holidays when I noticed on the wall a large framed musical page of some sort. I could tell that it was hundreds of years old, handwritten, on animal skin. He knew little about it other than it belonged to a relative down the line and that at some point it was gifted to him. It was of course an antiphonal as I later discovered by searching online. It was (is) likely early 16th century and had one very large, but simple rubricated initial. Although it wouldn’t be considered elaborate or rare to a person knowledgeable in such things, for me the affect was basically “Wow, that’s really cool. I’ve got to figure out what that is. I want one of those”. The collector bug bit me again. . . .

Brent Rosenbrook Collection, Leaf from Ege MS 14, ‘Verso’ original Recto), bottom left.

My interest and enjoyment of looking at and learning about illuminated manuscripts (especially Bibles with historiated and zoomorphic initials) grew as I visited multiple websites over many weeks and scrolled through countless images of various western manuscripts. In March 2017 I acquired my first true illuminated leaf when I bid on and (unexpectedly) won a large Bible leaf which was from a manuscript previously owned by the famous collector Chester Beatty. As far as the Otto Ege leaf, it was a spontaneous purchase.

I received a notification . . . when this page was listed recently by Rodger Friedman Rare Book Studio. It wasn’t on my radar (or necessarily in the budget) to make a purchase but after glancing at the listing throughout the day I committed to buying it. I only knew the name Otto Ege vaguely through my reading up on manuscripts.

When I received the package and saw the leaf for the first time it evoked a lot of emotion. Although I knew its measurements when I purchased it, I still wasn’t prepared for the size and beauty of seeing it firsthand – it is stunning. It was only in the last few weeks after this acquiring this that I began reading up on and watching video postings about this famous biblioclast and the sets he sold off. . . . It was just this past Thursday night when I came across the RGME website and decided to reach out to you.

As for the Leaf itself, the collector reports that “It remains in the original matting that Ege used when he compiled these books.” Thus, this specimen qualifies for the group of survivors from the manuscript which circulated on their own, as a ‘Rogue Leaf’. Many of them traveled within one of Ege’s standard mats of a uniform size, accompanied by Ege’s printed Label giving a generic description of his Leaf 14. They resemble the presentation designed for specimen leaves from various manuscripts in Ege’s ‘FOL’ Portfolio of Fifty Original Leaves from Medieval Manuscripts, in which leaves from the dismembered Lectern Bible have the position of Number 14.

Now, with the collector’s permission, the Leaf might begin to assume its place within the virtual Reconstruction of the manuscript, as known from its fragments.  Brent Rosenbrook observes:

I think it’s nice for others to know that there are those who aren’t necessarily part of academic institution but still would like to contribute what they can to the advance of manuscript study.

We greatly admire this view!

A Note on the Photographs of the Leaf 

The images here show the Leaf and its details under several forms of light, taken at different times and at different angles. Their variety shows multiple aspects, including some 3-dimensional features which views at an angle can reveal of the curvature of the surface(s) of the animal skin and the furrows of the ruled lines upon it in drypoint.

Read the rest of this entry →

Tags: 'Fifty Original Leaves from Medieval Manuscripts', Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Book of Deuteronomy, Brent Rosenbrook Collection, Dallas Public Library, Ege's FOL Portfolios, FOL Portfolio Set Number 39, Latin Vulgate Bible, Lectern Bible, Medieval Manuscript Fragments, Otto Ege, Otto Ege Collection, Otto Ege Manuscript 14, Reconstructing Manuscripts Virtually, Running Titles, Stony Brook University Library
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A Leaf in Dallas from “Otto Ege Manuscript 14” (Lectern Bible)

January 11, 2022 in Manuscript Studies

Virginia Lazenby O’Hara Fine Books Division, Dallas Public Library, Framed Leaf from Otto Ege Manuscript 14, ‘Recto’, top right: Initial P for ‘Post’ of Judges 1:1.

An Old Testament Leaf
from ‘Otto Ege Manuscript 14’
with the end of Joshua
and the beginning of Judges
in the
Virginia Lazenby O’Hara
Fine Books Division
of the Dallas Public Library
City of Dallas, Texas

Large-format Latin Vulgate Lectern Bible
(“the Bible of ‘Mirmelus Arnandi’ “)
made in France, late 13th- or early 14th century

Single Leaf mounted behind glass within a matted frame
Double columns of 50 lines

Visible side of the leaf (‘Recto’):
Joshua 24:18 ([igitur Dominus quia /] ipse Dominus – 24:38 (end)
and Judges 1:1 –15 (ending the verse with inriguum inferius [/ Filii autem . . . beginning 1:16])

With rubricated and polchrome elements, running titles, concluding-and-opening titles,
decorated and historiated initials, border ornament,
embellished pen-line line-fillers, and added lection marks

[Posted on 10 January 2022, with updates]

Continuing the series of posts for our blog on Manuscript Studies, Mildred Budny describes another leaf from ‘Otto Ege Manuscript 14’, a large-format copy on vellum of the full Latin Bible in the Vulgate Version.

The image shows the two columns of main text, its corrections, and its decoration and illustration.

Virginia Lazenby O’Hara Fine Books Division, Dallas Public Library, Framed Leaf from Otto Ege Manuscript 14, ‘Recto’ of Leaf.

With thanks to Molly Tepera of the Dallas Public Library of the City of Dallas, Texas, I can report details of a single, framed Leaf in its Virginia Lazenby O’Hara Fine Books Division from one of the celebrated manuscripts owned by Otto F. Ege (1888–1951). Now fragmented, the book has become known as ‘Otto Ege Manuscript 14’. The Dallas Leaf can be cited thus:

Framed Leaf from Otto Ege Manuscript 14
Virginia Lazenby O’Hara Fine Books Division
Dallas Public Library.

From the Old Testament portion of the manuscript, the Leaf carries the end of the Book of Joshua and the beginning of the Book of Judges. A principal highlight is the framed illustration within its opening initial for Judges.

Many features of the Leaf correspond closely with other leaves from the same book. They include its representation of the Vulgate Version with some textual variants, its layout in double columns of 50 lines on the page, its Gothic script for the main text and for corrections inserted in the margins, its expansive decoration with foliate and zoomorphic ornament which often extends into the margins, its illustrated (or ‘historiated’) initial with a scene relating to the text, and its supplied lection marks in the margins (for reading aloud). Some features with the Leaf are unusual in the manuscript or specific to this Leaf, as with the full-line stretches of pen-line line-fillers on the one hand, and the present frame for the object on the other.

Some discoveries for the manuscript have been reported in our blog.

  • A New Leaf from ‘Otto Ege Manuscript 14’
  • More Discoveries for ‘Otto Ege Manuscript 14’
  • A Leaf from ‘Otto Ege Manuscript 19’ and Ege’s Workshop Practices
  • Updates for Some ‘Otto Ege Manuscripts’ (Ege MSS 8, 14, 41, and 61)
  • Some Leaves in Set 1 of ‘Ege’s FOL Portfolio’ (Ege MSS 8, 14, 19, and 41)

See also The Illustrated Handlist (Number 4).

As more research and discoveries continue apace for Otto Ege’s dispersed manuscripts by various scholars, curators, owners, vendors, and others, it might suffice, for this report, to mention the publication in print recently of an account by Peter Kidd of a detached New Testament leaf from this manuscript in the McCarthy Collection, along with a list of known leaves having historiated initials.

Peter Kidd, The McCarthy Collection, Volume III: French Miniatures (London: Ad Ilissum, 2021), number 60, “Historiated initial on a leaf from the Bible of Mirmelus Arnandi” (pp. 199–202).

That leaf carries the end of one of the Pauline Epistles and the beginning of the next: the Epistle to the Colossians and the beginning of that to the First Epistle to the Thessalonians, with a historiated initial on its recto. The initial shows Saint Paul, traditionally regarded as the author, sitting and holding both sword and book.

Peter Kidd’s title for the manuscript derives from the purported name of a medieval owner, “Mirmelus Arnandi” (a lawyer and judge), recorded within its pages. The attribution is, however, subject to revision, because modern views of that name may represent a misreading. See, for example:

  • MS 223: SEMI-QUADRATA BIBLE
  • The last leaf of the Psalms, from a very large Bible, in Latin [France (Paris), c.1300]
  • No. 6, From the so-called Bible of “Mirmelus Arnandi”
  • McCarthy Catalogue Vol. III (French Illuminations), note for Catalogue no. 60, with Kidd’s update for its entry.

Cornerstone of the Dallas Public Library’s original Carnegie Library in downtown Dallas, Texas. Photograph from Wikimedia via Creative Commons.

The continuing flow of publications, in print or online, of yet more leaves from Otto Ege’s dispersed manuscripts, including his ‘Manuscript 14’, bring their features into view. Images reproduced from the individual remnants, while always useful, vary greatly in degree, quality, and size of reproduction. Sometimes those publications include recognition — by images, descriptions, or mentions alone — of the frames, mats, or other accompaniments for the leaves. More often they do not.

In the case of the Leaf in the Dallas Public Library, the images supplied by Molly Tepera fortunately show and share some accompanying material evidence.

Thus, this Report might set the Leaf both into the context of the manuscript, as the dispersed book becomes better known from its remnants, and into the context of Otto Ege’s workshop practices in preparing individual leaves (or occasionally bifolia, in a pair of connected leaves) for distribution and sale. The Report builds upon, and advances, my earlier reports about parts of Ege Manuscript 14 itself (see above) and my cumulative observations recorded for

  • A Leaf from ‘Otto Ege Manuscript 19’ and Ege’s Workshop Practices.

Read the rest of this entry →

Tags: 'Fifty Original Leaves from Medieval Manuscripts', Bible of Mirmelus Arnandi, Book of Joshua, Book of Judges, Dallas Public Library, Ege Family Portfolio, Ege's FOL Portfolio, Ege's Printed Labels, Historiated Initial, Image-Enhancement, Lectern Bible, Line-Fillers, Medieval Manuscript Fragments, Otto Ege Manuscript 14, Running Titles, Vulgate Bible Manuscripts
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Another Leaf from the Warburg Missal (‘Ege Manuscript 22’)

April 25, 2021 in Manuscript Studies, Reports

J. S. Wagner Collection, Ege Manuscript 22, Folio clvi, recto, within its frame.

J. S. Wagner Collection, Ege Manuscript 22, Folio clvi, recto, within its frame.

The Wagner Leaf

from Ege Manuscript 22

***

“The Warburg Missal”

Folio CLVI in the Temporale

with Part of the Mass for Corpus Christi

Latin Missal made in Germany circa 1325 Written in Gothic Script (Textualis)

Double columns of 31 lines

Circa 360 × 257 mm < written area circa 289 × 190 mm >

with Rubrications, Inset Initials in Red or Blue, and Musical Notation in Hufnagelschrift (“Horseshoe-Nail Notes”) on 4-Line Staves

With thanks to the collector, J. S. Wagner, we examine a newly identified leaf from one of the manuscripts dispersed by Otto F. Ege (1888–1951). It comes from ‘Ege Manuscript 22’, a Latin Missal written in double columns of 30–32 lines in Gothic Script, with musical notation.

This blogpost by Mildred Budny and the companion Report Booklet (2021) by Leslie J. French examine the Leaf, set it in context of its former manuscripts, and re-assess the attribution of the book.

The ‘Ege’ Number comes from the position of this manuscript (and its portions) in Ege’s distribution within one of his Portfolios of specimen leaves forcibly extracted from manuscripts and printed books. The Portfolio in question exhibits Fifty Original Leaves (FOL) from Medieval Manuscripts, Western Europe, XII–XVI Century. In this case, Leaf Number 22. The numbering system is defined and enshrined in Scott Gwara’s “Handlist” of Otto Ege’s Manuscripts (2016).

In the FOL Portfolio, specimens from the manuscript travelled, in their individual windowed mats, in the company of other Ege manuscript leaves. The Wagner Leaf, however, travelled on its own, through a different highway of circulation. It arrived in a glass-fronted ornamental frame. Behind that frame, Ege’s handwritten note on the recto, and the accompanying printed slip (see below), directly establish the Ege connection. All the features of text, script, musical notation, and folio numeration manifest a place within Ege’s Manuscript 22, as the collector readily discerned.

J. S. Wagner Collection, Leaf from Ege Manuscript 22, verso, bottom right: Ege's inscription in pencil.

J. S. Wagner Collection, Leaf from Ege Manuscript 22, verso, bottom right: Ege’s inscription in pencil.

Read the rest of this entry →

Tags: 'Fifty Original Leaves from Medieval Manuscripts', Benedictine Missal, Bergendal Collection, Bergendal Manuscript 69, Binding History, Ege Manuscript 22, Ege's FOL Portfolio, Fragmentology, Leander van Ess, Measure Theory, Medieval Manuscript Fragments, Missal Herbipolensis, Missale Coloniense, Otto Ege, Otto Ege's Manuscripts, Parochial Church of St John the Baptist Warburg, Reused Binding Fragments, Sales Catalogues, Sir Thomas Phillipps, Sothebys, The Warburg Missal
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Another Leaf from the Warburg Missal (‘Ege Manuscript 22’)

March 23, 2021 in Manuscript Studies, Reports

J. S. Wagner Collection, Ege Manuscript 22, Folio clvi, recto, within its frame.

J. S. Wagner Collection, Ege Manuscript 22, Folio clvi, recto, within its frame. Reproduced by permission.

This post has moved to:
Another Leaf from the Warburg Missal
(“Ege Manuscript 22”)

 

Tags: 'Fifty Original Leaves from Medieval Manuscripts', Benedictine Missal, Bergendal Collection, Bergendal MS 69, Binding History, Ege Manuscript 22, Ege's FOL Portfolio, Fragmentology, Leander van Ess, Measure Theory, Medieval Manuscript Fragments, Missal Herbipolensis, Missale Coloniense, Otto Ege, Parochial Church of St John the Baptist Warburg, Reused Binding Fragments, Sir Thomas Phillipps, The Warburg Missal
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A Leaf from Gregory’s Dialogues Reused for Euthymius

December 24, 2016 in Manuscript Studies, Photographic Exhibition, Uncategorized

A Leaf from Gregory’s Dialogues
Reused for Binding
A Copy of
Euthymius Zigabenus’s On the Psalms

Budny Handlist 3

In our blog on Manuscript Studies (see its Contents List), Mildred Budny (see Her Page) continues to report the results of research for her Illustrated Handlist.

Here, we focus upon a leaf plucked from its 12th-century manuscript and pressed into service, with trimmed edges and mitered folds, as the vellum covering for a binding for a different text of small format.  Both texts, primary and secondary in the life of the leaf, concern religious subjects, but they emanate from authors of different dates, locations, and languages in the Latin West and the Orthodox East respectively.  The primary text represents a remnant of a text and an author familiar in some other blogposts, which consider the Dialogues, the Sermons or Homilies, and other texts by Pope Gregory the Great (pope from 590 to 694 CE).

Reused Leaf from Gregory's Dialogues Book III viewed from recto (inside of reused book cover) with text upright and with guides. Photograph © Mildred Budny.

Handlist 3, Recto

Reused Leaf from Gregory's Dialogues Book III viewed from verso (outside of reused book cover) with text upright and with guides. Photograph © Mildred Budny.

Handlist 3, Verso

Part of Gregory’s Dialogues, Book III, Chapter 7

(on Andreas, Bishop of Fondi/Fundi):
Sections 2 (Hic namque uenerabilis uir) –
8 (uel quae in conuentu)

Present measurements:
Circa 357 × 237 mm
< written area circa 266 × 133 mm >
Single column of 28 lines
in revived Caroline minuscule
without embellishments
Germany, circa 1175

Reused for some time as the vellum cover for the binding of a copy of
Euthymius Zigabenus‘s Commentary on the Psalms
in Greek or in Latin translation?
(now lost or preserved elsewhere in a location unknown)

For this secondary use, the remnants of a set of titles on the outside of the spine of the cover (the original verso of the reused leaf) remain in place, albeit abraded and fragmented, as both a pasted, inscribed paper label (orientated along the ‘horizontal’ across the spine) and an ink inscription on the reused leaf itself in Capitals (‘vertical’, with the tops of those letters turned toward the ‘front cover’).  Another, smaller and fragmentary pasted label with a broad rectangular border stands near the bottom of the broad spine of the cover and partly overlies the ‘vertical’ spine inscription.

Reused Leaf from Gregory's Dialogues Book III viewed from verso (outside of reused book cover). Photograph © Mildred Budny.

Acquired, probably by purchase (according to the Owner’s recollections), in France in the past 15 years or so, but before 2007 when I first saw and began to photograph the leaf.   This item and others in the Illustrated Handlist acquired in France at various times and by various means (purchase, gift, or exchange), came from a single source in the Département of Saône-et-Loire, from about 1999 onward.  Because the leaf does not carry indications of its original place and time of production, apart from its materials, layout, design, script, orthography, and punctuation, those unknowns must depend upon evaluations of the style of the script, lacking any forms of embellishment, such as decorated initials, which might have provided possibly more closely datable symptoms than the letters “alone”.

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Tags: 'Fifty Original Leaves from Medieval Manuscripts', Binding History, Bishop Andrew of Fundi, Budny's Illustrated Catalogue, Ege Manuscript 41, Euthymius Zigabenos, Fondi, Gregory the Great, Gregory's Dialogues, manuscript fragments, Manuscript Fragments Reused in Bindings, Manuscript studies, Psalter Commentary, Saki, Temple of Apollo
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More Leaves from ‘Otto Ege Manuscript 51’

August 10, 2016 in Manuscript Studies, Photographic Exhibition

Detached Leaves from Otto Ege’s
Erfurt Manuscript of
Aristotle’s Nichomachean Ethics
in Latin Translation on Paper

Detail of Recto of detached leaf from the Nichomachean Ethics in Latin translation, from a manuscript dispersed by Otto Ege and now in a private collection. Reproduced by permission.Continuing our series on Manuscript Studies, Mildred Budny newly identifies 2 detached leaves, in separate collections, from a paper manuscript dispersed by Otto F. Ege (1888–1951).  Containing parts of the text of Aristotle’s Nichomachean Ethics in medieval Latin translation, the leaves formerly belonged to a copy prepared at Erfurt in Thuringia in Germany, and dated by colophon to 1365 C.E.

Detached leaves from this book were distributed, in part, through one or another of Ege’s series of Portfolio editions of individual specimen leaves extracted from manuscripts and printed books.  Earlier blogposts have examined cases from Ege’s Portfolios of Fifty Original Leaves (1930–1950) and Famous Bibles (1938 and 1949).  They report the discoveries of a New Leaf respectively from Ege Manuscript 41, from Ege Manuscript 8, from Ege Manuscript 61, and from Ege Manuscript 14.  Now it is the turn of “Ege Manuscript 51” and the Portfolios of Original Leaves from Famous Books (1923 and 1949), in which its Aristotelian specimens normally appeared as their Leaf Number 2.

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Tags: 'Fifty Original Leaves from Medieval Manuscripts', 'Original Leaves from Famous Bibles', 'Original Leaves from Famous Books in Eight Centuries', 'Original Leaves from Famous Books in Nine Centuries', Aristotle, Beauvais Missal, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Briquet Filigranes, Briquet Number 5726, Burgunsius Pisanus, Erfurt, Germany, History of Paper, History of Watermarks, Johannes Gutenberg, Kent State University Special Collections and Archives, Lisa Fagin Davis, Manicula, Manuscript Road Trip, Martin Luther, Nichomachean Ethics, Nurenberg Chronicles, Otto Ege, Otto Ege MS 51, Otto F. Ege, Robert Grosseteste, Royal MS 6 E V, The British Library, University of Erfurt, Vladimir Nabokov, Wilhelm von Mörbeke, Wilton Processional
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A New Leaf from ‘Otto Ege Manuscript 41’

July 7, 2015 in Manuscript Studies, Photographic Exhibition, Uncategorized

Part of the Dialogues of Gregory the Great

Book III, Chapters 12,3.23 (intra eandem) ‒ 14,6.60 (in ortum), plus catchword

Produced probably in Flanders, perhaps circa 1450

Mildred Budny reports on a stray leaf and its former manuscript, as part of a series including
The Foundling Hospital and Lost & Foundlings among Manuscript Fragments.

[Published on 7 July 2015, with updates. The announcement that (after earlier sales from that collection), the residue of manuscript materials in the possession of Otto F. Ege’s family has been purchased by the Beinecke Library at Yale University encourages the anticipation of more revelations about surviving leaves from the dispersed manuscripts, perhaps also this one. Reports on that collection figured in our 2016 Symposium on ‘Words & Deeds’. Also, we can include the specimen from this manuscript now at The Newark Public Library.]

With permission, we illustrate a detached leaf, now in a private collection, from one of the manuscripts which the notorious bibliophile and self-styled ‘biblioclast’ Otto F. Ege (1888‒1951) dismantled for dispersal, mostly by sale, among different collectors and collections far and wide.  Our recent post reflected on the conditions of dispersal and partial recovery for some of those fragments.

The leaf, seen here on both recto and verso, was purchased on its own several years ago in Boston. Its seller had little information about the leaf, whose identity awaited recognition.  The present owner, having identified the Ege connection, told me about the leaf when I mentioned my work on some dispersed Ege leaves in other connections, and generously allowed me to study the specimen and report further findings.

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Tags: 'Fifty Original Leaves from Medieval Manuscripts', Anselm's Meditations and Prayers, catchword, Château du Sart, Dialogues of Gregory the Great, Ege MS 41, Homilies of John Chrysostom, library of the Van Der Cruisse de Waziers family, manuscript fragments, Otto F. Ege, Thomas Thorpe
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