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.

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.

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 →