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      • 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
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J. S. Wagner Collection, Leaf from Ege Manuscript 22, verso, bottom right: Ege's inscription in pencil.
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More Leaves from a Deconstructed Sinhalese Palm-Leaf Manuscript
Private Collection, Sinhalese Palm-Leaf Manuscript, End-Leaf 01, Left.
A Sinhalese Palm-Leaf Book in Deconstructed and Reconstructed Order
Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Otto Ege Collection, FOL Set 3, MS 40, Specimen 1: folio '1'r, Top Left. Photography Mildred Budny.
Specimens of Ege Manuscript 40 in the Ege Family Portfolio
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)
J. S. Wagner Collection, Early-Printed Missal Leaf, Verso. Rubric and Music for Holy Saturday. Reproduced by Permission.
Carmelite Missal Leaf of 1509
Private Collection, Castle Cartulary Fragment, Inserted Folded Sheet, Opened: Top Righ
Fragments of a Castle ‘Capbreu’ from Catalonia
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
Set 1 of Ege's FOL Portfolio, Leaf 14 recto: Lamentations Initial.
Some Leaves in Set 1 of Ege’s FOL Portfolio
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View to the Dorm at the End of the Congress.
2019 Congress Behind the Scenes Report
Opening of the Book of Maccabees in Otto Ege MS 19. Private Collection.
A Leaf from ‘Otto Ege Manuscript 19’ and Ege’s Workshop Practices
2020 Spring Symposium: Save the Date
At the Exhibition of "Gutenberg and After" at Princeton University in 2019, the Co-Curator Eric White stands before the Scheide Gutenberg Bible displayed at the opening of the Book of I Kings.
“Gutenberg and After” at Princeton University Library
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
J. S. Wagner Collection. Detached Manuscript Leaf with the Opening in Latin of the Penitent Psalm 4 or Psalm 37 (38) and its Illustration of King David.
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Revisiting Anglo-Saxon Symposia 2002/2018
The red wax seal seen upright, with the male human head facing left. Document on paper issued at Grenoble and dated 13 February 1345 (Old Style). Image reproduced by permission
2020 ICMS Call for Papers: Seal the Real
Yale University, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, MS 1183. Photograph courtesy Kristen Herdman.
2019 Anniversary Symposium Report: The Roads Taken
Detail of illustration.
Sanskrit and Prakrit Manuscripts
Detail of recto of leaf from an Italian Giant Bible. Photography by Mildred Budny
2019 International Congress on Medieval Studies Program Details
Thomas E. Hill stands at the entrance to the Vassar College Library. Photography by Mildred Budny
Another Visit to The Library Cafe
Leaf 41, Recto, Top Right, in the Family Album (Set Number 3) of Otto Ege's Portfolio of 'Fifty Original Leaves' (FOL). Otto Ege Collection, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University. Photograph by Mildred Budny.
More Discoveries for ‘Otto Ege Manuscript 41’
Augustine Homilies Bifolium Folio IIr detail with title and initial for Sermon XCVI. Private Collection, reproduced by permission. Photograph by Mildred Budny.
Vellum Bifolium from Augustine’s “Homilies on John”
Rosette Watermark, Private Collection. Reproduced by Permission
2019 International Congress on Medieval Studies Program
Libro de los juegos. Madrid, El Escorial, MS T.1.6, folio 17 verso, detail.
2018 International Congress on Medieval Studies Program
Poster Announcing Bembino Version 1.5 (April 2018) with border for Web display
Bembino Version 1.5 (2018)
Lower Half of the Original Verso of a Single Leaf detached from a prayerbook in Dutch made circa 1530, owned and dismembered by Otto F. Ege, with the seller's description in pencil in the lower margin. Image reproduced by permission.
A New Leaf from ‘Otto Ege Manuscript 214’?
Slice of Brie. Photograph by Coyau via Wikipedia Commons.
Say Cheese
Verso of the Leaf and Interior of the Binding, Detail: Lower Right-Hand Corner, with the Mitered Flap Unfolde
A 12th-Century Fragment of Anselm’s ‘Cur Deus Homo’
Reused Leaf from Gregory's Dialogues Book III viewed from verso (outside of reused book cover) Detail of Spine of Cover with Volume Labels. Photograph © Mildred Budny.
A Leaf from Gregory’s Dialogues Reused for Euthymius
Detail of the top of the verso of the fragmentary leaf from a 13th-century copy of Statutes for the Cistercian Order. Reproduced by permission.
Another Witness to the Cistercian Statutes of 1257
Initial d in woodcut with winged hybrid creature as an inhabitant. Photography © Mildred Budny
The ‘Foundling Hospital’ for Manuscript Fragments
Decorated opening word 'Nuper' of the Dialogues, Book III, Chapter 13, reproduced by permission
A New Leaf from ‘Otto Ege Manuscript 41’
Close-Up of The Host of 'The Library Cafe' in the Radio Studio. Photography © Mildred Budny
A Visit to The Library Café
Invitation to 'Canterbury Manuscripts' Seminar on 19 September 1994
Seminar on the Evidence of Manuscripts (September 1994)

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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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More Leaves from a Deconstructed Sinhalese Palm-Leaf Manuscript

April 10, 2021 in Manuscript Studies

More Leaves of a Deconstructed
Sinhalese Palm-Leaf Manuscript

with Stringing Holes

Part 2

Private Collection, Sinhalese Palm-Leaf Manuscript, Leaf ’31’, Side 1, Detail: Left-hand Side. Reproduced by Permission.

[Posted on 10 April, with updates, as Mildred Budny continues the quest, and the owner supplies the full series of images.]

Following Part 1, we continue the display of the leaves — or rather bisected half-leaves — in a Sinhalese Palm-Leaf Manuscript now in a private collection. The fragment apparently presents a single Buddhist text, albeit in a disordered sequence with some gaps.  The text is not yet identified.

The manuscript is written, from left to right, in Sinhalese script (see Sinhala_script) upon palm-leaves.  The language is mostly likely Pali (a guide: Pali).  At present, the 33 half-leaves are strung on string or cord through a single stringing hole, ending in a simple beveled rectangular cover.  The text is written in single columns of 5 to 8 lines per column.

A match for the specimen in terms of script appears here, with transliteration of its text:

  • www.ancient-buddhist-texts.net/Buddhist-Texts/XX-Dhammacakka/Dhammacakka.htm.

Some half-leaves have Letter/Number Marks in the left-hand margin.  They correspond with one of the systems for Sinhala Numerals.

The Kaṭapayādi or Katapayadi System uses Sinhala consonants to depict Numbers 1 to 9 and 0, “for easy remembrance of numbers as words or verses”.  The numeration “is known as Katapayadiya since number one is allocated with the Sinhala letters ‘Ka’ (ක), ‘Ta’ (ට), ‘Pa’ (ප ) and ‘Ya’ (ය)”.

Some archaic Sinhala Numerals are shown in A Comprehensive Grammar of Sinhalese Language by Mendis Gunasekera (1891), Plate III.

Mendia Gunesekera (1891), Plate III. Image via Creative Commons.

By such guides, as well as other material and textual features of the half-leaves, a conjectured reconstruction might be assembled.

A Full Leaf Reconstructed

An example, showing the full leaf on one of its sides, combines its fragmentary half-leaves photographically.  Part 1 already showed one side. Now in Part 2 we show both.

One Side (30A + 26A Upright)

Private Collection, Sinhalese Palm-Leaf Manuscript, Reconstructed View of Former Leaf ('30A' + 26A').

Private Collection, Sinhalese Palm-Leaf Manuscript, Reconstructed View of Former Leaf (’30A’ + 26A’).

The Other Side (30 + 26 Upright)

Private Collection, Sinhalese Palm-Leaf Book. Reconstructed View of Former Leaf (’30’ + 26′ upright). Reproduced by Permission.

A Case Study

The goal here is both:

  • to show the book as a case study, or cautionary tale, for materials from foreign lands and languages, and
  • to gather feedback and suggestions for reconstructing its original order, recognizing its text, and identifying its probable date and place of production.

You can join the quest even if you do not (yet) know the language, because material features and pattern recognition offer useful guides for solving the puzzle.

Part 1 considered:

  • A Sinhalese Palm-Leaf Book in Deconstructed and Reconstructed Order.

Private Collection, Sinhalese Palm-Leaf Manuscript, End-Leaf 01, Left, with Letter/Number Ka..

Private Collection, Sinhalese Palm-Leaf Manuscript, End-Leaf 01, Left.

That first Post presented, with the owner’s permission, images of some leaves out of the full set in the book at present.  The full set of images encompasses Sides 1–30A, plus the cover.

The numbering was adopted by the collector for photographing the half-leaves in their current series within the book. Numbers 1–30 for the leaves, and suffix A for their second sides:  1, 1A, 2, 2A, and so on.  Let’s call them “Sides”.  Note that the current assembly of the leaves, and the photographs made in consecutive sequence turning its leaves one by one, sometimes show the text on them upside-down.

The first post displayed images in several groups:

  • Beveled Rectangular Cover

    Private Collection, Sinhalese Palm-Leaf Manuscript, Cover.

    Private Collection, Sinhalese Palm-Leaf Manuscript, Cover.

  • Numbers 1–8A

    To Start the Show

    Private Collection, Sinhalese Palm-Leaf Manuscript, End Leaf '01a' =Side 1.

    Private Collection, Sinhalese Palm-Leaf Manuscript, End Leaf ’01a’ =Side 1.

  • Numbers 9–11A and 23–24A

    To Exhibit the Half-Leaves which have Doubled (or Repierced) Sets of Stringing Holes

    Private Collection, Sinhalese Palm-Leaf Manuscript, Leaf 9A.

    Private Collection, Sinhalese Palm-Leaf Manuscript, Leaf 9A.

  • Numbers 30A + 26A:

    To Demonstrate the Virtual Reconstruction of the Originally Conjoined Halves of one Full Side (front or back) of a Single Leaf

    Private Collection, Sinhalese Palm-Leaf Manuscript, Reconstructed View of Former Leaf ('30A' + 26A').

    Private Collection, Sinhalese Palm-Leaf Manuscript, Reconstructed View of Former Leaf (’30A’ + 26A’).

That virtual reconstruction of 1 former side of 1 full leaf vividly demonstrates the reshuffling of the half-leaves in producing a newly reconstructed ‘deck’ for the sequence.

Now we show more of the manuscript.

Read the rest of this entry →

Tags: Buddhist Texts, Deconstructed Manuscripts for the Market, Fragmentology, manuscript fragments, Palm-Leaf Manuscripts, Reconstructing Manuscripts Virtually, Sinhalese Manuscripts
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A Sinhalese Palm-Leaf Book in Deconstructed and Reconstructed Order

April 8, 2021 in Manuscript Studies

A Sinhalese Palm-Leaf Book
with Chopped and Disordered Leaves

A Cautionary Tale

Recently, we were contacted by a private collector, reading our blogposts and wondering about a book which had come through inheritance, without any identification to speak of.  The bare bones of information relayed got the object indicated “that it is a Buddhist book, with handwritten pages of about 33 leaves written on both sides”.  But what language?  Is it manuscript or print?  Etc.?

Private Collection, Sinhalese Palm-Leaf Manuscript, End-Leaf 01, Left.

Private Collection, Sinhalese Palm-Leaf Manuscript, End-Leaf 01, Left.

A few photographs gave some first glimpses.  (See below.)  With them, we conferred among ourselves, and offered a preliminary description.  It includes a brief guide about how to proceed, if wished, to examine the artefact more closely.

Mind you, we are talking in a time of pandemic and Bibliographical Lockdown.  (See, with some observations about escape routes, Selbold Cartulary Fragments, including some resourceful tips. Summed up as: “When all else fails, read the text.”)

Images are an amazing resource, of course, but what photographs might we seek to take, and how to look at them?  That question might come to the fore if, perchance, you don’t know what sort of book it is, let alone what language?  What if you can’t read the text?  And which way is up?

I phrase the questions this way because, in part, I can’t (yet) read every language (Can Dream!), decipher every script, etc., etc.

Perhaps you too?

Willing to learn?  At least some rudiments appropriate for the particular artefact?  Yes?

Read On!

Read the rest of this entry →

Tags: Buddhist Texts, Deconstructed Manuscripts for the Market, Fragmentology, Manuscript studies, Palm-Leaf Manuscripts, Reconstructing Manuscripts, Sinhalese Manuscripts
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Otto Ege Manuscript 40, Part II: Before and After Ege

April 3, 2021 in Manuscript Studies

Otto Ege’s
Aquinas Manuscript in Humanist Script
(Ege Manuscript 40)

— Part II of III in our series on this manuscript —

Private Collection, Ege's FBNC Portfolio, Aquinas Leaf, Recto, Top Right. Reproduced by Permission.

Private Collection, Ege’s FBNC Portfolio, Aquinas Leaf, Recto, Top Right. Reproduced by Permission.

PART II

Before and After Ege

  • Part I: Otto Ege’s Aquinas Manuscript in Humanist Script (Ege Manuscript 40).
  • Part II: Ege Manuscript 40: Before and After Ege (You are Here).
  • Part III: Specimens of ‘Ege Manuscript 40’ in the ‘Ege Family Portfolio’.

We continue explorations of Ege Manuscript 40, as we began in Part I, in a series of posts about Ege manuscript fragments in his Portfolio of Famous Books in Nine Centuries (FBNC).

The series began with

  • Otto Ege’s Portfolio of ‘Famous Books’ and Ege Manuscript 53 (Quran/Koran)
  • Volume II and More Parts of ‘Otto Ege Manuscript 51’ (Aristotle)
  • Otto Ege’s Aquinas Manuscript in Humanist Script (Ege Manuscript 40).

See also our Contents List.

Now we turn to Part II on Ege’s Aquinas Manuscript. Its specimen leaves circulate not only in the Portfolio of Famous Books, in the longer, Deluxe Version in Nine Centuries, but also in the more famous Portfolio of Fifty Original Leaves (FOL) from Medieval Western Manuscripts. The Aquinas Manuscript takes its assigned Ege Manuscript Number from its place as Specimen Leaf Number 40 in the FOL Portfolio.

Private Collection, Ege's FBNC, Title and Headpiece for the Contents List.

Private Collection, Ege’s FBNC, Title and Headpiece for the Contents List.

Ege’s Labels for the Manuscript

In several forms, Ege’s labels introduce the manuscript in Latin of the Commentary by Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274) upon Book I — of IV — of the Sentences composed by Peter Lombard. (circa 1096 – 1160).

Ege’s Label for Specimen 40 in the FOL Portfolio

Otto F. Ege: Fifty Original Leaves from Medieval Manuscripts, Leaf 40, Printed Label, Special Collections and University Archives, Stony Brook University Libraries.

Otto F. Ege: Fifty Original Leaves from Medieval Manuscripts, Leaf 40, Printed Label, Special Collections and University Archives, Stony Brook University Libraries.

Ege’s Label for the Specimen Leaf in the Famous Books Portfolio in Nine Centuries (FBNC)

Private Collection, Ege's Famous Books in Nine Centuries, Label for the Aquinas Manuscript Leaf. Reproduced by permission.

Private Collection, Ege’s Famous Books in Nine Centuries, Label for the Aquinas Manuscript Leaf. Reproduced by permission.

Ege’s Label for the Specimen in the Contents List for FBNC

Private Collection, Ege's FBNS, Contents List, Detail: The Aquinas Manuscript. Reproduced by permission

Private Collection, Ege’s FBNS, Contents List, Detail: The Aquinas Manuscript. Reproduced by permission.

Part I in our series on Otto Ege’s Aquinas Manuscript in Humanist Script (Ege Manuscript 40) examines these labels as such.

Specimen Pages

Examples from among the specimens displayed in Part I show several approaches to the layout of the text in 2 columns of 37 lines. Many of Ege’s specimens selected for the Portfolios show ‘standard’ pages, with script in Humanist Minuscule, Paraph markers in red and blue, and inset Capital Letters in blue or red.

Private Collection, FBNC, Aquinas Leaf 'Front'. Reproduced by permission.

Private Collection, FBNC, Aquinas Leaf ‘Recto’. Reproduced by permission.

Some specimens provide somewhat more elevated forms of polychrome decorated initials, including rectangular frames, gold elements, and patterns of dots.

Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Otto Ege Collection, FOL Set 3, MS 40, Specimen 2 = folio 216v (turned to the front in Ege's Mount. Photography Mildred Budny.

Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Otto Ege Collection, FOL Set 3, MS 40, Specimen 2 = folio 216v (turned to the front in Ege’s Mount. Photography Mildred Budny.

The Manuscript Before and After Ege

As frequently in studying manuscripts dispersed by Ege, sales and auction catalogues can provide invaluable information about the states of the manuscript in transmission across time, hands, and collections. Frequently, too, it can be challenging to try to identify the catalogues, and to find access to them. Part of the problem can come from abbreviated citations in reference works to catalogues only by a vendor’s name, a year-date, and/or a catalogue or bulletin number.

For example, with Ege MS 40, “Maggs, Bulletin 11 (1982)” stands for

  • Maggs Bros, European Miniatures and Illumination & Calligraphy also early writing from Egypt, Bulletin No. 11 (London: November 1982), item 79 and pl. XXXIII.

“Maggs Cat. No. 1227 [without a date]” stands for

  • Maggs Bros., Ltd., Illuminated Leaves and Mediaeval Miniatures, Catalogue 1227 (London: 1997), item 96.

I await the chance to see these items, whilst libraries are shut or difficult of access in the years 2020–2021.

Meanwhile, some online reference sources help somewhat to identify which are the correct catalogues, and which collection might have them, or grant access to them, even in digital form.

Earlier catalogues are also sought. They may report information about the manuscript in its former volume.

Duschnes, Catalogues 54 & 74 (1945–1946)

I’m on the lookout for:

  • Philip C. Duschnes, Catalogue 54 (1943), item 50
  • Philip C. Duschnes, Catalogue 74 (1946), item 50 — perhaps the same item, which continued to await sale?

The former, Catalogue 54 [53?], is “101 Original Leaves & Sets of Leaves from Medieval Manuscripts, Incunabula, Famous Bibles and Noted Presses, 1150 A. D. – 1935 A. D.” [Autumn 1942]. The front cover is illustrated here, in connection with Ege Manuscript 15 (the renowned Beauvais Missal).

Sotheby’s, 26 November 1985, Lot 80

  • “Sotheby’s 1985, lot 80” is identifiable with a catalogue already on my bookshelves, as it contains many lots (fifty-four in total, nos. 39–89) left over from Ege’s collection, including manuscript fragments of various kinds and in various states.

The catalogue presents Western Manuscripts and Miniatures for sale at auction in London on Tuesday 26th November 1985. Its Lot 80 offers

THIRTY-TWO LEAVES FROM THOMAS AQUINAS, COMMENTARY ON THE SENTENCES OF PETER LOMBARD, BOOK I, IN LATIN, MANUSCRIPT ON VELLUM [ITALY, SECOND HALF OF THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY

32 leaves, detached, double column, 37 lines, . . . written in brown ink in a humanistic hand with some gothic features, first words of each chapter in capitals, paragraph marks throughout in red or blue, PAINTED INITIALS (3-line) in red or blue at the start of each chapter . . .

The entry includes the tantalizing reference to an earlier catalogue (as yet unidentified), which presents the manuscript in its former state, binding included.

With a cutting from an American bookseller’s catalogue in which this manuscript, then with 309 leaves, was no. 12 (Emphasis added), describing a coat-of-arms on the first leaf, azure, 3 crescents or between a chevron of the same [Emphasis added], “probably the work was commissioned by some beauty-loving Italian duke . . . Certainly the work of the good saint have never been sent forth into the world in lovelier garb”, etc., with much more . . . ‘ “

An Observation on the Usefulness of Sales Clippings

The mention there of a former sales clipping which continued to travel in the company of the manuscript reminds me of the pair of clippings (from a single, unnamed catalogue) pasted at the front of Volume II of Ege Manuscript 51, now at the Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library.

The partly overlapping pair of clippings comes from consecutive pages in the lost catalogue, as the entry carried over from the bottom of one page (and leaf) to the top of the next, so as to complete the account of item 443. The catalogue remains unidentified; the overlap covers, or veils, the price of £21 at the end of the item. The entry describes the 3-volume set of Aristotelian texts before Ege took it to pieces.

Specimens from the Aristotle manuscript found their way into the Portfolios of Famous Books, in both Nine Centuries (like the Aquinas Manuscript) and Eight Centuries. See Volume II and More Parts of Ege Manuscript 51.

Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University. Otto Ege Collection, Ege Manuscript 51, Volume II, Front Pastedown, Top.

Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University. Otto Ege Collection, Ege Manuscript 51, Volume II, Front Pastedown, Top.

Inspired by the description in the Sotheby’s catalogue, I have found one or more possible earlier sales catalogues for the Aquinas manuscript — although it is not by an “American bookseller”, nor does its item number correspond with the reported number 12.

Davis & Orioli (1924 & 1925)

Two relevant entries appear in the Schoenberg Database of Manuscripts, although their records assimilate the details of the original catalogues in the requirement to conform with the format and fields designed for data entry and retrieval.

1) SDBM_262153

I. Davis & G. M. Orioli, Number 41 (1925), Rare Books & Interesting Manuscripts, Lot #4. Price 65.00 GPB

“Aquino (S. Thomas de)”, Super primo libro sententiarum, XVth century, parchment (fine vellum), Italy 310 folios, 37 lines, 2 columns

Binding: “rich-coloured brown morocco elaborately tooled in blind to a Veneto-Oriental design heightened with pointille decorations in gold”

Other info: “arms of owner within green wreath in lower margin”

2) SDBM_261443

I. Davis & G. M. Orioli, Number XLIV (1926), Early Printed Books: Literature, Science, and Medicines, Lot #1. Price 65.00 GPB

[Etc., as before]

These records conjure up the image of a volume prepared on “fine vellum” with the requisite number of columns and lines, with a tooled leather binding embellished in “a Veneto-Oriental design” including pointillé elements in gold, and an image of the owner’s arms (or coat-of-arms) in a lower margin someplace on the inside, presumably, as customary, on the frontispiece or first page of text.

From an Origin in Italy
To Collections in the United States (and Beyond)

That the firm of Davis & Orioli had offices in Florence, Italy (after 1910), and in London, England (after 1913), opens the possibility (or likelihood?) that the manuscript came to the firm from some source directly in Italy. Perhaps the manuscript of Aquinas’s Commentary on the Sentences, or at least the specified Book I, resided in Italy for several centuries between its production in the 15th century and its departure for other lands, presumably via London, by the start of the second quarter of the 20th century.

The early sales catalogues themselves could have more to tell about the manuscript in its former state than their database “skeleton” reveals.

The Number(s) of Leaves

Already, however, it seems clear that ‘our’ folio 300 in the new set of FBNC occupied a position near the end of the volume, although reports of the total number of leaves in the volume differ somewhat. The Schoenberg Database entries for the 1925 and 1926 catalogues of Davis & Orioli report 310 leaves, whereas the “American bookseller’s catalogue” (of an unknown date) quoted by the Sotheby’s catalogue of 1985 cites 309 leaves. The numbers could well indicate that the pencil foliation stood already upon the leaves, at least as far as the now-visible 300.

Private Collection, FBNC, Aquinas Leaf 'Back' top right and page number.

Private Collection, FBNC, Aquinas Leaf ‘Back’ top right and page number. Reproduced by permission.

Who can tell, at present, if the slight difference in counting by 1 leaf between the catalogues (Davis & Orioli versus the ‘American’) represents a simple typographical mistake. Or a divergent or inconsistent approach to including manuscript leaves and endleaves?

But more, could it signify the removal of 1 leaf between the time of the Davis & Orioli sales catalogues (1925–1926) and the arrival of the manuscript in the hands of a next bookseller (name as yet unidentified), perhaps in America, by an American, or by a vendor aiming for the American market? Would a removal have claimed a folio deemed desirable to retain for one reason or other, or have extracted a folio especially damaged and unsightly?

It is worth wondering whence Ege acquired his varying assessments of the date of production of the manuscript as “1470”, tout court, and as “Late XVth Century” (see above). Would the manuscript have had a colophon or some other evidence for the cited date? Would the assessment depend upon the catalogue(s) through which, and travelling with which, the manuscript came to Ege? More research might reveal the answers.

More to Come

The next blogpost in our series on Ege Manuscript 40 examines more parts of the manuscript. The pair of specimens in the “Ege Family Portfolio” (FOL Set 3) contain significant evidence of its former character, decoration, and ownership.

Among these signs are the owner’s arms within a wreath. In the image painted on the page, we can see for ourselves its rendering of the heraldic design, including the shapes and locations of the elements in gold (or), as precisely described in sales catalogues:

azure, 3 crescents or between a chevron of the same

Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Otto Ege Collection, FOL Set 3, MS 40, Specimen 1 = folio '1'r, bottom center. Photography Mildred Budny.

Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Otto Ege Collection, FOL Set 3, MS 40, Specimen 1 = folio ‘1’r, bottom center. Photography Mildred Budny.

*****

We thank the owner of the ‘new’ Portfolio and the owners of other specimens for permission to examine them. We are grateful for permission to reproduce the images. Thanks, as always, for the advice, encouragement, and suggestions of colleagues, students, and friends!

*****

Do you know of other leaves from this Aquinas manuscript? Other Sets of the Portfolio of Famous Books in Nine Centuries (FBNC), or Sets of the Fifty Original Leaves (FOL)?

Do you recognize the work of the scribe(s) in other manuscripts? Do you recognize the owner’s arms?

Please let us know. Please leave your Comments here, Contact Us, and/or visit our Facebook Page. We look forward to hearing from you.

Next stop, Part III:

  • Specimens of Ege Manuscript 40 (Aquinas) in the ‘Ege Family Portfolio’.

Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Otto Ege Collection, FOL Set 3, MS 40, Specimen 1 in Mat with Ege's Label. Photography Mildred Budny.

Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Otto Ege Collection, FOL Set 3, MS 40, Specimen 1 in Mat with Ege’s Label. Photography Mildred Budny.

*****

Tags: Aquinas on the Sentences of Peter Lombard, Clippings from Sales Catalogues, Davis & Orioli, Ege Manuscript 40, Ege Manuscript 51, Ege's FOL Portfolio, Ege's Portfolio of Famous Books, Fragmentology, Humanist Manuscripts, Medieval Manuscript Fragments, Otto Ege, Philip Duschnes, Sothebys, Thomas Aquinas
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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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Otto Ege’s Aquinas Manuscript in Humanist Script (‘Ege Manuscript 40’)

March 4, 2021 in Manuscript Studies

Otto Ege’s Aquinas Manuscript in Humanist Script
(‘Ege Manuscript 40’)

— Part I of III in a series on this manuscript —

Private Collection, Ege's FBNC Portfolio, Aquinas Leaf, Recto, Top Right. Reproduced by Permission.

Private Collection, Ege’s FBNC Portfolio, Aquinas Leaf, Recto, Detail. Reproduced by Permission.

Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on Book I of Peter Lombard’s Sentences

Written in Latin on vellum

Italy, probably late 15th Century (circa 1475)

Circa 288 × 210 mm <Written area circa 178 × 130 mm>

Double columns of 37 lines

in Humanist Script (with Gothic Features)

*****

Folio 300

Super Sententiis, Liber 1, Distinctio 47, Quaestio 1,
Articulo 3 (ad 1 [
3340]) – Articulo 4 (sed contra 1 [3349])

With Initials and Pilcrows (Paragraph-marks) in Red or Blue

Private Collection, Koran Leaf in Ege's Famous Books in Nine Centuries, Back of Leaf, Detail. Reproduced by permission.

Private Collection, Koran Leaf in Ege’s Famous Books in Nine Centuries (Ege MS 53), Back of Leaf, Detail. Reproduced by permission.

We continue to explore a newly revealed Set of Otto Ege‘s Portfolio of Famous Books in Nine Centuries (FBNC) which belongs to a Private Collection.

Our first post about that unnumbered Set first focused upon the Portfolio as an entity and then examined one of its specimen “Manuscript Leaves”:

  • Otto Ege’s Portfolio of Famous Books and ‘Ege Manuscript 53’ (Koran/Quran)

Known by its assigned number in Scott Gwara’s “Handlist” of Otto Ege’s Manuscripts (2016), that manuscript (seen at the right) represents the remnants of a dismembered Quran/Koran written on paper, late-medieval in date.

As the ‘Deluxe’ version of Ege’s Famous Books, the Portfolio in Nine Centuries was issued in 50 sets, with 40 specimen Leaves extracted from manuscripts and printed books. The shorter version in Eight Centuries was issued in 110 sets of 25 Leaves.

In earlier blogposts, as we examined various manuscripts and printed materials distributed by Otto Ege, some Sets in both versions of the Famous Leaves Portfolios have come into our direct view. See our Contents List.

At first, mainly on account of the specimens from a 14th-century manuscript in Latin on paper with Aristotle’s Nichomachean Ethics and its commentaries or other texts. Our study of that manuscript (Ege Manuscript 51) began with an isolated leaf in a private collection, then moved to examine more of its relatives surviving elsewhere — particularly as more parts of the manuscript emerged into view, including the ‘residue’ or ‘carcass’ of one of its original 3 volumes.

  • More Leaves from ‘Otto Ege Manuscript 51’
  • More Parts of ‘Otto Ege Manuscript 51’

Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Otto Ege Collection, Ege MS 51, Volume II, folio 1r, top left. Photography Mildred Budny.

Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Otto Ege Collection, Ege MS 51, Volume II, folio 1r, top left. Photography Mildred Budny.

Now, we continue the process of exploration by turning to more of the six Manuscript Leaves which open the Portfolio of Nine Centuries of Famous Books.

Famous Books in Nine Centuries

Bearing its title in a printed panel on the front, the Portfolio case encloses its group of specimens, individually framed within pairs of mat boards. They are accompanied by a full-page Contents List printed in red and black on a separate leaf.

Private Collection, Ege's FBNC, Title and Headpiece for the Contents List.

Private Collection, Ege’s FBNC, Title and Headpiece for the Contents List.

Private Collection, Contents List in Ege's Famous Books in Nine Centuries, Chronological Index. Reproduced by permission.

Private Collection, Contents List in Ege’s Famous Books in Nine Centuries, Chronological Index. Reproduced by permission.

Contents List and Specimen Leaves

Of uniform size, the pairs of mat boards have windows cut at the front to suit the different sizes of the specimens. A separate, full-page printed Contents List stands at the front of the group.

Ege’s “Annotated Contents List” in a single page stands as a loose leaf at the front of the Portfolio case.

The Portfolio gathers its specimen Leaves in a stack of individual framed mats, accompanied by their own printed Label.

As characteristic for Ege’s Portfolios, the mats present hinged pairs of boards. They combine a windowed mat at the front and a plain mat at the back, attached by hinged tapes at one side. The mats can be opened upon the hinges to reveal the individual specimen Leaf (sometimes, more than one Leaf) within its ‘sandwich’. The revealed Leaf might in turn might be lifted partly on its own hinged gauze tapes attached at one side, to show the other side of the leaf.

Their mats all have the same dimensions overall, so as to present a uniform group within the set. The back board is uncut. The window cut on the front board derives its specific size and shape in order to suit the specific specimen, albeit with a somewhat smaller opening than it. This approach produces the effect of some cropping at all sides, which masks the edges of the original.

Contents List: Manuscripts and Other Texts

The Contents List groups its entries chronologically and by genre, identified by medium. They divide into 4 parts (let us call them Parts I–IV), starting with Manuscript Leaves (Part I) and moving on to printed materials spanning 5 centuries.

[Parts II–IV]. The Printed Leaves

After Part I, the groups in the Contents List and the other Specimens of the Portfolio exhibit printed materials. Arranged chronologically, they start with specimens of early printing in the West (“Part II”), and move onto later centuries (“Parts III and IV”). We consider these elements in other blogposts.

[Part I]. The Manuscript Leaves

The Manuscript Leaves form the first group of specimens in the FBNC Portfolio. The 6 varied specimens derive from manuscripts of different sizes, materials, types of texts, and styles of script, layout, and design.

Private Collection, Ege FBNC Contents List, Detail: Manuscript Leaves.

Private Collection, Ege FBNC Contents List, Detail: Manuscript Leaves.

Our first blogpost on the Portfolio (Otto Ege’s Portfolio of Famous Books and ‘Ege Manuscript 53’) surveyed these 6 Manuscript Specimens, their assigned Handlist Numbers among Otto Ege’s Manuscripts (2016), and their representation and distribution in one or more Portfolios assembled by Ege. Namely, their specimens appear in one and/or another of these Portfolios:

  • Original Leaves from Famous Books, Nine Centuries, 1122 A. E. – 1923 A. D. (“FBNC“), in the longer, Deluxe version,
    with 40 unnumbered Leaves in 50 sets
  • Original Leaves from Famous Books, Eight Centuries, 1240 A. D. – 1923 A. D. (“FBEC“),
    with 25 Leaves in 110 sets
  • Fifty Original Leaves from Medieval Manuscripts, Western Europe: XII–XVI Century (“FOL“),
    with 50 numbered leaves in 40 sets
  • Fifteen Original Oriental Leaves of Six Centuries: Twelve of the Middle East, Two of Russia, and One of Tibet (“Oriental Leaves“),
    with 15 Leaves in 40 sets

To recap from our previous post:

The Manuscript Leaves in FBNC and their Ege Manuscript Numbers

[1]. Koran of ‘1122’ (CE) on paper (Ege MS 53)

— also in the Oriental Leaves Portfolio

Private Collection, Ege's Famous Books in Nine Centuries, Book of Hours Leaf, Front. Reproduced by permission.

Private Collection, Ege’s Famous Books in Nine Centuries, Book of Hours Leaf, Front. Reproduced by permission.

(See Otto Ege’s Portfolio of Famous Books and ‘Ege Manuscript 53’)

[2]. Vulgate Bible of 1240 on ‘uterine vellum’ (Ege MS 54)

— also sometimes in FBEC (in alternation with Ege MS 9 of FOL)

[3]. Aristotle of ‘1365’ on paper (Ege MS 51)

— in both FBNC and FBEC

[4]. Livy of ‘1436’ (Ege MS 52)

— in both FBNC and FBEC

[5]. Book of Hours of ‘1466’ (Ege MS 55)

— only in this Portfolio of Nine Centuries (FBNC)

[6]. Aquinas of ‘1470’ or ‘Late XVth Century’ (Ege MS 40)

— also in FOL (Leaf 40)

Now we focus upon one of these Leaves and its manuscript context.

The Aquinas Manuscript in Humanist Script

We pick Specimen [6] from the Aquinas Manuscript (Ege MS 40), which ends the group of Manuscript Leaves in the Portfolio and finds a place also in FOL. To judge by its accomplished script, the manuscript must have been written somewhere in Italy within the sphere of humanist influence modeled upon examples of Carolingian Minuscules and of Capital Letters.

Private Collection, Ege's FBNC Portfolio, Aquinas Leaf, Recto, Top Right. Reproduced by Permission.

Private Collection, Ege’s FBNC Portfolio, Aquinas Leaf, Recto, Top Right. Reproduced by Permission.

The Author(s), the Text, and the Manuscripts

London, National Gallery, Demidoff Altarpiece, Detail: Thomas Aquinas. Panel painting by Carlo Crivelli for the Church of San Dominico at Ascoli Piceno. Image in the Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

London, National Gallery, Demidoff Altarpiece, Detail: Thomas Aquinas. Panel painting by Carlo Crivelli (c. 1430/5 – c. 1494) for the Church of San Dominico at Ascoli Piceno. Image in the Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

To set the stage, we introduce some members of the cast. The principals are Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274) and Peter Lombard (circa 1096 – 1160). Other agents, across the centuries, have had a hand in copying the text in humanist script from its exemplar, commissioning the work, transmitting the copy from collection to collection across time and space, bringing it to the United States, distributing its dismembered pieces, researching the distribution patterns, and examining the fragments in their new settings, as well as in their own right.

In his Labels, Otto Ege identified the leaves as pertaining to a copy in Latin of the Commentary by Thomas Aquinas upon Book I of the Sentences — a weighty text comprising 4 Books in all — composed in an earlier generation by Peter Lombard. By its very nature, the text of the commentary introduces Aquinas, Dominican friar, priest, philosopher, and theologian, posthumously to Peter Lombard, scholastic theologian and Bishop of Paris. Both came from origins in Italy (south and north respectively) to study and teach in Paris.

The text amounts to an indirect sort of dialogue, or a disputation, over distance and time, between 2 prodigious Christian authors, in which the younger and later one perforce has the last say. The text introduces its readers to Aquinas at a rather early stage in the formation and articulation of his deeply philosophical theology.

The Libri Quattuor Sententiarum (“Four Books of Sentences”) — Peter Lombard’s master work, composed circa 1150 — assembles a systematic compilation of theology which became a major textbook. It derives its name from the assembled sententiae, that is, “Sentences” or authoritative statements on biblical passages derived from the text of the Bible and texts by Church Fathers. Within the 4 Books, the author himself subdivided the material into chapters. Subsequently, many chapters were further subdivided, into “distinctions” (Distinctiones). The work served as a principal theological textbook for several centuries. Every master of theology was required to prepare a commentary on the Sentences, as part of the examination system.

Aquinas’s response to the assignment ascended to the stature of a textbook in its own right.

London, National Gallery, Demidoff Altarpiece, Detail: Thomas Aquinas. Panel painting by Carlo Crivelli for the Church of San Dominico at Ascoli Piceno. Image in the Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

London, National Gallery, Demidoff Altarpiece, Detail: Thomas Aquinas. Panel painting by Carlo Crivelli (c. 1430/5 – c. 1494) for the Church of San Dominico at Ascoli Piceno. Image in the Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

Peter Lombard’s Sentences

In one of its 14th-century copies, the opening page of the Book of Sentences by Peter Lombard looks like this.

Free Library of Philadelphia, Rare Book Department, Lewis E 170, fol. 1r, Opening the Book of Sentences, via http://libwww.freelibrary.org/medievalman/Detail.cfm?imagetoZoom=mca1700011

Free Library of Philadelphia, Rare Book Department, Lewis E 170, fol. 1r, Opening the Book of Sentences, via http://libwww.freelibrary.org/medievalman/Detail.cfm?imagetoZoom=mca1700011

Laid out in double columns, the text has titles for sections, decorated initials for sections, and running titles, as aids for orientation. The wide margins offer, as intended, expansive scope for additions. Many comments, or glosses, by different hands are densely placed both in the margins around the columns and between the lines of text.

Remember, Aquinas encountered the source text in one or more manuscript copies. They – as well as his own – may well have held such forms of visual ‘dialogue’ or ‘argument’ between the main text and its comments.

Aquinas’s Commentary on the Sentences

Studies of Aquinas and his large body of work abound, not least because of the breadth, scope, and impact of his intellect and output. Reference materials for approaching the work or works appear in such sites as the guide to Thomas Aquinas in English: A Bibliography.

Aquinas’s commentary on Peter Lombard’s textbook, the Scriptum super libros Sententiarum (“Writing on the Books of the Sentences”), stands securely within the development or evolution of his own monumental oeuvre. About this Commentary, the circumstances of its composition, and its approach, a brief summary might set the stage. For example, according to the Aquinas Institute,

The Commentary on the Sentences dates from St. Thomas’s first teaching years in Paris, where he began teaching around the year 1252. As a new teacher, St. Thomas was expected to prepare lectures based on the Sentences of Peter Lombard, thus demonstrating his knowledge of and insight into both theology and philosophy. In the Sentences, St. Thomas was presented with a general theology text which draws upon the writings of the Church Fathers. This was a significant opportunity for St. Thomas to delve into the beauty of theology. Although this text is a commentary on the Sentences, it also contains much original theological thought of St. Thomas himself as he departs at times from the text that he is commenting on to explore other facets of the teaching set forth by Peter Lombard. As this work comes from the earlier years of St. Thomas’s career, it is evident that it represents St. Thomas’s seminal theological thought that is later developed and sharpened in the Summa Theologiae and the Summa Contra Gentiles.

— Sentences Commentary.

The Texts, Editions, and Translations

Among freely available editions online, examples include:

1. The Sentences by Peter Lombard in Latin

  • Textus Sententiarum (Patrologia Latina, vol. 192, cols. 519–964)
  • Textus Sententiarum: cum conclusionibus magistri Henrici Gorichem (1502 Edition, via Bayerische Staatsbibliothek digital)
  • Libri Quattuor Sententiarum (via Hochschule Augsburg)

A translation of the full work in English:

  • Peter Lombard, The Sentences, Books 1–4. translated by Giulio Silano (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 4 vols., 2007–2010).

Book 1: The Mystery of the Trinity
Book 2: On Creation
Book 3: On the Incarnation of the Word
Book 4: On the Doctrine of Signs

2. The Commentary by Aquinas on those Sentences in Latin

  • Thomas Aquinas, In Libros Sententiarum Petri Lombardi. via Documenta Catholica Omnia
  • Sanctae Thomae de Aquino, Scriptum super Sententiis, via Corpus Thomisticum, based upon the edition of (Parma, 1856).

Liber I in particular, on “The Mystery of the Trinity”

  • Scriptum super Sententiis , Liber I distinctio I . . . (via Corpus Thomisticum)
  • Commentum in Quatuor Libros Sententiarium, Vol. I (Parma, 1852), via Google Books
  • Scriptum super Sententiis, Liber I (via la.wikisource.org)
  • Scriptum Super Libros Sententiarum, edited by R. P. Mandonnet, vol. I (Paris, 1921)

The Commentary rendered in English

Parts of the text have received, or are receiving, English translations. Online translations and studies of the text include:

  • Commentary on the Sentences by Thomas Aquinas, via isidore.co/calibre.
  • Aquinas in English, via neocities.org, with a list starting with this Commentary, the Scriptum super libros Sententiarum.
  • Supplement to the “Readings from the Commentary on the Sentences”.

Private Collection, FBNC Aquinas Leaf in Mat with Label. Reproduced by permission.

Private Collection, FBNC Aquinas Leaf in Mat with Label. Reproduced by permission.

Surviving manuscript copies of Aquinas’ Commentary on Peter Lombard’s Sentences include an specimen of about half of the Commentary on Book IV. Made in France circa 1460, it is laid out in columns of 34–41 lines and written in Gothic scripts. It amounts to 350 folios.

  • Washington, DC, Catholic University of America, University Libraries, Rare Books & Special Collections, MS 200, described thus:
    www.worldcat.org/title/commentarium-super-quarto-libro-sententiarum-magistri-petri-lombardi/oclc/190846792

Such a book might be the sort of copy of Aquinas’ Commentary (or part of its 4 Books) prepared at about the same time as the Aquinas Manuscript in Humanist Script, but in a different region practicing late-medieval styles of script and book-production as yet untouched by a revivalist approach to ‘antique’ and classicizing precedents.

Book I of the Commentary

Aquinas’s Book I follows the order in the Sentences, guiding an exploration of the Trinity. The text takes shape in a series of Distinctions (customarily numbered 1–48). It examines the unity of God, the generation of the Son, and the “proceeding” of the Holy Spirit; considers the equality of the Persons in the Trinity; discusses ways in which God can be known; and relates an understanding of predestination and Divine Will, with a view to eternity.

Ege’s Labels for the Aquinas Manuscript

Ege’s Labels for the specimens of the manuscript take different forms. Not only do they focus upon different aspects of the text, script, and other features, but also, curiously, they report a different date or a date-range for the manuscript. The differences are reflected in the transmitted reports or records of the dismembered and differently distributed parts.

1. The Contents List for the Famous Books in Nine Centuries

The Contents List describes the item simply, and gives a precise date.

Private Collection, Ege's FBNS, Contents List, Detail: The Aquinas Manuscript. Reproduced by permission

Private Collection, Ege’s FBNS, Contents List, Detail: The Aquinas Manuscript. Reproduced by permission.

Thus:

1470 Italy

St. Thomas Aquinas, Commentary
on the Sentences

Manuscript written on vellum by a humanistic
scribe. It is rare to find a text of a Church
Father written with humanistic characters.

2. The Label for the Leaf in the Famous Books Portfolio

Ege’s Label for the manuscript in the Famous Books Portfolio (FBNC) states the case more elaborately. The Label takes the form of a separate rectangular strip of paper, pasted at the back of the frame and folded around the windowed mat at the lower left. The terms of the Label consider the nature of the text and the authorial genius of the author at some length, before turning to a concluding paragraph about the type of script, its inspiration in early-medieval Carolingian models, and its impact upon early printing in the West.

Again, the assigned date takes the precise form of 1470 — tout court. In the form of a motto below the title of the work, the 1-line quotation from a “recent” biography of the author (attributed to “McGiffert”, or Arthur Cushman McGiffert) adds a smidgen of adulation.

Private Collection, Ege's Famous Books in Nine Centuries, Label for the Aquinas Manuscript Leaf. Reproduced by permission.

Private Collection, Ege’s Famous Books in Nine Centuries, Label for the Aquinas Manuscript Leaf. Reproduced by permission.

The Label states:

THOMAS AQUINAS * COMMENTARY ON THE SENTENCES

“The synthesis of Aristotelian philosophy and Christian theology” — McGiffert.

Humanistic Manuscript, written in Italy, 1470

Thomas Aquinas, born 1227, entered a Dominican monastery but was soon released from his vows and sent to Cologne to attend the lectures of Albertus Magnus. Here this taciturnity, as well as his overweight, made him known among the students as the “great dumb ox of Sicily.” His teachers, however, added, “This ox will one day fill the world with his bellowings”. His first great book was this Book of Sentences, a commentary on the work of Peter Lombard, which closely followed the original but is ten times as extensive with ratiocinations and distinctions, thus producing a maze of new shades and thoughts. Aquinas’ great contribution was the reconciliation of reason with revelation, the natural with the supernatural, as the Greek philosophy, at its highest point, established the relation of continuity between the spiritual and the material. This Book of Sentences was universally used as a textbook until the end of the Middle Ages and was the inspiration for thousands of doctor’s dissertations. Vaughan, in a recent biography, states that Thomas Aquinas “was a man endowed with the characteristics notes of the three great Fathers of Greek Philosophy. He possessed the intellectual honesty and precision of Socrates, the analytical keenness of Aristotle and the yearning after wisdom which was the distinguishing mark of Plato.

This fine book-hand was a revival of the characters used in the scriptoriums founded by Charlemagne around the year 800 and became the inspiration for the first roman type of the fifteenth century printers.

Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Otto Ege Collection, FOL Set 3, MS 40, Specimen 2 = folio 216v (turned to the front in Ege's Mount:) Top of Textblock. Photography Mildred Budny.

Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Otto Ege Collection, FOL Set 3, MS 40, Specimen 2 = folio 216v (turned to the front in Ege’s Mount): Top of Textblock. Photography Mildred Budny.

3. The Label for the Leaf in the FOL Portfolio, with Ege’s Manuscript Number 40

Ege’s Label for the specimens from the Aquinas manuscript in his Portfolio of Fifty Original Leaves from Western Manuscripts, Western Europe, XII–XVI Century (FOL) takes a more compressed approach, and focuses upon the script. In this case, the Label fudges about the assigned date, reported as “Late XVth Century”.

As with the Labels for the other manuscript specimens in the FOL Portfolio (but unlike the unnumbered Labels for the FBNC Portfolio), the Number assigned to the Leaf in the sequence on the Contents List is printed at the top right. The Label for Number 40 states the case thus:

Otto F. Ege: Fifty Original Leaves from Medieval Manuscripts, Leaf 40, Printed Label, Special Collections and University Archives, Stony Brook University Libraries.

Otto F. Ege: Fifty Original Leaves from Medieval Manuscripts, Leaf 40, Printed Label, Special Collections and University Archives, Stony Brook University Libraries.

That is, under the headings of “ITALY; Late XVth Century” and “Latin Text; Humanistic Book Hand”, the Label introduces the specimen in the terms focusing upon the script and its unusual use for such a non-secular text.

Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on the Sentences

(Super Primo Libro Sententiarum)

FROM THE COLLECTION OF OTTO F. EGE

This text on the Sententiae of Peter Lombard by St. Thomas Aquinas, the “Angelic Doctor,” was the forerunner of the latter’s great work Summa Theologica. It is most unusual to find the writings of a Church Father presented in a humanistic book hand. Some of the humanists called this form of writing antiqua littera, with reference to the carolingian script, which they mistook for that of antiquity. In this humanistic script, fusion disappeared, letters became more simple, and shading decreased. The first more or less humanistic type of writing appeared in Florence about 1400 A.D.

A Specimen from the manuscript in a Set of the FOL Portfolio at Harvard University:

Harvard University, Houghton Library, MS Typ 995, recto = Ege MS 40, folio 243 recto.

Harvard University, Harvard University, Houghton Library, MS Typ 995, recto = Ege MS 40, folio 243 recto.

4. The Contents List for the FOL Portfolio

Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Otto Ege Collection, FOL Set 3, with Case opened to Inside Front Cover and the Contents List. Photography Mildred Budny.

Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Otto Ege Collection, FOL Set 3, with Case opened to Inside Front Cover and the Contents List. Photography Mildred Budny.

The full-page Contents List for the FOL Portfolio lists Leaf Number 40 within the “LATE” grouping for the “XV Century”. Its listing names only the Country, Author, and Text:

40. Italy: Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on the Sentences.

It appears that the ‘rules’ for this “CHRONOLOGICAL INDEX”, grouped by centuries with subdivisions into “EARLY”, “MIDDLE”, and “LATE”, governed the omission of more specific dates for cases where they might have been known.

While we survey Ege’s several approaches, it is important to note another form of description which he adopted for some leaves intended for sale separately.

5. The Leaves in the 1944 Staff Loan Catalogue (Lima, OH)

Prepared in support of the Lima Public Library Staff Loan Fund, Lima, OH, the 1944 Staff Loan Catalogue offered for sale numerous Original Leaves & Sets of Leaves from Medieval Manuscripts, Incunabula, Famous Bibles, and Noted Presses, 1150 A. D. – 1935 A. D. The catalogue appeared in a stapled booklet of 15 printed pages, with a cover page announcing that title and related information.

A rare surviving copy of the Catalogue, mailed to Alexandria, Minnesota, and bearing a postmark of 1944, is reproduced in part in Scott Gwara, Otto Ege’s Manuscripts (2016), figures 41–48 on pages 253–260 (showing pages 1–5 and 14–15 of the Catalogue). See also pp. 41–48 and 208, as well as p. 40 and note 97.

The Catalogue lists some leaves from the Aquinas manuscript (Ege Manuscript 40 = Handlist number 40) in 2 different sections. In both cases, the items within sets containing leaves from several different books.

First:

  1. Set of 18 Leaves, The Book Beautiful through Nine Centuries (pages 1–2 in the Catalogue; Gwara, figure 42 on p. 254)Within this “Superb Set”, for the price of $100.00, the Aquinas Commentary joins 6 manuscripts as well as multiple printed items. It appears as

[Item 1.] (f): 1470 A.D. ITALY. St. Thomas Aquinas’ Commentary. Fine humanistic bookhand with fine illuminated letter.

Second:

Sets of Leaves from Medieval Manuscripts, listed as 3 groups, numbered as Sets 9–11 (Pages 4–5 in the Catalogue; Gwara’s figure 46 on page 258). For the sets, “All leaves are matted and enclosed in portfolios”.

The Aquinas Commentary appears in Set 10 (for $25.00), as its item 6.

[Set] 10. Eight Original Manuscript Leaves from the 12th to the 16th Centuries

[Item] (6) 1470 A.D. Italy. St. Thomas Aquinas’s Commentary on the Sentences.

In each case, the cited date for the manuscript conforms with the precise version presented in the Labels for the Famous Books Portfolio, rather than for the FOL Portfolio.

Variable, and Indicative (or ‘Diagnostic’), Terms for the Leaves

Ege’s variability in the presentation of information circulating with the different dispersed leaves not only might generate frustration from the obfuscation. But also they can, in some cases, provide useful clues for the specific patterns of transmission beyond his collection.

In combination, conflation, or diversion, Ege’s several approaches to the Labels for the manuscript provide scraps of evidence or information about the manuscript as it came to him, about its features as they appeared to him, and about the way(s) in which he came to understand it as he worked to separate its leaves from each other and to scatter them widely into different hands, both public and private.

‘Diagnostic’ Terms for the Distributions of Leaves

Because Ege’s provisions of information for the individual leaves about to be dispersed in various ways were themselves so variable, it can be helpful to pay attention to the terms themselves in Ege’s Labels and handwritten annotations.

The variability may partly have arisen as Ege’s understanding of the manuscript materials deepened or extended, with changes or refinements in such aspects as the assignments of dates or date-ranges. But it must have resulted in no small measure from the varieties in approach to reporting and recording salient information pertaining to the manuscripts as wholes. Encountering that remission requires careful attention to the specific terms and forms of description which Ege employed at different times for the materials emanating from a single manuscript.

Such care can repay effort, as the terms which travel with a given manuscript specimen sometimes serve as indirect, and occasionally clear, evidence for the method by which that specimen left Ege’s hands, workshop, and collection.

An example is demonstrated in More Discoveries for ‘Otto Ege Manuscript 61’. A sales ‘clipping’ which travelled with one of its leaves, and which happily remained in view within an uncropped image of that leaf (as sent to me by its institution for higher quality resolution for reproduction), goes far to show that the leaf departed through the 1944 Sale Catalogue.

The clipping focuses upon Item 26 on page 7 — reproduced in Gwara, Otto Ege’s Manuscripts, figure 43 (page 255). The clipping of the printed item, including its number, is still attached to the surviving cropped segment of Ege’s characteristic ivory-colored mat, ruled in vermilion framing lines, with which the leaf came to its collection.

Recto of Leaf Opening the Book of Zachariah, plus Clipping from its Sale Catalogue. Courtesy of Flora Lamson Hewlett Library, Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley, CA. Reproduced by permission.

Recto of Leaf Opening the Book of Zachariah, plus Clipping from its Sale Catalogue. Courtesy of Flora Lamson Hewlett Library, Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley, CA. Reproduced by permission.

The ‘New’ Leaf from the Aquinas Manuscript in Humanist Script

The text combines, or interlinks, segments of discourse by Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274) and Peter Lombard (circa 1096 – 1160). The leaf forms part of Aquinus’ Commentary on the Sentences of Peter Lombard, Book I, dedicated to ” The Mystery of the Trinity”. Laid out in double columns of 37 lines, the script appears to date to circa 1475. The leaf forms part of Ege MS 40, listed in Gwara, “Handlist” = Otto Ege’s Manuscripts, Appendix X, pages 131–132, at pages 131–132.

This ‘new’ Specimen Leaf has the pencil number 300 at the top outer corner on the ‘verso’ of the leaf, as Ege mounted it, turning back to front so as to display the opening initial for a new section.

The Leaf stands seemingly cropped within Ege’s mat, with Ege’s printed Label attached to the lower left at the front of the mat.

Private Collection, FBNC Aquinas Leaf in Mat with Label. Reproduced by permission.

Private Collection, FBNC Aquinas Leaf in Mat with Label. Reproduced by permission.

The ‘front’ of the Leaf, as revealed below the lifted front of the windowed mat:

Private Collection, FBNC, Aquinas Leaf 'Front'. Reproduced by permission.

Private Collection, FBNC, Aquinas Leaf ‘Recto’. Reproduced by permission.

Note that it is the original verso of the leaf, with the wider outer margin positioned at the left.

The large dark stains from some liquid spills in the lower margin form a couple of irregular ‘pools’ which stand side-by-side. The effects of moisture along the bottom edge have cockled the vellum when drying unstretched. A few dark stains affect the lower outer edge, with some losses along the outer corner.

Dark stains from dirt and perhaps also moisture falling from the top of the book extend across the upper edge. Presumably they were shared by adjacent parts of the closed volume in vertical storage of some sort.

To reveal the ‘back’ of the Leaf, it is possible to lift it partly away from the back mat, to which it is attached by a pair of Ege’s gauze mounting tapes.

Private Collection, FBNC, Aquinas Leaf 'Verso'. Reproduced by permission.

Private Collection, FBNC, Aquinas Leaf ‘Verso’. Reproduced by permission.

With the outer margin positioned at the right, the folio number emerges into view. In the top corner, the modern pencil number ‘300’ rises at a diagonal to the right.

Private Collection, FBNC, Aquinas Leaf 'Back' top right and page number.

Private Collection, FBNC, Aquinas Leaf ‘Back’ top right and page number. Reproduced by permission.

An opening section of text with an enlarged initial stands at the top of column b on the original verso; it was this side that Ege turned to the fore in his windowed mat.

Private Collection, Ege's FBNC Portfolio, Aquinas Leaf, Recto, Top Right. Reproduced by Permission.

Private Collection, Ege’s FBNC Portfolio, Aquinas Leaf, Recto, Top Right. Reproduced by Permission.

The heading begins with an inset 3-line initial A (for Ad, “To” or “Toward”) rendered in blue pigment. Written discreetly in ink, a small cue letter a stands to its left, as a prompt for the letter when the time came to add the initial in color, after the script in ink had been entered. A paraph-marker in red pigment fits within line 2, between the heading (AD QVARTUM sic proceditur) and the opening of the section (Videtur quod . . . ).

Ad quartum sic proceditur.
Videtur quod id quod est praeter Dei voluntatem, praecepto non subjaceat, et praecipue peccatum. . .

Within the Commentary on Book I of the Sentences, this passage corresponds to the opening of Distinctio 47, Quaestio 1, Articulus 4, Argumentum 1.

= Super Sententiis, Liber I, Distinctio 46, Quaestio I, Articulus 4, Argumentum
Or, “On the Sentences, Book I, Part (Distinctio) 46, Question I, Article 4, Argument 1″
For short: [3345] “Super Sent., lib. 1 d. 47 q. 1 a. 4 arg. 1”
— as marked out in the freely available edition online: www.corpusthomisticum.org/snp1045.html, numbering the individual sections with a series of consecutive arabic numbers (which I emphasize here in bold).

Although not specified as such in this manuscript, the subject or summary of the section is known as

Utrum id quod est praeter voluntatem Dei praecepto non subjaceat

Might the blank line or so at the end of column a have been intended to hold the title or summary for the section, in enlarged and perhaps rubricated form? To read, perhaps, something like this?

Articulus IV: Utrum Deus velit mala fieri.

On its own, the leaf does not reveal whether that skipped last line in the column was designed to leave space for such a heading, or else simply responded to the opportunity shortly to begin a new section with the next, new column.

Do any other leaves from the manuscript have such elements? Might such a feature have existed in the exemplar from which this copy in humanist script was made?

The Span of Text on the Leaf

With its modern folio number 300, the text on the leaf starts and stops mid-phrase. It extends from within

[3340] Super Sent., lib. 1 d. 47 q. 1 a. 3 ad 1 ([Ad primum ergo dicendum] / voluntas enim . . . )

to within

[3340] Super Sent., lib. 1 d. 47 q. 1 a. 3 ad 1 ( . . . voliti cujus / [conditiones diversimode]
— via www.corpusthomisticum.org/snp1045.html.

Over time, the customary forms of citation for the different parts of the work have adapted to the demands and structure of Thomas’s complexly ordered texts. Guides in English for general readers can be found in the descriptions of How to Read an Article in Aquinas’s Summa Theologiae and Methods of referring to parts of the Summa theologiae. From the latter:

These parts [in the Summa] break down into questions (qq.); and each question (in Latin, quaestio, abbreviated q. or quaest.) is comprised of articles (etymologically, ‘little joints’ in the organic whole; a. = article). Most articles contain ‘objections’ (suggested arguments) on one side of an issue, an argument or quotation supporting the other side and introduced with the formula sed contra (‘on the other hand’), Thomas’ solution (solutio) in the body (corpus) of the article, and replies to the objections; replies open with the Latin preposition ad (‘to’ or ‘toward’) followed by an ordinal number (e.g., ad primum means ‘in reply to the first objection,’ while ad tertium indicates the reply to the third).

Expanding such citations, we might see that the text on the ‘new’ Leaf fits within the section of

Super Sententiis (“On the Sentences“), Liber (Book) 1, Distinctio (Part) 47, Quaestio (Question) 1.

Within that section, the leaf extends between its Articles 3 and 4, specifically from within this point:

Articulo (Article) 3, [Solutio] ad 1 (= primum) [Objectionum] = “Reply to the First Objection” within the body (corpus) of the Article [3340]

to within this point:

Articulo 4, s. c. [that is, Sed Contra = “On the contrary”, regarding] 1 [= primum Objectionum] [3349].

The Span of Text on Other Leaves

The spans of text on other leaves from the manuscript are indicated in some reference sources. They range from entries in sales catalogues to the metadata in catalogue entries online for individual collections.

The reported spans of text for some dispersed leaves are gathered into a single place. They are reported for the group of 15 participating institutions on the website ege.denison.edu for the cases of Leaf 40 within the FOL Portfolio in their particular sets, albeit with a few omissions because scans of some leaves or of the other side of some leaves were not available (“N/A”) when the website was being drawn up. On the site, identifications are reported for each leaf individually (accessible via Leaf 40), as well as gathered in the list of contents_31-40.php (at “Leaf 40”). Thus, with abbreviations for the names of the participating institutions (starting with Case for Case Western University):

Leaf 40: Aquinas’ Super Sententiis
Case: Lib. 1 d. 16 q. 1 a. 1 ad 5 [1235], to Lib. 1 d. 16 q. 1 a. 2 ad 1 [1250]
Cinci: Lib. 1 d. 11 q. 1 a. 1 ad 2 [897] , to Lib. 1 d. 11 q. 1 a. 2 ad arg. [912]
CIA: Lib. 1 d. 32 q. 1 a. 1 co. [2258], to Lib. 1 d. 32 q. 1 a. 2 arg. 2. [2292]
Clev: Lib. 1 d. 6 q. 1 a. 3 co. [532], to Lib. 1 d. 7 q. 1 a. 1 s. c. 1 [542]
Deni: Lib. 1 d. 33 q. 1 a. 2 arg. 5 [2357], to Lib. 1 d. 33 q. 1 a. 3 arg. 3 [2369]
Kent: Lib. 1 d. 32 q. 1 a. 3 arg. 1 [2303], to Lib. 1 d. 32 q. 2 a. 1 co. [2319] §
Keny: Lib. 1 d. 32 q. 2 a. 1 co. [2319], to Lib. 1 d. 32 q. 2 a. 2 qc. 1 co. [2331] §
Lima: Lib. 1 d. 3 q. 3 pr. [310], to Lib. 1 d. 3 q. 3 a. 1 ad 1 [318]
OSU: Lib. 1 d. 8 q. 5 a. 1 co. [749], to Lib. 1 d. 8 q. 5 a. 2 co. [758]
Oh U: N/A
Roch: Q. 1 a. 5 ad 4 [62], followed (!) by [Emphasis added] Q. 1 pr. [2]
U-Co: Lib. 1 d. 1 q. 4 a. 2 expos. [154], and Lib. 1 d. 2 q. 1 pr. [155]
U-Ma: Lib.1 d.4 q.2 a.2 expos. [452], to Lib.1 d.5 q.1 pr. [453]
U-Sk: N/A
U-SC: Lib. 1 d. 1 q. 3 a. 1 ad 4 [128], to Lib. 1 d. 1 q. 4 a. 2 s. c. 1 [149]

The system of identification accords with the version of the Commentary according to www.clericus.org, using the out-of-copyright edition of Sancti Thomae de Aquino, Scriptum super Sententiis (Parma, 1846).

Within that online edition, the series of arabic numerals (“[2]“, “[62]“, “[128]“, etc), offer convenient points of orientation and navigation within the complex text. Similarly, the modern folio numbers in pencil on some leaves (all?) permit ready recognition of where the individual leaves formerly stood in the manuscript itself.

Provisional List of Leaves

Because only some of the leaves are recognized, because only some of them have their span of text identified, because the folio numbers are visible on the images only of some of the rectos, and because more leaves await recognition and online display or access to view, I offer a provisional list of known leaves (and, where feasible, their textual span and/or folio number), according to the location of their current collection.

Reordering them into an original, or approximate, textual sequence would wait for a later stage of collective research. It is worth noting that the text on the leaves might not always run in the sequence presented or established in an edited version. This caution is shown by the span on the leaf now at the Rochester Institute of Technology (Set 35), as reported on the website ege.denison.edu, for Rochester Leaf 40.

“Q. 1 a. 5 ad 4 [62], followed (!) by Q. 1 pr. [2]”. (Emphasis added.)

Leaves According to Current Locations, Listed Alphabetically by Place-Name

Where known, the folio number on the leaf is indicated here in red (“Folio 12” etc) at the start of the entry.

I. Locations Unknown or Unspecified

*****

Private Collection, FBNC, Aquinas Leaf 'Front'. Reproduced by permission.

Private Collection, FBNC, Aquinas Leaf ‘Recto’. Reproduced by permission.

Folio 300. Location unspecified, Private Collection (unnumbered set of FBNC). Illustrated above and at the right.

[3340] Super Sent., lib. 1 d. 47 q. 1 a. 3 ad 1 ([ergo dicendum] / voluntas enim consequens), to
[3349] Super Sent., lib. 1 d. 47 q. 1 a. 4 s. c. 1 (voliti cujus / [conditiones diversimode])
— corpusthomisticum.org/snp1045.html.

*****

Folios ??. Location(s) unknown.

Group of 32 detached leaves from the manuscript offered for sale at the auction of Western Manuscripts and Miniatures at Sotheby’s, London, on 26 November 1985, as Lot 80 (with no plate). See below.

*****

Folio ?. Location unknown.

Leaf within FOL Set 55, offered for sale by Phillip J. Pirages, Catalogue 55 (n. d.), no. 111 (no plate).

*****

Folio ?. Location unknown.

Leaf within FBNC Set 28, offered for sale by Christie’s, 12 September 2020, lot. 10 unsold (no plate).

*****

II. Locations in Alphabetical Order

*****

Folio ?. Albany, NY, New York State Library (FOL Set 8).

*****

Folio ?. Amherst, MA, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, W. E. B. Du Bois Library (FOL Set 6).
Amherst Leaf 40 (verso) and via umass.edu (verso).

Verso only: [452] Super Sententiis, lib.1 d.4 q.2 a.2 expos., to [453] Super Sententiis, lib.1 d.5 q.1 pr.
— http://www.corpusthomisticum.org/snp1004.html. “A scan of the recto is not currently available”.

*****

Folio 66. Athens, OH, Ohio University, Vernon R. Alden Library (FOL Set 5). Manuscript leaf from Thomas Aquinas’ Commentary on the Sentences.

[764] Super Sent., lib. 1 d. 8 q. 5 a. 2 ad 6 ([non individuatur] / nisi ex corpore), to
[774] Super Sent., lib. 1 d. 8 q. 5 a. 3 ad 2(virtute secundum quod / [ex ejus essentia])
— via corpusthomisticum.org/snp1008.html.

*****

Folio ?. Bloomington, IN, Indiana University, The Lilly Library (FOL Set 2).

*****

Folio 14?. Boulder, CO, University of Colorado, Norlin Library (FOL Set 32). Boulder Leaf 40 (recto) and now here (recto and verso).

The online image of the recto appears to have no folio number.

“Super Primo Libro Sententiarum, fol. 14[?]v [sic]. Recto and verso: First Book of Sentences, 1.4.2.ex/68–2.1.pr/4″ (here).

[154] Super Sententiis, lib. 1 d. 1 q. 4 a. 2 expos., and
[155] Super Sententiis, lib. 1 d. 2 q. 1 pr.
— via corpusthomisticum.org/snp1001.html and corpusthomisticum.org/snp10020.html. (Boulder Leaf 40).

Buffalo and Erie Public Library, Ege, Otto F., compiler., “Fifty original leaves from medieval manuscripts” (Leaf 40, verso). B&ECPL Digital Collections, accessed February 3, 2021, http://digital.buffalolib.org/document/1671. http://digital.buffalolib.org/document/1671#?c=0&m=0&s=0&cv=44&z=0.349%2C0.1267%2C1.0344%2C0.6954.

Buffalo and Erie Public Library, Ege, Otto F., compiler., “Fifty original leaves from medieval manuscripts.” (Leaf 40, verso). B&ECPL Digital Collections, accessed February 3, 2021, http://digital.buffalolib.org/document/1671.
http://digital.buffalolib.org/document/1671#?c=0&m=0&s=0&cv=44&z=0.349%2C0.1267%2C1.0344%2C0.6954.

*****

Folio 90. Buffalo, NY, Buffalo and Erie County Public Library, Central Library (Fol Set 11). Page ’70’, here.

[1046] Super Sent., lib. 1 d. 14 q. 2 a. 1 qc. 1 arg. 4 ([in operibus] / politicis sed), to
[1062] Super Sent., lib. 1 d. 14 q. 2 a. 2 arg. 4 (quod spiritus / [sanctus datus est])
— via corpusthomisticum.org/snp1009.html

*****

Folio ?. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University, Houghton Library (FOL Set 1, acquired at auction at Christie’s, London, on 6 December 2020, lot 9).

*****

Folio 243. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University, Houghton Library, MS Typ 955.

“A single leaf containing the beginning of Distinctio 35, quaestio 1 ‘Quomodo Deus ubique esse dicitur’.”

[2626] Super Sent., lib. 1 d. 37 q. 1 a. 2 ad 3 ([ex parte ipsis dei] / operantis in rebus), to
[2645] Super Sent., lib. 1 d. 37 q. 2 a. 2 ad 1 (vel posterius / [conveniat toti quam])
— via corpusthomisticum.org/snp1035.html

In the last 2 lines on the verso, within the Response in Questio 2, Articulus 2, the scribe (or the exemplar) performed dittography by doubling the phrase ex arte eius quod in loco est.

Recto

Harvard University, Houghton Library, MS Typ 995, recto = Ege MS 40, folio 243 recto.

Harvard University, Harvard University, Houghton Library, MS Typ 995, recto = Ege MS 40, folio 243 recto.

Verso

Ege MS 40, folio 243 verso. Harvard University, Houghton Library, MS Typ 955, verso.

Ege MS 40, folio 243 verso. Harvard University, Houghton Library, MS Typ 955, verso.

*****

Folio 106. Cleveland, OH, Case Western University, Kelvin Smith Library (FOL Set 37). Case Leaf 40 and No. 40.

[1235] Super Sententiis, lib. 1 d. 16 q. 1 a. 1 ad 5, to
[1250] Super Sententiis, lib. 1 d. 16 q. 1 a. 2 ad 1
— corpusthomisticum.org/snp1009.html.

In Ege’s mat the original verso was turned to the front, because remnants of the gauze tape are visible on the original recto.

*****

Folio 78. Cincinnati, OH, Cincinnati & Hamilton County Public Library, Main Library (FOL Set 22). Cincinnati Leaf 40 and now here.

[897] Super Sententiis, lib. 1 d. 11 q. 1 a. 1 ad 2, to
[912] Super Sententiis, lib. 1 d. 11 q. 1 a. 2 ad arg.
— corpusthomisticum.org/snp1009.html” target=”_blank”>www.corpusthomisticum.org/snp1009.html.

*****

Folio ?. Cleveland, OH, Cleveland Institute of Art, Gund Library (FOL Set 4). CIA Leaf 40.

[2285] Super Sententiis, lib. 1 d. 32 q. 1 a. 1 co., to
[2292] Super Sententiis, lib. 1 d. 32 q. 1 a. 2 arg. 2.
– corpusthomisticum.org/snp1026.html.

*****

Folio ?. Cleveland, OH, Cleveland Public Library (Cleveland Leaf 40 )

[532] Super Sententiis, lib. 1 d. 6 q. 1 a. 3 co., to
[542] Super Sententiis, lib. 1 d. 7 q. 1 a. 1 s. c. 1
— corpusthomisticum.org/snp1004.html.

*****

Folio 12. Columbia, SC, University of South Carolina, Rare Books and Special Collections (RBSC), Otto F. Ege Collection, No. 40 (FOL Set 27).
USC Leaf 40 and No. 40.

[128] Super Sententiis, lib. 1 d. 1 q. 3 a. 1 ad 4, to
[149] Super Sententiis, lib. 1 d. 1 q. 4 a. 2 s. c. 1
— corpusthomisticum.org/snp1001.html.

According to USC Leaf 40: “Reconstruction Note! In Ege’s original manuscript, this leaf was probably followed by what is now Leaf 40 in the University of Colorado, Boulder portfolio.” See above and further below.

*****

Folio ?. Columbus, OH, The Ohio State University, Thompson Library (FOL Set 2). OSU Leaf 40.

[749] Super Sententiis, lib. 1 d. 8 q. 5 a. 1 co., to
[758] Super Sententiis, lib. 1 d. 8 q. 5 a. 2 co.
— www.corpusthomisticum.org/snp1008.html.

*****

Folio ?. Gambier, OH, Kenyon College, Olin Library (FOL Se 23). Kenyon Leaf 40.

[2319] Super Sententiis, lib. 1 d. 32 q. 2 a. 1 co., to
[2331] Super Sententiis, lib. 1 d. 32 q. 2 a. 2 qc. 1 co.
— http://www.corpusthomisticum.org/snp1026.html.

As noted by Kenyon Leaf 40: “Reconstruction Note! In Ege’s original manuscript, this leaf followed what is now Leaf 40 in the Kent State University portfolio.” See below.

*****

Folio 219. Granville, OH, Denison University, William Howard Doane Library (FOL Set 30). Denison Leaf 40

[2357] Super Sententiis, lib. 1 d. 33 q. 1 a. 2 arg. 5, to
[2369] Super Sententiis, lib. 1 d. 33 q. 1 a. 3 arg. 3
— .corpusthomisticum.org/snp1033.html.

*****

Folio 207. Greensboro, NC, University of North Carolina, Jackson Library (FOL Set 38). Page 040.

*****

Folio ?. Hartford, CN, Wadsworth Athenaeum (FOL Set 10).

*****

Folio ?. Kent, OH, Kent State University Libraries (FOL Set 15). Kent Leaf 40.

The online image of the recto does not extend to the upper corner for a folio number.

[2303] Super Sententiis, lib. 1 d. 32 q. 1 a. 3 arg. 1, to
[2319] Super Sententiis, lib. 1 d. 32 q. 2 a. 1 co. [2319]
— www.corpusthomisticum.org/snp1026.php.

According to Kent Leaf 40 : “Reconstruction Note! In Ege’s original manuscript, this leaf was followed by what is now Leaf 40 in the Kenyon College portfolio.” See below.

*****

Folio ?. Lima, OH, Lima Public Library, Main Library (FOL Set 29). Lima Leaf 40.

[310] Super Sententiis, lib. 1 d. 3 q. 3 pr., to
[318] Super Sententiis, lib. 1 d. 3 q. 3 a. 1 ad 1
— corpusthomisticum.org/snp1003.html.

*****

Folio 70. Minneapolis, MN, University of Minnesota (FOL Set 13). Ege Manuscript 40 and Ege Manuscript 40 recto.

University of Minnesota Libraries, Ege Manuscript 40, Recto. Image via Creative Commons.

University of Minnesota Libraries, Ege Manuscript 40, Recto. Image via Creative Commons.

*****

2 Folios. New Haven, CT, Yale University, Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Otto Ege Collection (FOL Set 3, the “Ege Family Portfolio”).
In this Specimen, there are 2 separate (and non-consecutive) Leaves within the Mat, one after the other.

Folio ‘1’. Opening leaf of the Text, with a full-page frame on the recto.

[1] Super Sent., pr. (up to Ipse dedit quosdam / [apostolos quidam])

Folio 216. The leaf is turned back-to-front as it is hinged to the mat.

[2331] Super Sent., lib. 1 d. 32 q. 2 a. 2 qc. 1 co. ([etiam sapientia] / genita dicitur), to
[2341] Super Sent., lib. 1 d. 33 q. 1 a. 1 arg. 2 (essentia divina / [est paternitas])
— via corpusthomisticum.org/snp1026.html and corpusthomisticum.org/snp1027.html

The illuminated initial P (for Post) at the top of the verso opens Distinctio 33.

Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Otto Ege Collection, FOL Set 3, MS 40, Specimen 2 = folio 216v (turned to the front in Ege's Mount: Top Left. Photography Mildred Budny.

Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Otto Ege Collection, FOL Set 3, MS 40, Specimen 2 = folio 216v (turned to the front in Ege’s Mount: Top Left. Photography Mildred Budny.

*****

Folio ?. New York, NY, Morgan Library (FOL Set 28).

*****

Folio ?. Newark, NJ, The Newark Public Library, Special Collections Department, Medieval Manuscript Collections (FOL Set 34). 40. Thomas.

The online images for the leaf crop the pages, so that the folio number (if there is one) is out of frame.

The initial D for Deinde in column b on the recto opens Liber I, Distinctio I, Quaestio 3, Articulus 1.
= [118] Super Sent., lib. 1 d. 1 q. 3 a. 1 arg. 1 via corpusthomisticum.org/snp1001.html

*****

Folio ?. Northampton, MA, Smith College, Neilson Library, Mortimer Rare Book Room (FOL set, unnumbered).

*****

Folio 188. Princeton, NJ, Princeton University, Firestone Library (FBNC Set 20).

The span: [nomine verba] / et filius non distinguuntur . . . nullo modo / [praecedit intellectu]

[2011] Super Sent., lib. 1 d. 27 q. 1 a. 1 ad 4 + [2014] Super Sent., lib. 1 d. 27 q. 1 a. 2 arg. 1, to
[2024] Super Sent., lib. 1 d. 27 q. 1 a. 2 ad 4
[The text skips [2012] Super Sent., lib. 1 d. 27 q. 1 a. 1 ad 5.]

The initial A (for Ad) in column a on the recto opens Distinctio 27, Article 2.

*****

Folio 6. Rochester, NY, Rochester Institute of Technology, Wallace Center (FOL Set 35). Rochester Leaf 40 and now online via the RIT Libraries website: Record Number b1426520 (for the Commentary leaf), but linked incorrectly to images (here) actually for a different manuscript Specimen — recte Ege MS 39 (Livy, in its folio 39) — while the images of Ege MS 40 are wrongly identified as Ege MS 41 (Gregory the Great et al.).

“Aquinas’s Super Sententiis, q. 1 a. 5 ad 4 [62], followed (!) by Super Sententiis, q. 1 pr. [2], the latter of which begins at the illuminated ‘H'”
— via corpusthomisticum.org/snp0001.php. “A scan of the recto is not currently available.”

Now available (here, despite the mislabelling), the scan shows that the recto begins within [58] Super Sent., q. 1 a. 5 co.

[Note: The full set of Leaves in this FOL Set is displayed online, but some images and identifications are interchanged.]

*****

Folio 50. Saskatchewan, SK, University of Saskatchewan, Murray Library (FOL Set 25). University of Saskatchewan (recto only, and with no ID of the text), and also David Brindle et al., 50 Medieval Manuscript Leaves: The Otto Ege Collection at the University of Saskatchewan Library (2011), pp. 174–177 (recto and verso)

[565] Super Sent., lib. 1 d. 7 q. 1 a. 3 co., to
[593] Super Sent., lib. 1 d. 7 q. 2 a. 2 qc. 1 ad 2
— via corpusthomisticum.org/snp1004.html

*****

Folio 135. Seattle, WA, University of Washington, University Libraries, UW MS 83 (recto only). (See also below.)

Recto: “Book I, Distinction 19, Questions 2 and 3. (UW MS 83 recto)”
“Incipit and Explicit: //motus in illo sicut in propria mensura . . . potentia contra magnitudinem//”

Recto only:
[1504] Super Sent., lib. 1 d. 19 q. 2 a. 2 ad 1 ([nunc temporis] / motis in illo . . . ),
to [1513] Super Sent., lib. 1 d. 19 q. 3 a. 1 arg. 4 ( . . . potentia contra magnitudinem / [Ergo non intelligitur])
– via corpusthomisticum.org/snp1019.html

*****

Folio ?. Stony Brook, NY, Stony Brook University Libraries, Special Collections and University Archives (FOL Set 19). Thomas Aquinas: Commentary.

The folio number is covered by one of Ege’s gauze mounting tapes.

[333] Super Sent., lib. 1 d. 3 q. 4 a. 1 co. ([et non sit] / impressa organa corporali), to
[349] Super Sent., lib. 1 d. 3 q. 4 a. 2 s. c. 2 (Ergo non / [est agens])
— via corpusthomisticum.org/snp1003.html

Original Recto

Otto F. Ege: Fifty Original Leaves from Medieval Manuscripts, Leaf 40, "Verso", Special Collections and University Archives, Stony Brook University Libraries.

Otto F. Ege: Fifty Original Leaves from Medieval Manuscripts, Leaf 40, “Verso”, Special Collections and University Archives, Stony Brook University Libraries.

Original Verso

Otto F. Ege: Fifty Original Leaves from Medieval Manuscripts, Leaf 40, "Recto", Special Collections and University Archives, Stony Brook University Libraries.

Otto F. Ege: Fifty Original Leaves from Medieval Manuscripts, Leaf 40, “Recto”, Special Collections and University Archives, Stony Brook University Libraries.

*****

Folio 75(?). Toledo, OH, Toledo Museum of Art, 1953.129A–XX (FOL Set 12), 1953.1929NN. Manuscript leaf from the Commentary on the Sentences, No. 40.

Ege’s mounting turned the recto to the back side.

[863] Super Sent., lib. 1 d. 10 q. 1 a. 4 co. ([dicimus duos homines] / amantes se et concordes esse), to
[874] Super Sent., lib. 1 d. 10 q. 1 a. 5 co. (determinetur per specialem / [modum originis])
— via corpusthomisticum.org/snp1009.html.

*****

Folio ?. Toronto, ON, Art Gallery Ontario (FOL Set 16).

*****

Folio ?. Toronto, ON, Ontario College of Art and Design (OCAD), Dorothy H. Hoover Library (FOL Set 36).

*****

Folio ?. Toronto, ON, University of Toronto, Massey College, Robertson Davies Library, Gurney FF 0001 (FOL Set 17).

*****

Etc.

*****

A Note about Consecutive Leaves

A few leaves among the identified survivors can be seen to have been consecutive in the original manuscript.

Two cases are signaled in the website ege.denison.edu (see above), on the basis of spans of text. Cases of this kind may be confirmed by consecutive folio numbers (where known or discoverable) and by the consecutive course of the text.

1) Evidently adjacent

[Folio ?]. Kent [State University]: Lib. 1 d. 32 q. 1 a. 3 arg. 1 [2303], to Lib. 1 d. 32 q. 2 a. 1 co. [2319] §
( . . . concedendum est quod / [genita sapiens sit])
>
[Folio ?]. Keny[on College]: Lib. 1 d. 32 q. 2 a. 1 co. [2319], to Lib. 1 d. 32 q. 2 a. 2 qc. 1 co. [2331] §
([concedendum est quod] / genita sapiens sit . . . )
— ending on the verso of the one and beginning consecutively on the recto of the other (. . . concendum est quod / genita sapiens sit . . . )

2) Evidently not

[Folio 12]. U-S[outh]C[arolina]: Lib. 1 d. 1 q. 3 a. 1 ad 4 [128], to Lib. 1 d. 1 q. 4 a. 2 s. c. 1 [149] ( . . . quia caritas nunquam / [excidit sed proximus])

? > × [Instead, a leaf or more went in between them, with text spanning excidit sed proximus . . . in speculo cogniscimus, or the like]

[Folio 14?]. U-Co[lorado at Boulder]: Lib. 1 d. 1 q. 4 a. 2 expos. [154], and Lib. 1 d. 2 q. 1 pr. [155] ([in speculo cogniscimus] / excidit sed proximus . . . )

Near Rather than Adjacent

Like that ‘not-quite consecutive’ pair of leaves now in South Carolina and Colorado, some leaves formerly stood near each other, rather than adjacent. For example:

Folio 66 (Ohio University) and
Folio 70 (University of Minnesota)

Folio 216 (Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library) and
Folio 219 (Denison University).

A Note about Descriptions and Metadata

Library catalogues and descriptions of separate leaves from the manuscript, as part of Ege’s Portfolios or from other sources, mostly employ the Labels which Ege composed to accompany them, just like that. Often the metadata for the Leaves quote those Labels, in whole or in part. Sometimes, an identification of the span of text is proferred, as with Leaf 40 at Boulder at the University of Colorado, and MS Typ 955 at the Houghton Library.

An exemplary case is offered by the description for Folio 135, catalogued as Seattle, WA, University of Washington, University Libraries, UW MS 83 (with image of the recto only). See also above.

Besides identifying the location of the text (as an “excerpt”) within Aquinas’s Commentary (“Book I, Distinction 19, Questions 2 and 3” on the recto), and citing the first and last words on the leaf (the Incipit and Explicit), the description mentions specific features of script, ruling, layout, and condition. It results from direct observation of the object itself (or of the image of its recto), thereby noting and reporting some salient bibliographical and related characteristics specific to the leaf and to its manuscript context.

Text in brown ink. Initials 13 mm (3 lines) high at the start of Question 3 and Article 1.
Guide letter visible to the left of the large red A.
Other arguments and counter-arguments are set off by a colored paragraph mark, in alternating blue and red.

Layout: Two columns, 37 lines each. Drypoint ruling, ruling lines redrawn on verso with leadpoint.

Script: Use of Arabic numerals; Clearly-spaced letters and words; Upright d; Few abbreviations; Strokes over i; Feet on the minims; Continued use of e for ae so likely an early example of humanist. When several i’s are in a row, the last one is elongated. Double-bowl g and tall s at the end of words.

Condition: Excellent condition overall, some lines faint (probably water damage). Hair follicles visible.

Contextual Remarks. The Scriptum Super Sententiis is one of Thomas Aquinas’s earliest writings. In this excerpt from his commentary on Peter Lombard’s Sentences, he considers the three persons of the trinity, and the definition of eternity.

*****

Specimens

Some Specimens present the text similarly to the ‘New’ Leaf, as they present an enlarged 3-line initial (red or blue) for a significant section, followed by a line or part-line of capital letters in ink. Paragraph-markers, alternately in red and blue, signal subdivisions of text within the sections.

Leaf 40 in FOL Set 19 (Stony Brook University) offers such a case. On the verso, Column b (or ‘vb’) begins with the inset 3-line initial A (for AD) in blue pigment, with a cue-letter a to one side.

Otto F. Ege: Fifty Original Leaves from Medieval Manuscripts, Leaf 40, "Recto", Special Collections and University Archives, Stony Brook University Libraries.

Otto F. Ege: Fifty Original Leaves from Medieval Manuscripts, Leaf 40, “Recto”, Special Collections and University Archives, Stony Brook University Libraries.

Other parts of the text receive more elevated grades of embellishment. Usually they take the form of taller inset 4-line initials placed within rectangular frames and provided with polychrome pigment, including gold, as well as simple geometric decoration. Examples include the P (for Post) at the top of column a on Folio 216v. As Ege positioned this Leaf, he turned the verso forward, facing front, and leaving the customary, less embellished, text on the original recto to press against the back board of the mat.

Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Otto Ege Collection, FOL Set 3, MS 40, Specimen 2 = folio 216v (turned to the front in Ege's Mount. Photography Mildred Budny.

Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Otto Ege Collection, FOL Set 3, MS 40, Specimen 2 = folio 216v (turned to the front in Ege’s Mount. Photography Mildred Budny.

Note that, unlike the various editions of Aquinas’s Commentary on the Sentences of Peter Lombard, this manuscript has — insofar as the revealed pages and leaves indicate — no numbering system or running titles by which to navigate a course through it. Nor, apparently, does it provide names for the different parts (Distinctio, Articulus, etc.).

To say that the presentation of this copy may constitute a challenge to consultation of the lengthy and complexly structured text perhaps is an understatement. It may be significant that the leaves which have surfaced from the manuscript do not carry marks of consultation in the forms of corrections, annotations, readers’ marks, and the like — aside from the modern folio-numeration in pencil and the marks of ownership.

*****

Continuing to examine this manuscript, Part II in our series (II of III) now turns to

  • The Manuscript Before and After Ege

As customary with Ege’s dismembered manuscripts, Sales Catalogues can offer significant (and tantalizing) information, both before and after Ege altered and distributed them.

*****

Before moving to the next Post, we make sure to thank the owner of the ‘new’ Portfolio and the owners of other specimens for permission to examine them and for permission to reproduce the images. Thanks, as always, for the advice, encouragement, and suggestions of colleagues, students, and friends!

Do you know of other leaves from this Aquinas manuscript? Other Sets of the Portfolio of Famous Books in Nine Centuries (FBNC), or Sets of the Fifty Original Leaves (FOL)?  Do you recognize the work of the scribe(s) in other manuscripts?

Please let us know. Please leave your Comments here, Contact Us, and/or visit our Facebook Page. We look forward to hearing from you.

Private Collection, FBNC, Aquinas Leaf 'Front' top right. Reproduced by permission.

Private Collection, FBNC, Aquinas Leaf ‘Front’ top right. Reproduced by permission.

*****

Tags: Aquinas on the Sentences of Peter Lombard, Ege's FOL Portfolio, Ege's Portfolio of Famous Bibles, Ege's Portfolio of Famous Books, Fragmentology, Humanist Manuscripts, Humanist Script, manuscript fragments, Medieva Manuscript Fragments, Otto Ege, Otto Ege Manuscript 40, Otto Ege Manuscript 51, Otto Ege Manuscript 53, Peter Lombard, Thomas Aquinas
1 Comment »

Patch Work in ‘Otto Ege Manuscript 14’

September 10, 2020 in Manuscript Studies, Uncategorized

Patched Repairs in ‘Otto Ege Manuscript 14’
With Pieces
of Text and Decoration
Extracted From the Same Manuscript

[Posted on 20 September 2020, with updates]

Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Otto Ege Collection, MS 14, Genesis Opening Leaf: Recto, Detail of Patch.

Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Otto Ege Collection, MS 14, Genesis Opening Leaf: Recto, Detail of Patch.

In a nutshell:  Patches Work.  Cut-Outs and Patches are recognized genres (sadly) in the history, transmission, plunder, and showcasing of medieval manuscript glories, plus efforts in some cases to cover the tracks.

Tracking those Traces?  Call it Forensics.  Detection Works.

Continuing our series of reports for some of the manuscripts dispersed by Otto F. Ege (1888–1951), we focus upon a little-recognized feature in one of them, which incorporates reused pieces from leaves in the same book for filling holes in other leaves.  Previous accounts of the manuscript have taken scare notice of the feature; it could be more widespread in the book than their individual reported cases would indicate.

About this manuscript see, for example:

  • Ege Manuscript 14
  • More Discoveries for ‘Ege Manuscript 14’
  • 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)

[And also now:

  • A Leaf in Dallas from ‘Otto Ege Manuscript 14’ (Lectern Bible)
  • A Leaf of Deuteronomy from ‘Otto Ege Manuscript 14’ in the Rosenbrook Collection]

See also The Illustrated Handlist (Number 4).

We look forward to further publications about this manuscript by other scholars, including Joseph Bernaer and Peter Kidd.  Joseph has kindly responded to our invitation to contribute his discoveries for publication, and Peter Kidd offers photographs which aid the quest.  Peter’s publication of Volume 3 of The McCarthy Collection: French Miniatures (forthcoming, 2020) is eagerly anticipated.  [On this publication and its report of surviving illustrated portions of Ege Manuscript 14, see A Leaf in Dallas from ‘Otto Ege Manuscript 14″ (Lectern Bible).]

Patchwork

Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Otto Ege Collection, 'Ege Family Album', Leaf 14 verso, detail.

Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Otto Ege Collection, ‘Ege Family Album’, Leaf 14 verso, detail.

Some leaves of ‘Otto Ege Manuscript 14’ have patches which fill gaps made in excising decorative elements, presumably for display in their own rights as cuttings.

Many Western medieval manuscripts survive either with cuttings or from cuttings, which forcibly extracted portions of a leaf, resulting in a hole within its original expanse. Although very many of Ege’s leaves themselves constitute cuttings in the form of “whole leaves”, I distinguish these fragments from the related phenomenon of “snippets of decorated borders and isolated initials”, as described and illustrated from collections at the Victoria & Albert Museum, the British Library, and the Walters Art Museum.

So far as I know, studies of the manuscript and attempted reconstructions of the extant pieces of Ege Manuscript 14 do not take much account of the patches, apart from occasional mentions for some individual leaves.

While working to update an account of surviving parts of the manuscript, presented in More Discoveries for ‘Ege Manuscript 14’, I took care to inspect anew images of the leaves available for viewing online.  In the process, I was struck by the references to patches on a couple of different leaves described by catalogue entries.  Those references call for attention.

Their notices appears in 2 catalogue entries known to me.  Both are “Rogue Leaves”, a term applied to some pieces of Ege’s manuscripts.  That is, they were distributed otherwise than through the customary sets of Ege’s FOL Portfolio (Fifty Original Leaves from Western Medieval Manuscripts), in which specimens from Ege MS 14 — usually single leaves, but rarely a pair of leaves in a bifolium — were selected for Leaf Number 14.

An example, within its Ege mat:

The original manuscript is mostly known as Ege Manuscript 19 (Gwara, Handlist, No. 19, page 124).  The numbering follows Ege’s numbering for his FOL Portfolio.  Some identified parts are listed in Scott Gwara’s Handlist, by which we cite them here.

Via the Handlist

1. Gwara, Handlist 14.1.

Boston University = Judith H. Oliver, Manuscripts Sacred and Secular (1985), number 36 [but no plate]

  • End of Kings, Prologue to I Chronicles, and beginning of I Chronicles,
    with a ‘patch taken from another illuminated page of the same manuscript’ covering the cut-out from the ‘theft of initial for I Chronicles’.

One wonders which other page yielded its riches to patch up this leaf.  (See below.)

2.  Gwara Handlist 14. Ref 14.

Sold at Sotheby’s 10 July 2012, lot 2(b)

The leaf carries the Opening of the Catholic Epistle of James on its verso; I have not seen an image of its recto (But see below and Update).

The leaf is described in the Sotheby’s catalogue thus:

leaf from a lectern Bible, 400mm. by 270mm., with a large initial ‘I’ (opening “Iacobus ihesu christi seruus …”, the epistle of James) in burnished gold with a coloured architectural roof and arch, enclosing a bearded James with a golden halo pointing at the opening of his epistle, angular foliage forming text-frame around all sides of one text column, terminating in golden leaves and a dragon, 3-line initial enclosing ivy-leaf, similar text-frame on verso with a dragon and a 5-line initial containing a sprig of foliage ending with a dragon’s head, double column, 50 lines in a regular gothic hand, area of one column cut away (90mm. by 95mm., presumably once with a large initial), now repaired with another cutting from same volume [highlights added], once mounted on card with remains of tape on recto, France or southern Flanders, early fourteenth century

Its contents:

  • Part of the Prologue to the Catholic Epistle of James (from [ut quia Petrus /] est primus in ordine apostolorum) and the opening of this Book, with 1:1–2:4 (nonne iudacitis [/ apud vosmet])

— plus a replacement patch with lines of script from 2 columns of text

Pasted to the recto of the leaf, on the verso the patch shows through the acquired hole, which functions as a form of ‘windowed mat’, across the end of column a and most of column b in their lines 25—37 on the damaged verso of the leaf.  Viewed from the recto, the more-or-less rectangular patch, which has unevenly trimmed edges, can be seen to its full extent.  Viewed from the verso, the extent and shape of the cut-out itself is known.

The mention of “remains of tape on recto” by which the leaf was “once mounted on card” shows that Ege’s matting turned the leaf front-to-back to display the verso.  This is the same side as showcased in the Sotheby’s view online for its auction.  The removal of part of the leaf presumably addressed an attractive historiated initial which began the Prologue on the recto.

The text on the patch identifies the leaf from which it was extracted in turn.  (See below.)

[Update on 8 February 2022:

This leaf has returned to the market.  The current online offering by Stephen Butler Rare Books & Manuscripts of Milton Keynes in the United Kingdom — via both the firm’s website (St James Preaching in an historiated initial on a leaf from a Bible in Latin [Paris, late 13th or early 14th century]) and AbeBooks — illustrates the leaf in two full-page views (recto and verso) and three details (initials and zoomorphic/foliate finials).  The description reports travels from the 2012 Sotheby’s sale:

Sotheby’s, 10 July 2012, lot 2(b), the initial reproduced in colour in the catalogue; bought by:  Robert Weaver, London; recently deaccessioned. Text: The main text is from Acts 27:40 to the end of Acts, a prologue to James (Stegmüller [Repertorium Biblicum Medii Aevi,] no. 809), and the start of James as far as James 2:4, but a portion of text has been cut out and replaced by a patch of parchment from the following leaf of the same manuscript, containing parts of James 2:10 3:9 and 4:8 5:20. This leaf both confirms that Acts appeared between Hebrews (the last of the Pauline Epistles) and James (the first of the Catholic Epistles), and that Acts had an historiated initial. . . . The parent manuscript is discussed, and the known leaves listed, by Peter Kidd, The McCarthy Collection, III: French Miniatures (London, 2021), no 60, pp.199 202, citing the present leaf on p. 201, no. 80, when still in the collection of Robert Weaver.

On that publication and its list of known illustrated leaves, see above and A Leaf in Dallas from ‘Otto Ege Manuscript 14″ (Lectern Bible).  On the texts on the leaf and the patch, see below, reporting the fruits of study already from photographs kindly provided by Peter Kidd before the publication of his catalogue.]

In the “Otto Ege Collection” now at Yale

Another case has emerged in the Otto Ege Collection.  This “find-place” demonstrates that the patch was in place within Ege’s collection, not in some subsequent handling after it left his hands.  That same chronological sequencing evidently pertains to other leaves from the same manuscript with similar patching.

3.   First leaf of Genesis

Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Otto Ege Collection

Genesis opens with a full-page initial I (for Initium) and carries the text from Book 1:1 to 3

Recto

Opening page of the Book of Genesis, with a full-page illustrated initial I for 'In' ('In Principio'), showing scenes from Creation to the Crucifixion. Dismembered leaf from 'Otto Ege MS 14'. Otto Ege Collection, Beinecke Manuscript and Rare Book Library, Yale University. Reproduced by permission.

First page of Genesis from ‘Otto Ege MS 14’. Otto Ege Collection, Beinecke Manuscript and Rare Book Library, Yale University. Reproduced by permission.

Verso

Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Otto Ege Collection, MS 14, Genesis Opening Leaf: Verso.

Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Otto Ege Collection, MS 14, Genesis Opening Leaf: Verso.

The Patched Repair

Recto

Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Otto Ege Collection, MS 14, Genesis Opening Leaf: Recto, Detail of Patch.

Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Otto Ege Collection, MS 14, Genesis Opening Leaf: Recto, Detail of Patch.

Verso

Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Otto Ege Collection, MS 14, Genesis Opening Leaf: Verso, Detail of Patch.

Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Otto Ege Collection, MS 14, Genesis Opening Leaf: Verso, Detail of Patch.

From Which Leaf?

Without (apparently) text on the patch to serve as a guide, it is uncertain to which leaf this decorated element belonged.  At least, to judge by the animated decoration, with a dragonesque biped and branching, scrolling foliate tail, the element belonged to part of a major decorated initial.

The blank side of the patch could be suggestive.  Can we know if originally the decorated element stood on a recto, with a blank verso, or the reverse?

As it now stands on the Genesis leaf, the decorated portion of the patch stands on the recto, with the blank side on the verso.  If the pasted portion of the patch, hidden from view at the edges of the patch where it is pasted to the verso of the leaf, carries any text, the quest might become easier.

Might the hidden side of the patch itself, wherein the pasted parts of its ‘recto’ attach to the verso of the Genesis leaf, hold further clues in any other elements of script or decoration?

Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Otto Ege Collection, MS 14, Genesis Opening Leaf: Recto, Detail of Patch.

Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Otto Ege Collection, MS 14, Genesis Opening Leaf: Recto, Detail of Patch.

Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Otto Ege Collection, MS 14, Genesis Opening Leaf: Recto, Patch Rotated.

At present, in its patched position, the supplied decorative feature stands with the head of its dragonesque creature facing left with opened jaws.  Seen in profile, the biped spreads both legs — appearing as hindlegs — in a striding pose, appearing to march forward, while its elaborate foliate tail creates a nest of branching, coiling scrolls below its body, plus an extension which descends into the lower margin.  There, the tail branches again to form an opposed pair of foliate terminals.

On this side of the leaf, the patched portion neatly fits into the gap.  The supplied segment with its creature nestles below the flat base of the initial I (for Initium).  The letter comprises a vertical row of 8 block-like panels containing figural scenes illustrating episodes which culminate in the Crucifixion.

The tapering downward curve of the creature’s tail in the supplied portion appears to flow more-or-less seamlessly into an existing part of the decoration on the patched page, namely the downwards extension of a foliate strand which produces the pair of foliate terminals.  Thus, the supplied patch and the existing decoration form a new, remedied, form of elaborate terminal for the full-page initial.

Who can say at present from which leaf came the patch? Might its decorative creature have stood in some other alignment on its original page (for example, as shown on the right)?  That alternative, however, seems unlikely, given the orientations of similar decorative terminals to major initials in other parts of the book.

It is appropriate to wonder which major decorated element within the book was mostly ‘sacrificed’ for the sake of taking a patch from it.  And what forms, perhaps, of damage which that element and its leaf had undergone already to be deemed to ‘merit’ such treatment.  Relevant cases of significant damage could be, for example, the leaf near or at the front of the volume and now at Randolph College, with part of Jerome’s 2 Prologues to the Vulgate Bible.

The Patch for the “Sotheby Leaf” Sold on 10 July 2012
(Now in a Private Collection)

[Update:  Full-page images of the leaf in color now appear online by its vendor, via both the firm’s website (St James Preaching in an historiated initial on a leaf from a Bible in Latin [Paris, late 13th or early 14th century]) and AbeBooks.]

Viewed from the Verso

On the verso of the Sotheby leaf from the opening of the Epistle to James — seen online via  Sotheby’s 10 July 2012, lot 2(b) — the patch ‘fills in’ parts of 13 lines of text on the patched page.  Pasted onto the recto, on the verso the patch supplies the right-hand side, or end, of column a and most of column b on the page, as it peeps through the irregularly-shaped ‘window’ cut into the leaf.  In column b, the framed view of the patch covers most of the column between its line having mun-/tiam et habundantiam malitiae in man-[suetudine] of James 1:21 and its line with religio / Religio munda et immaculata apud deum et pa-/trem of James 1:27. The patch covers most of the lines in between, leaving visible the last few letters of the original column.

The patch provides the text of 13 lines from parts of 2 columns of text, presenting the narrow portion of a right-hand column and the wider portion of a left-hand column from some other leaf.  Its own column b carries most of the lines of text from James 3:5 to to 3:9.  Here I separate those transcribed lines into groups of 5, for convenience in keeping track of their span.  Square brackets enclose the lost, or hidden, letters at the ends of lines, as spaced within the original column.

  • Verso of Patch:  Text in parts of 2 columns from the Catholic Epistle of James 2:8–12+ (in one column) and 3:5–9 (in the next)

Column b:

lines ‘1–5’

quidem membrum est, et magna ex[altat.  Ecce]
quantus ignis quam ignis quam magnam [silvam incen-]
dit. Et lingua ignis est universitas [iniqui-]
tatis.  Lingua constituitur in mem[bris nostris]
quae maculat totum corpus, et inflamm[at ro-]

lines ‘6–10’

tam nativitatis nostrae inflammata [a genen-]
na; Omnis eni natura bestia[rum et volu-]
crum et serpentium, et ceterorum do[mantur,]
et domita sunt a natura humana: li[-nguam]
autem nummus hominum domare potest: [?]

lines ’10–12′

inquitum malum, plena venendo [mortifer-]
o .  In ipsa benedicimus Deum et Patrem [et in ipsa]
maledicimus homines, qui ad simili[tudinem . . . ]

The portions of column a on the patch show a few letters at the ends of lines of text apparently from James 2:8 to 12 and beyond.  For example, starting opposite line ‘2’ of the column b of the patch:

Column a:

lines 2–5

[ . . . proximum tuum sicut teipsum bene facitis]: si au–
[tem personas accipitis, peccatum operam]ini, re–
[darguti a lege quasi transgressores] Quicum–
[que autem totam legem servaverit, offendat] autem in

lines 6–7

[uno, factus est omnium reus. Qui enim] dixit
[Non moechaberis, dixit et:  Non occides. Qu]od si

[Etc.]

The other side of the patch would show the flow of text in its course either from or to these columns, so as to establish which side represents the original recto, and which the original verso.  (See below.)

Rate of Text-per-Column or Text-per-Page on the Manuscript Leaf
Versus the Printed Vulgate Edition

However, even without seeing that side of the patch, estimating the rate of text-per-column which the script and layout of the Vulgate text customarily accomplished on its pages in the manuscript, apart from decorated initials of various sizes and opening or closing titles, allows for an educated guess as to where the patch would once have stood on its original page, and to which leaf it would have belonged.

The span of text missing between the bottom of the verso on the “Sotheby’s Leaf” (which ends within James 2:4) and the top of its inserted patch (beginning within James 3:5) amounts to some 3 columns of text as printed in a standard edition of the Latin Vulgate.

I chose as standard the “Weber” critical edition, also known as the “Stuttgart Vulgate”, edited by Robert Weber, Biblia Sacra iuxta Vulgatam versionem (Stuttgart, 2 volumes, 2nd revised edition, 1969), although that edition exists in later forms. My copy has served faithfully over the years since I purchased it in Dublin in the early years of my postgraduate research dedicated to a magnificent large-format Vulgate Bible manuscript, also despoiled, made in Canterbury in the 9th century and surviving in fragments in different places. That manuscript, too, has patched portions which remedy cut-out holes and corner-sections.  (See below).

A note on available Vulgate editions (from Wikipedia, “Stuttgart Vulgate”):

  • Weber, Robert; Gryson, Roger, eds. (2007). Biblia sacra : iuxta Vulgatam versionem.  Archive.org. Oliver Wendell Holmes Library, Phillips Academy (5th ed.). Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft.  ISBN 978-3-438-05303-9.
  • Weber-Gryson (Stuttgart) Vulgate – text only
  • Latin Vulgate with Parallel English Douay-Rheims and King James Version, Stuttgart edition, but missing 3 and 4 Esdras, Manasses, Psalm 151, and Laodiceans.

In the Weber edition, like some other editions of the Vulgate version of the Bible, the double columns of text per page are laid out per cola et commata, as arranged by its translator Jerome.  That is, the lines are set out in clause- and phrase-units, as an aid to readers, in accordance with long-standing tradition — rather than in continuous lines or paragraphs, as happens in Ege Manuscript 14.  The printed pages have critical textual apparatus in the lower margin to report significant variants found in certain manuscript witnesses and some earlier printed editions.  Note that the textual apparatus, reporting certain variants from the standard edition, can be useful in approaching late-medieval copies of the Vulgate, as I have found in examining portions of text in Ege Manuscript 14, including the ones here.

In Ege Manuscript 14, other cases of the rate-per-page can be seen on the first leaf of Genesis (also patched).  Its recto, with a full-page initial at the left-hand-side of its column a, introduces that significant decorated variable or disruption in the standard rate.  In contrast, its verso, without such major interruption or diversion within one of the columns, carries the text from Genesis 2:2 (et requirevit / de septimo ab universo) to within 3:19 (in pulverem reverteris et uo-[cavit Adam]). That span corresponds roughly to 3 1/2 columns of printed text (set out per cola et commata). 

So, counting the rate of coverage in the manuscript, roughly 3 columns of text, as printed, would have stood between the “Sotheby’s Leaf” and the top of the patch on that leaf when still part of its own leaf.  Which means the leaf following the Sotheby’s Leaf.

The patch extracted from James and 3:5 to 3:9 (on one of its sides) came conveniently from the very next leaf in the Bible; the recto of the patch served to remedy the recto of the cut-out portion on the restored leaf.  The cutting from the Sotheby Leaf itself would have carried the decorated, and perhaps or probably historiated, initial on its recto.

Viewed from the Recto

And now, in a development for the unfolding research, Peter Kidd has kindly sent me a photograph of the recto of the Sotheby Leaf, now in a Private Collection, and photographs of both sides of the patched leaf in Boston University.

Sotheby Leaf

  • Recto of Patch:  Text in parts of 2 columns from the Catholic Epistle of James2:8–12(+) and 3:5–9

The Patched Leaf at Boston University

As described in Judith Oliver’s Catalogue of Manuscripts Sacred and Secular (1985), the leaf with a patch at Boston University has the

  • End of Kings, Prologue to I Chronicles, and beginning of I Chronicles (as above)

It is now possible to refine the description, with thanks to Peter Kidd’s photographs.

The leaf is Boston University, School of Theology Library, MS Leaf 38.  The leaf itself contains, albeit with gaps front and back from the cut-out section:

  • the end of IV Kings 25:17 [cubitor altitudinis/] habeat columna) to the end (verso 30),
  • the text of Jerome’s Prologue to Paralipomenon (Chronicles) [however numbered as XXVI in the margin], including the decorated initial S of Si, and
  • the beginning of I Chronicles to 1:41 (Dison filii [/ Dison Amaran]), but without the decorated initial of the Book and parts of its column b (cut out and lost)

On the verso, seen in full, the patch covers part of column a, between the last few lines of the Prologue, following the words ipsi et / meis iuxta], and the first lines of Book 1 up to the last line of the column, preceding [Rif-]ath et Thorgorma filii autem Ie[-van Elisa].

The Patch carries portions of text from the same Catholic Epistle.  The framed recto of the patch shows 12 lines of text, while the full, unframed, extent of the verso shows 14 lines.  Seen in full, the verso demonstrates that the patch came from the bottom of its column, as it retains not only the last line of text but also the upper portion of the lower margin (some 2 lines’ worth of space), including parts of the foliate ornament of the lower terminal descending from the vertical band which frames the left-hand-side of the column.  The expanse of margin at the left beyond that border bar demonstrates that the column stood at the left in the pair of columns on its original page, and not in the narrower intercolumn between the pair.

  • Recto of Patch:  Catholic Epistle of James 3:17 ([sucedib-/il[is] bonis consentiens) to 4:4 (est Deo Quicum[/-que ergo]), including the opening initial U of Unde for Chapter 4
  • Verso of Patch:  Catholic Epistle of James 5:4 ([uestras qui] fraudata est) to 5:10 (patientiae prophetas [quo locuti])

Note:  The reading sucedibilis + bonis consentiens in James 3:17 corresponds to a variant attested in some other witnesses, shown in the textual apparatus for the Weber edition (1975), volume II, page 1862.

The Source Leaves

The gap in text between Patch ‘1’ from the Epistle of James and Patch ‘2’ — that is, the text between James 3:9 and 3:17 — amounts to roughly 3/4 of a printed column in the Weber edition.

It appears that the patch on the Boston University Leaf may have come from the same leaf as the one sacrificed to patch the ‘Sotheby Leaf’.

We might presume that the work of patching both these leaves belonged to a single operation.  Perhaps the patch for the Genesis opening leaf now at Yale likewise belongs to the same operation?

Styles of Cutting and Styles of Patching

It might be true that “A Rose is a Rose is a Rose”.  But the same does not pertain to “A Patch is a Patch is a Patch”.  Patches in medieval manuscripts come in many different shapes and sizes, and their styles of application vary, too.

Exhibit A

The 9th-century Royal Bible of Saint Augustine’s Abbey, Canterbury:  London, British Library, Royal MS 1 E. vi., available for view in a digital facsimile.  It is the subject of my Ph. D. dissertation, “British Library Manuscript Royal 1 E.vi:  The Anatomy of an Anglo-Saxon Bible Fragment” (University of London, 1985), published online.

The large-format Vulgate Bible has been reduced to a fragment of its former splendor.  Originally a Bible of some 1,000 leaves in large format, it has lost very many leaves, as well as some part-leaves.  At least some of them were apparently severed at knife-point for elements of illustration, decoration, and decorated text.  The losses belonged to more than one campaign of spoliation, which took place apparently at the home of the manuscript in the medieval period, Saint Augustine’s Abbey.

Here we consider the surviving patches, of uncertain date, which inelegantly fill the gaps introduced when portions of decorated script were cut out, perhaps to serve as specimens.

Patches adhere to 3 surviving leaves.  Each patched leaf has decorated text on its recto, while the verso was originally blank.

Folio 1

Folio 1 at the front of the Gospel or New Testament unit is a purple-dyed leaf written in lines of monumental capitals which alternate between lines of gold and (oxidized) silver pigment.  The centered last line of the inscription was cut out at some stage; presumably its letters were gold.  Its gap was filled with a stained and now darkened patch pasted to one side.

The process of cutting involved drawing the point of a knife along the surface of the leaf while it lay against the following leaves.  The cutting mark incised a corresponding flap in folio 2; the severed lines were stitched back into place.

© The British Library Board, Royal MS 1 E vi, folio 1v. Reproduced by permission

© The British Library Board, Royal MS 1 E vi, folio 1v. Reproduced by permission

The next leaf has a stitched repair for the cut-out flap which resulted from the drawing of the knife point against the sought-after recto of the preceding folio while the book lay open.  The stitching is visible just above the British Museum stamp centered below the columns of text.

© The British Library Board. Royal MS 1 E VI, folio 2r.

© The British Library Board. Royal MS 1 E VI, folio 2r.

Folio 28 (with a Patch similar to Folio 68)

The unevenly cut-out lower outer corner of the leaf with the Chapter List for the Mark Gospel was filled with an unevenly trimmed patch, similar to the patched repair on the John Chapter List.  In both cases, the Chapter List occupies the recto of the leaf; the verso is blank.  Presumably the tapered text of column b led to an embellished element of some kind, for which the excision was effected.  The patch is pasted to the verso.

Recto

© The British Library Board, Royal MS 1 E vi, folio 29r. Reproduced by permission

© The British Library Board, Royal MS 1 E vi, folio 29r. Reproduced by permission

Verso of Patch

On the back, the full extent of the patch shows itself.

© The British Library Board. Royal MS 1 E VI, folio 68v, detail. Verso of patch

© The British Library Board. Royal MS 1 E VI, folio 68v, detail. Verso of patch.

An Example of the Decorated Titles

© The British Library Board, Royal MS 1 E vi, folio 28v. Reproduced by permission

© The British Library Board, Royal MS 1 E vi, folio 28v. Reproduced by permission

The patches at least fill gaps on the leaves of the Bible, but their function solely replaces pieces of parchment.  In the case of Folio 1, the patch offers an attempt to colorize the patch, so as to try to match or mask the purple-dyed original leaf.  Over time, the color on the patch has faded or changed to brown, revealing its different stage in the non-original work on the manuscript.

Cuttings Galore

Specimens of cut-outs, once they are extracted from their original books, sometimes gather in collections dedicated to specific dates, regions (say, Italy), and types of decoration.  For example, The British Library’s collection of Italian illuminated cuttings. Described thus:

The British Library’s collection of Italian illuminated cuttings consists of around 675 initials, miniatures, and single leaves. These were predominantly cut from liturgical manuscripts of northern and central Italian monasteries and churches that were suppressed in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Cuttings from non-religious manuscripts, such as miniatures from law text-books, and frontispieces from doge’s commissions of the Venetian Republic, are also represented in the collection.

The Victoria & Albert Museum has many such specimens, besides its collection of manuscripts.  The range is summarized thus:

The National Art Library at the V&A holds over 300 Western illuminated manuscripts dating from the 11th to the early 20th century, including books of hours, bibles, missals, choir books, classical works, patents of nobility, and grants of arms and illuminated addresses.

In addition to these, the museum’s collections also include about 2,500 manuscript cuttings representative of different styles, periods and regions. While a few Islamic and Ethiopian manuscripts are held in the National Art Library, most of the non-Western material is part of the museum’s Asian collections.

Etc.  Somewhere, perchance, the cuttings from Ege Manuscript 14 might survive, awaiting discovery.  Perchance might the leaves from which the patches were extracted also survive?

The Extant Patches in Ege Manuscript 14 as Cuttings
and Its Extant Leaves with Cut-Outs

So far, we know of no extant leaves from Ege Manuscript 14 which have holes left-over from decorated elements cut out from them, say in the form of cuttings for display on their own.

Perhaps it is worth considering scrapbooks or collections of cuttings as possible locations for dispersed parts of the book.  Peter Kidd’s website for Medieval Manuscripts Provenance reports admirable cumulative research on these subjects.

Are we in a position to know when the cuttings were extracted from Ege Manuscript 14?  All at once?  Neither of the sales catalogues which showcased the manuscript while still intact, at Sothebys in 1936 and at Parke Bernet in 1948, mention such cuttings, nor such repairs.   Does that omission indicate an unremarked or unmentioned feature, or did the cut-outs exit later?  Are we certain that the sale in 1948 went directly to Ege, or instead to some intermediary?

Clues toward the ‘workshop’ which patched the cuttings might reside in the ‘style’ of patch work.  That is, the choices of patches and their methods of placement and positioning upon the leaves exhibit an elevated degree of attention to design and layout.

The recto of the patched Sotheby’s leaf shows pencil markings in the form of arrows which guide the placement of the patch to fit within the ‘window’ of the hole.  See its image:  Sotheby’s 10 July 2012, lot 2(b) .  Might we guess whose marks are these?

More research on the fragments of Ege Manuscript 14, as more become visible to study, may help to answer such questions.  They may, for example, reveal further aspects of Ege’s workshop practices in dismembering his manuscripts or other books and presenting them for display and distribution.

Contributions to that research is presented on our blog.  For example:

  • A Leaf from ‘Otto Ege Manuscript 19’ and Ege’s Workshop Practices
  • Contents List for the blog on Manuscript Studies

*****

Do you know of other patched leaves in this manuscript?  Do you know of cuttings from it?

Please let us know.

Add your Comments here, Contact Us, and visit our Facebook Page.

Watch this space and follow our blog for further research on dispersed manuscripts, those of Otto Ege included.  See the Contents List.

*****

Tags: Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Cut-outs from Manuscripts, Despoilated Manuscripts, Fragmentology, Medieval Manuscript Fragments, Otto Ege Collection, Otto Ege Manuscript 14, Patches in Manuscripts, Peter Kidd, Royal Bible of Saint Augustine's Abbey
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Updates for ‘Otto Ege Manuscript 19’

August 12, 2020 in Manuscript Studies, Uncategorized

A Glimpse of
‘Otto Ege Manuscript 19’
While It Was Still Intact

Portable Quarto Bible in the Latin Vulgate Version
Italy, circa 1275, with Illuminations made apparently in Paris

Double columns in 48 lines
circa 235 × 170 mm <written area circa 153 × 107 mm>

[Posted on 12 August 2020]

Opening of the Book of Maccabees in Otto Ege MS 19. Private Collection.

Opening of the Book of Maccabees in Otto Ege MS 19. Private Collection.

Continuing to explore the tracks of manuscripts dispersed by Otto F. Ege (1888–1951), we gain access to the Sotheby’s catalogue for the auction in 1936 from which the manuscript mostly known as ‘Ege Manuscript 19’ came to him.  For the name, see  Scott Gwara, Handlist, Number 19 (page 124).

For access to the elusive catalogue, we thank Stephen Massey, Bruce McKinney, and our Associate, Eric White, for help with the quest while libraries remain closed through months in 2020.

We began to study the manuscript when the owner of one of its leaves, J. S. Wagner, contacted us on account of our blog, which reported discoveries for some other Ege manuscripts.  For example,

  • 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)
  • More Leaves from ‘Otto Ege Manuscript 51’
  • More Discoveries for ‘Otto Ege Manuscript 14’

Our discoveries for Ege MS 19 are reported here:

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

Now we examine the written record for the Provenance and the state of the volume before Ege.

Read the rest of this entry →

Tags: Ege Manuscipt 51, Ege Manuscript 14, Ege Manuscript 19, Fragmentology, History of Binding, Interpretation of Hebrew Names, Interpretationes Hebraicorum Nominum, Latin Vulgate Bible, Manuscript studies, Medieval Manuscript Fragments, Otto F. Ege, Sothebys
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More Discoveries for ‘Otto Ege Manuscript 14’

August 3, 2020 in Manuscript Studies, Uncategorized

Some Known Leaves
from ‘Otto Ege Manuscript 14’
In Sequence

[Posted on 3 August 2020, with updates.]

Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Otto Ege Collection, Family FOL Portfolio, Leaf 18 original recto, opening of Apocalypse Prologue.

Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Otto Ege Collection, Family FOL Portfolio, Leaf 18 original recto, opening of Apocalypse Prologue.

We offer an updated and illustrated list of some of the leaves — not all — which have come to light from the dismembered and widely dispersed copy of the Vulgate Bible in large format now known as “Otto Ege Manuscript 14”.

It takes its name from the owner, Otto F. Ege (1888–1951), who took it to pieces and destroyed its integrity as an intact volume which had been purchased at auction in New York after World War II.  It takes its Number from the number which Ege assigned to it in the series of specimens from similarly dismembered medieval manuscripts arranged in his Portfolio of Fifty Original Leaves from Western Manuscripts (FOL for short), numbered 1–50.

There the specimens are presented in matted frames of uniform size and provided with a printed label which cites the Leaf Number and offers a paragraph with some generic observations about the manuscript, the author, the type of script, the genre of text, and suchlike.  The label was worded so as, presumably, to suit many different leaves from a given book.

Within the frame, the manuscript leaf would stand behind the windowed mat which obscures some of its exterior features.  The hinged mat allows (if permitted by the owner) for opening the frame to inspect the full extent of the leaf and, it may be, to lift the leaf so as to observe features on its other side.  Not infrequently, Ege turned the original rectos of the leaves to the verso position in the frame, so as to display whichever features might be deemed preferable for display.

Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Otto Ege Collection, Leaf with the opening of the Book of Revelation within Ege's mat, which turns the original verso to the front.

Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Otto Ege Collection, Leaf with the opening of the Book of Revelation within Ege’s mat, which turns the original verso to the front.

The former manuscript had many more leaves than the number required for the 40 numbered Sets of the FOL Portfolio — plus any unnumbered Sets, of which perhaps 1 or 2 are known.  As characteristic of Ege’s distribution strategies, individual leaves could have their own mats and, often, their own labels.

The current locations of a number of Sets have been identified, and more may come to light.  So too, many other leaves have turned up in various collections.  The work of identifying them as belonging to Ege Manuscript 14 and discovering where they are preserved represents a significant stage in the recovery process.  That many have passed through the sales rooms of auction houses and book-sellers, sometimes more than once, introduces challenges to that process of discovery.

Read the rest of this entry →

Tags: Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscri, Fragmentology, History of Bindings, Interpretation of Hebrew Names, Interpretationes Hebraicorum Nominum, Lectern Bible, manuscript fragments, Medieval Manuscript Fragments, Otto Ege Manuscript 14, Reconstructing Manuscripts Virtually
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Some Leaves in Set 1 of Ege’s FOL Portfolio

June 19, 2020 in Manuscript Studies

Leaves from
‘Otto Ege Manuscripts 8, 14, 19, and 41’
In a Newly Discovered Portfolio
of Fifty Original Leaves (“FOL”)

[Published on 18 June 2020]

[Update on 22 January 2021:  This set, sold at auction at Christie’s in London on 8 December 2020, has been acquired by the Houghton Library at Harvard University, as announced by John Overholt.]

Continuing our series of blogposts (see our Contents List) on some manuscripts dismembered and dispersed by Otto F. Ege (1888–1951) in various Portfolios or by other means, we report on selected leaves which emerge into view in a newly discovered set of the Portfolio of Fifty Original Leaves (“FOL”). 

Set 1 of Ege's FOL Portfolio, Leaf 14 recto: Initial for Lamentations.

Set 1 of Ege’s FOL Portfolio, Leaf 14 recto: Initial for Lamentations.

Among the numbered sets, the ‘new’ one has the Number 1.  This “previously-unknown” set of Ege’s “Fifty Original Leaves” in private hands is reported by our Associate Lisa Fagin Davis in her blog: Manuscript Road Trip: Otto Ege, St. Margaret. and Digital Fragmentology, Part 2 (June 7, 2020), following her Part 1 describing her own and other scholars’ work — ours included — on the FOL manuscripts:  Manuscript Road Trip: Fragmentology in the Wild (July 14, 2019).

We thank the owner and Lisa for allowing us to see images of the relevant leaves in the new set, resulting in updates for the manuscripts which we have already considered within Ege’s FOL Portfolio.  A complete set of the Portfolio contains ‘Ege MSS 1–50’, as numbered both by Ege and by Scott Gwara in his book on Otto Ege’s Manuscripts (2013). 

Here, augmenting our work already on survivors from some of those Fifty manuscripts in other settings (sets of the FOL Portfolio and elsewhere), we focus on Ege MSS 8, 14, 19, and 41.   This post contributes to our on-going study of Ege’s manuscripts and other materials, medieval and other, Western and more.  So far:  Ege MSS 8, 14, 41, 51, 56, 61, and 214 (see our Contents List). Read the rest of this entry →

Tags: Christie's, De tribus diebus by Hugh of Saint-Victor, Dialogues of Gregory the Great, Dispersed Manuscript Leaves, Ege's FOL Portfolios, Epistles of John Chrysostom, Fragmentology, History of Manuscripts, Houghton Library, Hugh of Saint-Victor, Latin Vulgate Bible, Medieval Manuscript Fragments, Meditations of Saint Anselm, Otto Ege, Otto Ege MS 14, Otto Ege MS 19, Otto Ege MS 41, Otto Ege MS 8, Otto Ege Portfolios, Wilton Processional
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