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    • Kalamazoo Archive
    • Panels at the M-MLA Convention
      • Abstracts of Papers for the M-MLA Convention
  • Events
    • Seminars, Workshops, Colloquia & Symposia (1989–)
      • Seminars on ‘The Evidence of Manuscripts’
      • Symposia on ‘The Transmission of the Bible’
      • The New Series
        • 2019 Anniversary Symposium Program: The Roads Taken
        • 2019 Anniversary Symposium Registration
        • 2019 Anniversary Symposium Registration Open
    • Abstracts of Papers for Events
      • Abstracts of Papers for Seminars on ‘The Evidence of Manuscripts’
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        • Mildred Budny, ‘Catalogue’
        • The Illustrated Catalogue (1997)
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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
Private Collection, Ege's FBNC Portfolio, Aquinas Leaf, Recto, Top Right. Reproduced by Permission.
Otto Ege’s Aquinas Manuscript in Humanist Script (‘Ege Manuscript 40’)
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)
Baltimore, The Walters Art Museum, MS W.782, folio 15r. Van Alphen Hours. Dutch Book of Hours made for a female patron in the mid 15th century. Opening page of the Hours of the Virgin: "Here du salste opdoen mine lippen". Image via Creative Commons. At the bottom of the bordered page, an elegantly dressed woman sits before a shiny bowl- or mirror-like object, in order, perhaps, to perform skrying or to lure a unicorn.
2021 Congress Program Announced
J. S. Wagner Collection, Early-Printed Missal Leaf, Verso. Rubric and Music for Holy Saturday. Reproduced by Permission.
Carmelite Missal Leaf of 1509
Set 1 of Otto Ege's FOL Portfolio, Leaf 19 recto: Deuteronomy title and initial.
Updates for ‘Otto Ege Manuscript 19’
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
Church of Saint Mary, High Ongar, Essex, with 12th-Century Nave. Photograph by John Salmon (8 May 2004), Image via Wikipedia.
A Charter of 1399 from High Ongar in Essex
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
Private Collection, "Margaritas" fragment back side, lines 2-5.
The Pearly Gateway: A Scrap from a Latin Missal or Breviary
Preston Charter 7 Seal Face with the name Gilbertus.
Preston Take 2
The Outward-Facing Cat and a Hand of Cards. Detail from Adèle Kindt (1804–1884), The Fortune Teller (circa 1835). Antwerp, Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten. Image via Wikimedia Commons.
Keeping Up: Updates for Spring 2020
New York, Grolier Club, \*434.14\Aug\1470\Folio. Flavius Josephus, De antiquitate Judiaca and De bello Judaico, translated by Rufinus Aquileinensis, printed in Augsburg on paper by Johannn Schüsseler in 2 Parts, dated respectively 28 June 1470 and 23 August 1470, and bound together with a manuscript copy dated 1462 of Eusebius Caesariensis, Historia ecclesiastica.
2020 Spring Symposium Cancelled or Postponed
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
Baltimore, The Walters Art Museum, MS W.782, folio 15r. Van Alphen Hours. Dutch Book of Hours made for a female patron in the mid 15th century. Opening page of the Hours of the Virgin: "Here du salste opdoen mine lippen". Image via Creative Commons. At the bottom of the bordered page, an elegantly dressed woman sits before a shiny bowl- or mirror-like object, in order, perhaps, to perform skrying or to lure a unicorn.
2020 International Congress on Medieval Studies Program Announced
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.
The Penitent King David from a Book of Hours
Bust of the God Janus. Vatican City, Vatican Museums. Photo by Fubar Obfusco via Wikimedia Commons.
2019 M-MLA Panel Program
Coffee Break at our 2002 British Museum Colloquium. Our Director, Dáibhí Ó Cróinin, and Giles Constable. Photograph by our Associate, Geoffrey R. Russom.
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
Heidere Diploma 2 in the Unofficial Version, with puns aplenty. The Diploma has an elaborate interlace border around the proclamation.
Heidere Diplomas & Investiture
2019 Anniversary Symposium: The Roads Taken
Detail of illustration.
Sanskrit and Prakrit Manuscripts
Poster announcing the Call for Papers for the Permanent Panels sponsored by the Research Group on Manuscript Evidence, to be held at the 2019 MMLA Convention in Chicago in November. Poster set in RGME Bembino and designed by Justin Hastings.
2019 M-MLA Call for Papers
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”
Gold stamp on blue cloth of the logo of the Research Group on Manuscript Evidence. Detail from the front cover of Volume II of 'The Illustrated Catalogue'
Design & Layout of “The Illustrated Catalogue”
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’?
© The British Library Board. Harley MS 628, folio 160 verso. the initial 'd' for 'Domini'.
2018 M-MLA Call for Papers
Fountain of Books outside the Main Library of the Cincinnati Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County.
2017 M-MLA Panel Report
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.
2017 M-MLA Panel
Poster for 'In a Knotshell' (November 2012)with border
Designing Academic Posters
Opening Lines of the Book of Zachariah. Courtesy of Flora Lamson Hewlett Library, Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley, CA. Reproduced by permission.
More Discoveries for “Otto Ege Manuscript 61”
Slice of Brie. Photograph by Coyau via Wikipedia Commons.
Say Cheese
Alcove Beside Entrance to Garneau at AZO 2017. Photography © Mildred Budny.
2017 Congress Report
Duck Family at the 2007 Congress. Photography © Mildred Budny.
2017 Congress Program
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
A Reused Part-Leaf from Bede’s Homilies on the Gospels
Detail of middle right of Verso of detached leaf from the Nichomachean Ethics in Latin translation, from a manuscript dispersed by Otto Ege and now in a private collection. Reproduced by permission.
More Leaves from ‘Otto Ege Manuscript 51’
Running title for EZE on the verso of the Ezekiel leaf from 'Ege Manuscript 61'. Photography by Mildred Budny
A New Leaf from ‘Otto Ege Manuscript 61’
Decorated opening word 'Nuper' of the Dialogues, Book III, Chapter 13, reproduced by permission
A New Leaf from ‘Otto Ege Manuscript 41’
Private Collection, Leaf from Ege MS 14, with part of the A-Group of the 'Interpretation of Hebrew Names'. Photograph by Mildred Budny.
A New Leaf from ‘Otto Ege Manuscript 14’
A Reused Part-Leaf from Bede’s Homilies on the Gospels
Photography by David Immerman.
Radio Star
Close-Up of The Host of 'The Library Cafe' in the Radio Studio. Photography © Mildred Budny
A Visit to The Library Café
Booklet Page 1 of the 'Interview with our Font & Layout Designer' (2015-16)
Interview with our Font & Layout Designer
Initial I of Idem for Justinian's Novel Number 134, with bearded human facing left at the top of the stem of the letter. Photography © Mildred Budny
It’s A Wrap
The Brandon Plaque. Gold and niello. The British Museum, via Creative Commons.
Seminar on the Evidence of Manuscripts (January 1992)
© The British Library Board. Cotton MS Tiberius A III, folio 117v, top right. Reproduced by permission.
Seminar on the Evidence of Manuscripts (August 1993)
Invitation to 'Canterbury Manuscripts' Seminar on 19 September 1994
Seminar on the Evidence of Manuscripts (September 1994)
Logo of the Research Group on Manuscript Evidence in Monochrome Version
Seminar on the Evidence of Manuscripts (May 1989)
Logo of the Research Group on Manuscript Evidence (colour version)
2016 Report for CARA
Heading of Blanked out Birth certificate after adoption completed.
Lillian Vail Dymond
Initial C of 'Concede'. Detail from a leaf from 'Otto Ege Manuscript 15', the 'Beauvais Missal'. Otto Ege Collection, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University. Photograph by Lisa Fagin Davis. Reproduced by Permission
2016 Symposium on ‘Words & Deeds’
Detail with Initial G of Folio Ivb of Bifolium from a Latin Medicinal Treatise reused formerly as the cover of a binding for some other text, unknown. Reproduced by permission
Spoonful of Sugar
Detail of Leaf I, recto, column b, lines 7-12, with a view of the opening of the Acts of the Apostles, chapter 23, verse 3, with an enlarged opening initial in metallic red pigment
New Testament Leaves in Old Armenian
Decoated initial E for 'En' on the verso of the Processional Leaf from ' Ege Manuscript 8'. Photography by Mildred Budny
A New Leaf from ‘Otto Ege Manuscript 8’
Cloth bag, now empty, for the original seal to authenticate the document, which remains intact, for a transaction of about the mid 13th-century at Preston, near Ipswich, Suffolk, UK. Photograph reproduced by permission.
Full Court Preston
The Date 1538 on the Scrap, enhanced with photographic lighting. Photography © Mildred Budny
Scrap of Information
Lower half of Recto of Leaf from the Office of the Dead in a Small-Format Book of Hours. Photography © Mildred Budny
Manuscript Groupies
Detail of cross-shaft, rays of light, and blue sky or background in the illustration of the Mass of Saint Gregory. Photography © Mildred Budny
The Mass of Saint Gregory, Illustrated
Penwork extending from a decorated initial extends below the final line of text and ends in a horned animal head which looks into its direction. Photography © Mildred Budny
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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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A New Leaf from ‘Otto Ege Manuscript 22’: The Warburg Missal

March 23, 2021 in Manuscript Studies

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.

A New Leaf from Ege Manuscript 22

“The Warburg Missal”

Folio CLVI in the Temporal

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 and the companion Booklet examines the Leaf, sets it in context of its former manuscripts, and re-assesses 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 windowed mats, in the company of other Ege manuscript leaves.  The Wagner Leaf, however, travelled on its own, through a different highway of circulation.  Ege’s handwritten note on the recto and the accompanying printed slip (see below) 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', Bergendal Collection, Ege Manuscript 22, Ege's FOL Portfolio, Fragmentology, Leander van Ess, Medieval Manuscript Fragments, Missal Herbipolensis, Otto Ege, Sir Thomas Phillipps, The Warburg Missal
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Specimens of Ege Manuscript 40 in the Ege Family Portfolio

March 19, 2021 in Manuscript Studies, Uncategorized

Specimens of the Aquinas Manuscript in Humanist Script
(Ege Manuscript 40)
in the ‘Ege Family Portfolio’

— Part III of III in the series on this manuscript —

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.

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)

*****

Folios ‘1’ and 216

[1] Super Sententiis, Prooemium (to Ipse dedit quosdam)
and
[2331] Super Sent., Liber 1, Distinctio 32, Quaestio 2, Articulo 2 (qc. 1 co), to [2341] Distinctio 33, Quaestio 1, Articulo 1 (arg. 2)

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, Top Left. Photography Mildred Budny.

Previously, in exploring the Portfolio of Famous Books assembled by Otto F. Ege, we examined the 15th-century Aquinas Manuscript whose dismembered specimens appear in 2 of his Portfolios.  See

  • Part I: Otto Ege’s “Aquinas Manuscript in Humanist Script” (Ege Manuscript 40).
  • Otto Ege Manuscript 40, Part II: Before and After Ege

Now we reach Part III of III.

Known as Ege Manuscript 40 from its assigned number in the Portfolio of Fifty Original Leaves from Medieval Western Manuscripts (“FOL”), its leaves also joined Ege’s Portfolio of Famous Books in Nine Centuries (“FBNC”) as the 6th Manuscript Specimen (of 6).  By virtue of its FOL position, it appears in the Handlist of Otto Ege’s Manuscripts (2016), as no. 40 (pp. 131–132 etc.).

Humanist Script and Book-Production

Its case pertains to the notable genre of Humanist Manuscripts, which emerged in Italy from the early 15th century onwards.  Illustrated descriptions of the origins and development of Humanist(ic) Script include:

  • Humanistic Script, via Digitized Medieval Manuscripts, and
  • Humanist Minuscule, via Wikipedia.

Displays of such books include:

  • The Humanistic Book at The Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge.
Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Otto Ege Collection, FOL Set 3, MS 40, Specimen 1: folio '1'r, Top Left. Photography Mildred Budny.

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

There, we find a concise description of the phenonemon (I emphasize several elements in red).

In Italy in the early fifteenth century a revolution took place in the script and decoration of the manuscript book, first in Florence, and very soon after in the rest of the peninsula. It involved the rediscovery of classical texts, the revival of ancient literature as a central element of the curriculum, the reform of Latin spelling, and a new style of writing, called by its contemporaries littera antica and known to us today as ‘humanistic script’.

The new type of book received a new style of decoration. At first, it was limited to the white-vine scrolls meandering around birds, butterflies, and chubby little boys, the ubiquitous putti. But by the mid-fifteenth century, illuminators were experimenting with three-dimensional images corresponding to the antiquarian passions of Humanist scholars and collectors. Ancient inscriptions, jewels, and archaeological finds inspired the illusionistic monumental frontispieces and architectural title pages, one of the most lasting contributions of the Humanistic manuscript to book design.

As they come into view, more leaves from the fragmented Ege Manuscript 40 allow its case to assume its proper place within the robust tradition of Humanist script and book-production.  Now we focus upon the special contributions which its leaves in the ‘Ege Family Portfolio’ can make to a fuller understanding of its origin and history.

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Tags: Aquinas on the Sentences of Peter Lombard, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, British Library Harley MS 3110, Corpus Christi College Cambridge MS 81, Dispersed Manuscript Leaves, Ege Family Portfolio, Ege Manuscript 41, Ege's FOL Portfolio, Ege's Portfolio of Famous Books, Humanist Manuscripts, Humanist Script, Lawrence J. Schoenberg Collection LJS 225, manuscript fragments, Medieval Manuscript Fragments, Morgan Library MS M 476, Otto Ege Manuscript 31, Otto Ege Manuscript 40, Otto Ege Manuscript 51, Otto Ege Manuscript 53, Otto Ege Portfolios, Owner's Arms in Wreath, White Vine-Scroll Ornament
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Otto Ege’s Portfolio of ‘Famous Books’ and ‘Ege Manuscript 53’ (Quran)

January 27, 2021 in Manuscript Studies, Uncategorized

Ege’s Famous Books

and

A New Leaf from Ege Manuscript 53

Qur’an or Koran written in Arabic on paper

Egypt, dated 1122 CE (500 AH), but later:  Probably Mamluk Dynasty, 14th or 15th Century

Circa 391 × 299 mm <Written area circa 285 × 220 mm>

Single column of 15 lines in Arabic

Surah 4:163 – Surah 5:4

With rubricated titles, textual dividers, and rosettes for verse markers

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, Back of Leaf, Detail. Reproduced by permission.

[Published on 27 January 2021, with updates]

Here we begin to showcase a newly revealed set of one of the Portfolios of specimen Leaves from books and manuscripts assembled by Otto F. Ege (1888–1951).  This set presents a selection of specimens of Famous Books, in the longer, or deluxe version, of Nine Centuries.  The shorter version covers Eight Centuries.

The version 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, some sets in both versions have come into our view — mainly on account of the specimens from a 14th-century manuscript in Latin on paper with Aristotle’s Nichomachean Ethics or its commentaries.  Our study of that manuscript began with an isolated leaf in a private collection, then moved to examine more of its relatives surviving elsewhere.

  • More Leaves from ‘Otto Ege Manuscript 51’
  • More Parts of ‘Otto Ege Manuscript 51’
Opening for 'Genus dividitur in genus'. Detail from Recto of Aristotle leaf in Set 47 of Ege's Portfolio of 'Famous Books'. Kent State University Libraries, reproduced by permission.

Kent State University Libraries, Set 47 of Otto Ege’s Portfolio of ‘Famous Books’, Aristotle Leaf, detail: ‘Genus dividitur in genus’. Reproduced by permission.

Now, we consider the Portfolio in Nine Centuries as such more fully, in the light of the ‘new’ set.  This post first examines the nature of the Portfolio (and its fraternal twin in Eight Centuries), then turns to look at its Leaf 1, extracted from a Quran/Koran manuscript in Arabic on paper.  That manuscript presents its text in single columns (unframed) of 15 lines, with some rubricated elements and embellishments in gold and other pigments.

Further posts may examine other leaves in the Portfolio, in their manuscript and printed forms.

Broad in vision, the range of specimens come from religious and secular texts over the course of centuries and from a wide range of places of production.  As an indication, see Ege’s Contents List (shown below) and his individual Labels for all 40 specimens — displayed online from another set (at Case Western University).

The specimens represent texts in various languages (mostly Western) and by many notable, and even world-class, authors. Represented in their own language or another, they include Homer, Aristotle, Cicero, Ovid, Pliny, Virgil, Dante, Petrarch, Boccaccio, Erasmus, Chaucer, Cervantes, Shakespeare, Milton, Montaigne, the Beowulf poet, and the translators of the King James Version. The specimens represent many renowned printers in Western Europe and the United States, such as Nicolas Jenson, Aldus Manutius, Robert Estienne, Lucantonio Giunta, Bodoni, the Kelmscott Press, and the Riverside Press.  Not forgetting, among others, a specimen from the Nuremberg Chronicle of 1493 and from the Fourth Folio of 1685. A few specimens include illustrations.

The selection and design of the Portfolios of Famous Books correspond both neatly and closely with some central interests of Otto Ege throughout his career.  (See, for example, Introducing Otto Ege and Otto F. Ege.)  As a long-time teacher of graphic design and the history of the book (and later a Dean) at the Cleveland Institute of Art, and as a graphic designer (and printer) in his own right, here Ege was in his element.

The ‘New’ Set in a Private Collection

The ‘new’ set in Nine Centuries resides in a Private Collection.  The owner, noticing our webposts (see their Contents List) and mentioning to us the set of Ege’s Famous Books Portfolio, has kindly taken photographs, which we can show for inspection and research — with our thanks.

The set came from this sale: Fall Fine & Decorative Art Auction on October 4, 2015.  It was offered (out of Willoughby, Ohio) by Fusco Auctions as lot 81:  Ege Portfolio Original Leaves Famous Books, with an Estimate of $2,500 –  $3,000, and a realized price of $2,600.

The online catalogue for the sale of that lot presents 4 photographs of a few highlights.  They show views of the Portfolio Front Cover, Ege’s printed full-page Contents List, both sides of the First Leaf (from the Koran in Arabic), and Ege’s printed Label for that specimen Leaf.

The set, unnumbered, contains the full set of 40 specimen Leaves, as cited in the 1-page Contents List printed on a single companion leaf of paper.

Samples of Ege’s Portfolios

Some collections possess more than one of Ege’s Portfolios, dedicated to a variety of focused themes on the arts of the book in manuscript and in print across time and place.  The nature and themes of his multiple Portfolios are surveyed in several publications.  (See below.)

Occasionally, as I have found, it is possible, with permission, to examine more than one of the Portfolios side by side.  The opportunity has occurred, for example, at the Houghton Library at Harvard University in Massachusetts and at the Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County in Ohio.  At the former, the consultation addressed 2 sets of the Portfolio of Famous Bibles; at the latter, 3 different Portfolios — all of which come under consideration for our present purposes:

  • Fifty Original Leaves from Medieval Manuscripts, Western Europe (“FOL”)
  • Original Leaves from Famous Bibles
  • Original Leaves from Famous Books
Three Ege Portfolios. "Fifty Original Leaves from Medieval Manuscripts", "Original Leaves from Famous Books" (Series A in "Eight Centuries"), and "Original Leaves from Famous Bibles" (Series B in "Nine Centuries"). From the Collection of The Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County. Reproduced by permission. Photograph by Mildred Budny.

Three Ege Portfolios. “Fifty Original Leaves from Medieval Manuscripts”, “Original Leaves from Famous Books” (Series A in “Eight Centuries”), and “Original Leaves from Famous Bibles” (Series B in “Nine Centuries”). From the Collection of The Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County. Photograph by Mildred Budny.

Two of these Portfolios, Famous Bibles and Famous Books, were issued in 2 versions, shorter and longer, in Eight Centuries and in Nine Centuries.

For present purposes, another of Ege’s Portfolios also comes into view.  It is devoted to

  • Fifteen Original Oriental Leaves of Six Centuries:  Twelve of the Middle East, Two of Russia, and One of Tibet, amounting to 15 Leaves in 40 Sets.

For that Portfolio, Gwara, Otto Ege’s Manuscripts, Appendix V (on page 103), lists 13 located sets; worldcat.org lists some of these as well as other sets.  Some sets can be viewed online, Leaf by Leaf, as with the set in the Brooklyn Museum:

  • New York, Brooklyn Museum Libraries, Special Collections, Call Number Z109 Eg7.

Earlier blogposts have considered aspects of all these Portfolios, but for the Oriental Leaves.  Within those reports, we have considered in particular Ege MSS 8, 14, 19, 29, 41, 51, and 61, along with Ege’s Workshop Practices.  (A post on Ege MS 22 is coming soon.)  See our Contents List.

Now, turning to the ‘new’ set of Famous Books, it seems clear that our previous explorations of the several different Portfolios come in handy as background — perhaps especially because there is some cross-over between different Portfolios in Ege’s distribution of individual copies of books and manuscripts.  We start with the Koran/Quran manuscript (‘Otto Ege MS 53’), with its specimens found in both Famous Books in Nine Centuries and in Oriental Leaves, as well as elsewhere.

The Portfolio in Question

By the title on its front cover and the Title-Page with Contents List, the ‘new’ Famous Books Portfolio proclaims itself as a set of Original Leaves from Famous Books, Nine Centuries, 1122 A. E. – 1923 A. D., with a List of 40 unnumbered Leaves.   This is the longer, deluxe, series in Ege’s 2 versions of the Portfolios of Original Leaves from Famous Books.  The shorter version spans only Eight Centuries, 1240 A. D. – 1923 A. D. in 25 leaves.

For short, some sources refer to these Portfolios as FBNC and FBEC, as in Scott Gwara’s account of Otto Ege’s Manuscripts (2013).  The close resemblance of these 2 acronyms, differing only partway through (N versus E), may require close inspection.  In context, referring to the variants as “Nine Centuries” or “Eight Centuries” might be clearer at a first glance, where concision of space or numbers of characters is not a primary consideration.

Gwara considers these 2 Portfolios as entities on his pages 36–37 and in his Appendixes III and IV (on pages 100–102), which list some current locations of their sets.  His “Handlist of Manuscripts and Fragments Collected or Sold by Otto F. Ege” (Appendix X on pages 116–201) lists the manuscripts in numerical order by assigned numbers (1–325 and counting), indicates their position in any of Ege’s Portfolios, and cites current locations, sales catalogues, and other information, as available.

Another invaluable resource for these and other Portfolios, or Leaf-Books, by Ege (and by others):

  • Christopher de Hamel and Joel Silver, with contributions by John P. Chalmers, Daniel W. Mosser, and Michael Thompson, Disbound and Dispersed:  The Leaf Book Considered (Chicago:  The Caxton Club, 2005), Catalog-Checklist no. 14/68 (pp. 74–75 and 116) and no. 20/98 (pp. 79–81 and 120), and Checklist nos. 21 (p. 110) and 51 (p.114)

This book doubles as an exhibition catalogue.  It contains a set of essays about Leaf Books in general and in particular, the “Catalog of the Exhibition” (pp. 62–101), and “A Checklist of Leaf Books” (pp. 102–137).  That both the Catalog and the Checklist have their own series of numbers (items 1–46 and 1–230 respectively) might prove ambiguous, so reporting their page-numbers as well as their section- and item-numbers can be helpful.

On one opening (pages 81–82), there are illustrated 6 sample plates of “Six leaves from Otto Ege’s 1949 boxed set of original leaves from famous books” in nine centuries (Catalogue number 20 / Checklist number 98), in the collection of Michael Thompson.  The sampling shows the specimens of 5 printed books and 1 manuscript — the Koran manuscript which opens the Portfolio. From that photograph of one of its sides (the recto), it is possible to identify its location within the former manuscript.

The Contents

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

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

In a single page, Ege’s Contents List, which he called an “Annotated Chronological Index”, arranges the specimens in groups by chronological order and by medium:

  • Manuscript Leaves
  • Incunabula Leaves, and
  • Imprints, in 2 subgroups:  XVI Century and XVI–XX Century
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.

The 4 groups commence with the Manuscripts.

First the Manuscript Specimens

There are six Specimens in total, with texts all in Latin but for the first in Arabic.  (The Portfolio in Eight Centuries has only three — and does not include the Arabic.)  They are written variously on paper or on animal skin (parchment or vellum).

Their list:

Note that Ege’s title or summary for each leaf customarily employs a title in English, regardless of the language of the specimen text.

  • 1122 Egypt.  Mohammed, Koran on paper
  • 1240 France.  St. Jerome, Vulgate Bible
  • 1365 Germany.  Aristotle, Nichomachian Ethics on paper
  • 1436 Italy.  Livy, History of Rome
  • 1466 Italy.  Book of Hours
  • 1470 Italy.  St. Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on the Sentences

That is, according to the numbering assigned to Ege’s manuscripts in Gwara’s Handlist:

  • 1122 Egypt.  Mohammed, Koran on paper [ = Ege MS 53, here Surah 4:163 – 5:14]
  • 1240 France.  St. Jerome, Vulgate Bible [= Ege MS 54, here from the Book of Job chapters 8–12]
  • 1365 Germany.  Aristotle, Nichomachian Ethics on paper [= Ege MS 51, here folio 35/35]
  • 1436 Italy.  Livy, History of Rome [ = Ege MS 52; here folio 41]
  • 1466 Italy.  Book of Hours [ = Ege MS 55; here folio 53]
  • 1470 Italy.  St. Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on the Sentences of Peter Lombard [ = Ege MS 40; here folio 300, turned back-to-front in Ege’s mat]

These contents differ somewhat from the selection of Manuscripts in the Portfolio version of Eight Centuries, as seen in its Contents List with 3 Specimens in the set at Kent State University.

Otto Ege's Contents List of the Manuscripts in his FBEC Portfolio at Kent State University Libraries, reproduced by permission.

Otto Ege’s Contents List of the Manuscripts in his FBEC Portfolio at Kent State University Libraries, reproduced by permission.

Note that the components which Ege assigned to the individual sets of the Portfolio display some variation.  A look at individual Portfolio sets reveals certain changes, for which the data have yet to be examined in full, while the process of tracking the Portfolio sets, their dispersal, and their components remains ongoing.

Let us remain aware of the subsequent rearrangements and substitutions which owners might effect.  A documented case of such adjustments to the contents by Ege’s widow herself is vividly illustrated in a blogpost by our Associate, Lisa Fagin Davis, as part of her series Manuscript Road Trip, reporting a visit to Cincinnati, Ohio, and to a private collection which holds a set of the Famous Bibles in Nine Centuries, replete with annotated Contents List and substituted Contents (shown here).  The recorded replacement substitutes the specimen of one 13th-century Vulgate Bible for another, exchanging, as Leaf 2, a leaf from Ege MS 76 for one from Ege MS 59, and noting the substitution in annotations to the Contents List.

The Spread Across Portfolios

Specimens from some of these manuscripts served within more than 1 of Ege’s different Portfolios.  Such is the case with all but the Book of Hours.  Some of the selected manuscripts appear in both versions of Famous Books; some appear both there (both versions of the Portfolio in Eight or Nine Centuries) and elsewhere; and some appear in the longer version of Famous Books, as well as elsewhere.

Appearances in 5 ‘flavors’:

1) Some manuscripts served in both versions of the Portfolios of Famous Books, in Nine Centuries and in Eight Centuries (FBNC + FBEC).  Such is the case with

  • The Aristotle specimen (as Leaves 3 and 2 respectively in these two Portfolios) = Ege MS 51
  • The Livy specimen (as Leaves 4 and 3 respectively) = Ege MS 52
Private Collection, Ege's Portfolio of 'Famous Leaves', Livy MS Leaf, Back, Top. Reproduced by permission.

Private Collection, Ege’s Portfolio of ‘Famous Leaves’, Livy MS Leaf, Back, Top. Reproduced by permission.

2) Selections from the dismembered copy of the Koran appear in both the Portfolio of Famous Books in Nine Centuries (as Leaf 1) and the Portfolio of Oriental Leaves (likewise as Leaf 1).  That is,

  • The Koran specimen served as Leaf 1 in both FBNC and the Portfolio of Oriental Leaves = Ege MS 53

3) The dismembered Vulgate Bible of 1240 circulated in both FBNC and FBEC (as Leaves 2 and 1 respectively), although sometimes in FBEC its place was taken by a very similar pocket-sized Vulgate Bible used in the FOL Portfolio as its Leaf 9 ( = Ege MS 9).

  • The Vulgate Bible specimen of 1240 = Ege MS 54
Private Collection, Ege's FBNC Portfolio, Vulgate Bible Leaf, Verso, Mid Right. Reproduced by Permission.

Private Collection, Ege’s FBNC Portfolio, Vulgate Bible Leaf, Verso, Mid Right. Reproduced by Permission.

4) The Aquinas specimen in Humanist Script circulated both in the FBNC (Leaf 6) and the more famous FOL (Leaf 40), from which position comes its number in Scott Gwara’s Handlist.  Its dismembered Leaves in some FOL sets are illustrated, for example, on the website ege.denison.edu.

  • The Aquinas specimen in Humanist Script = Ege MS 40

Note that this manuscript, although distributed in the same 2 Portfolios as the Vulgate Bible manuscript (FBNC + FOL) to which Gwara assigned 2 different Handlist numbers, holds only 1 number in Gwara’s Handlist, corresponding squarely with the position assigned to it in FOL.  The differential treatment in the Handlist of the Vulgate Bible specimen on the one hand, with 2 assigned numbers, and the Aquinas specimen on the other can lead to some confusion or conflation.  (As observed above.)

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.

5) So far as we know, among Ege’s Portfolios, the Book of Hours specimen in FBNC appears only in this one Portfolio (as Leaf 5).

  • The Book of Hours specimen from a manuscript dated 1460 = Ege MS 55 (see Gwara, Otto Ege’s Manuscripts, figure 63 on page 271)
Private Collection, Ege's Famous Books in Nine Centuries, Book of Hours Leaf, Front, Lower Portion of Text. Reproduced by permission.

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

All these leaves deserve attention in their own right and in the context of their dispersed relatives.  Already some studies consider one or other of them, particularly in the setting of the FOL Portfolio.  Examples include the website ege.denison.edu, showcasing “The Ege Manuscript Leaf Portfolios” and exhibiting images from each Leaf (not necessarily both sides) in specific sets of FOL at 14 institutional collections in the United States and Canada.

Printed Leaves

Whereas Scott Gwara’s Handlist in Otto Ege’s Manuscripts (2016) provides the standard for citing Ege’s Manuscripts, apparently there has appeared no comparable Handlist of Ege’s Printed Books — or even of his 15th-century Incunabula — and their distribution patterns and current locations.  Efforts toward this goal gather momentum, however, as part of the wider work on Ege’s books and their impact overall.

The full series of Ege’s Labels for the 40 specimens of textual materials in the Portfolio in Nine Centuries is displayed online for some sets, as at Case Western University in Cleveland, Ohio.  Set within rectangular borders resembling captions for an exhibition, the printed Labels expand the information in the Contents List into several paragraphs of observations about the genre of book, authorship, impact, and other generic features, with a few comments about the specific book from which the specimen derives.

In Ege’s 1-page Contents List, the 6 Manuscript Leaves (items 1–6) are followed by 5 Incunabula Leaves (items 7–11), then the groups of Leaves from XVI Century Imprints (items 12–26 with 14 specimens) and Leaves from XVII–XX Century Imprints (items 27–40 with 13 specimens).

Alongside the manuscript fragments, the printed specimens in the Portfolio hold interest also in their own right.  A special ‘subset’ is their group of leaves from early printed books, or Incunabula.

Private Collection, Ege's Portfolio of Famous Books in Nine Centuries, Laertius Leaf (1475), Front, Top Right. Reproduced by Permission.

Private Collection, Ege’s Portfolio of Famous Books in Nine Centuries, Laertius Leaf (1475), Front, Top Right. Reproduced by Permission.

For the printed materials, by definition other copies, more-or-less identical, may survive in other collections retaining the book in full (more-or-less).  Some copies are reproduced online in full or partial facsimile.  Some copies might still be available for direct inspection in their collections, for loan, or for purchase.

However, Ege’s leaves comprising printed matter sometimes carry marginalia and other forms of additions or alterations — as the case with some of the Incunabula — which ‘lift’ their status into unique witnesses to the transmission of the given book and edition.

In all cases, the patterns of location for the given titles as distributed within given sets (and in other settings) can contribute to the knowledge of Ege’s workshop practices in dismembering books and relocating their isolated elements for broader scattering into very many collections, which themselves might change hands — sometimes more than once.  See, for example, A Leaf from ‘Otto Ege Manuscript 19’ and Ege’s Workshop Practices.

A challenge to finding the location and character of other sets of the Portfolio (in one or other version), or perhaps dispersed parts of them, is the tendency of some institutional cataloging practices to separate the individual items into different departments or categories (literally or virtually), and, on occasion, to omit to mention, or to bury, the connection between the given Leaf or Leaves on the one hand and Ege and his Famous Books (or some other) Portfolio on the other.

We have encountered such problems with other parts of Ege’s oeuvre — as we might call his work and his works in the forms of dismembered and repositioned books of many kinds.  The problems multiply with the widespread dispersal of the Portfolios in whole or in part, as well as of individual Specimens.  Upon these conditions are piled the many challenges to identifying and locating them through library catalogues and websites (as well as sales catalogues).  We have reported on such constraints, for example, in our blogpost on More Discoveries for “Otto Ege Manuscript 61”.  See also below.

That some success is possible engaging with this challenge derives in no small measure from paying close attention to the terms in which Ege himself described the items, whether in print or in handwritten notes upon the leaves or their mats.  The attention can yield some results discoverable in roundabout, but effective, ways.

As always with researching materials dispersed in multiple collections, some of which have online information (sometimes including images of the materials), any results may have to depend upon the nature (and extent) of the information and metadata provided for the objects — and upon access to such materials and information.

Incunabula

Ege’s Contents List for the Incunabula (“Incunables“) in the Portfolio describes their Specimens in succinct terms.  They concern printed books produced in the early age of printing in the West — that is, by conventional agreement, up to the year 1500.  See, for example, surveys of the History of Printing and Incunables.  All are the products of printing by moveable type, rather than, say, blockbooks, a genre which Ege’s Portfolio ignores.

Private Collection, Ege FBNC Contents List, Detail: Incunabula.

Private Collection, Ege FBNC Contents List, Detail: Incunabula.

After the 6 specimen Manuscripts, the Incunabula are represented by 5 Specimens.  All on paper, their texts occur in Latin, Italian, or German.

Ege listed them thus:

  • 1472 Italy.  Cicero, On Duty, printed at the de Spira Press (Venice)
  • 1475 Italy.  Laertius, Lives of the Philosophers, printed by Nicolas Jenson (Venice)
  • 1480 Italy.  Voragine, The Golden Legend, printed by Antonio de Strata (Venice)
  • 1491 Italy.  Dante, Divine Comedy, printed by Petrus de Plasio (Venice)
  • 1493 Germany.  Hartmann Schedel, Nuremberg Chronicle, printed by Anton Koberger (Nurenberg)

That is, according to the numbering assigned to these publications in the Incunabula Short Title Catalogue (ISTC), they are:

  • 1472 Italy.  Cicero, On Duty, printed by Johann and Wendelin of Speyer / Giovanni and Vindelino da Spira (Venice, 1472), folio 41
    = ISTC ic00058000
  • 1475 Italy.  Laertius, Lives of the Philosophers (Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers), printed by Nicolas Jenson (Venice, 1475), folio 131 (with marginalia)
    = ISTC id00022000
  • 1480 Italy.  Voragine, The Golden Legend, printed by Antonio da Strata (Venice, 1480)
    = ISTC ij00095000
  • 1491 Italy.  Dante, Divine Comedy, printed by Petrus de Plaisio (Venice, 1491)
    = ISTC id00033000
  • 1493 Germany.  Hartmann Schedel, Nuremburg Chronicle, printed by Anton Koberger (Nurenberg, 1493)
    = ISTC is00309000

To these specimens from Incunabula, as well as others among the later Imprints, we might return in other posts.

Private Collection, Ege's FBNC Portfolio, Dante Leaf, Verso, Detail. Reproduced by permission.

Private Collection, Ege’s FBNC Portfolio, Dante Leaf, Verso, Detail. Reproduced by permission.

Manuscripts, One By One

First we consider the manuscript fragments.

Already our blogposts have begun to consider parts of Ege MS 51, as distributed in Ege’s Portfolios and by other means.  The alternate means include the circulation of individual leaves on their own (sometimes in an Ege mat with his label), and the several portions of the ‘Residue’ (a binding included), after Ege’s extractions, now in the Otto Ege Collection at the Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library at Yale University.  See:

  • More Leaves from Otto Ege Manuscript 51
  • More Parts of Otto Ege Manuscript 51.

My first introduction to the manuscript came from Leaf 96, in a Private Collection.  The leaf number appears at the bottom right of the recto, in pencil.  Acquired by itself, without any Label, the leaf is firmly recognizable as one of Ege’s by its correspondence in format, layout, textual contents, style of script, material, and other features which establish its position formerly within Ege Manuscript 51.

Private Collection, Rectos of Single Leaves from Ege MSS 41 and 51, with guide. Photography Mildred Budny.

Private Collection, Rectos of Single Leaves from Ege MSS 41 and 51, with guide. Photography Mildred Budny.

Some of the ‘Residue’ of Ege Manuscript 51, binding included, but with despoiled innards, has come into view in the Otto Ege Collection at the Beinecke Library.

The damaged binding of Volume II, viewed from the spine:

einecke Manuscript & Rare Book Library, Otto Ege Collection, Volume II of Ege Manuscript 51, Spine View.

Beinecke Manuscript & Rare Book Library, Otto Ege Collection, Volume II of Ege Manuscript 51, Spine View.

A view of the interior of the volume, opened to show its gutted gutter between folios 9v/27r (following the removal of folios 10–26 between them) and the results of water or liquid damage at the top of the book.  In the outer margin on the verso, accompanying the text, there stands a square-shaped diagram drawn in ink, with inscribed labels.

Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Otto Ege Collection, Ege MS 51, Volume II, opened at the gap between folios 9v/27r. Photography Mildred Budny.

Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Otto Ege Collection, Ege MS 51, Volume II, opened at the gap between folios 9v/27r. Photography Mildred Budny.

Now we consider the manuscript leaves in the newly revealed set of Famous Books in Nine Centuries which came from a sale in Ohio and entered a Private Collection.  With permission to show its images, we begin with the first Leaf in the set.

The Koran Leaf = Ege MS 53

In its mat, with its identifying label at lower left:

Koran 1 Ege MS 52 in Famous Books Portfolio in Mat

Koran 1 Ege MS 52 in Famous Books Portfolio in Mat

Closer up, behind the window of the mat, we can glimpse the full extent of the leaf, with trimmed or cropped margins which removed part of the script and other elements.  Patched repairs at the bottom of the leaf employ 2 overlapping pieces of paper.

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

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

The other side of the leaf, lifted partway from the backing mat on the hinged gauze tapes characteristic of Ege’s mountings:

rivate Collection, Koran Leaf in Ege's Famous Books in Nine Centuries, Front of Leaf. Reproduced by permission.

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

Note that the leaf has a pasted repair, sub-triangular in shape, at the lower inner corner, remedying a lost portion.  An added entry of script supplies the missing or covered elements on one side of the patch, pasted to the back of the leaf.  Pasted to the front of the leaf, a longer strip of paper across the width of the leaf repairs or strengthens its undulating lower edge.

The Text

The text starts on the front, or recto, of the leaf.  It begins within the middle of verse 162 (of 176 verses) of Surah ٱلنساء‎ / An-Nisāʾ (“The Women”).  On this Surah, Chapter 4 of the Quran, see, for example, An Nisa or An-Nisa. It considers issues relating to women, marriage, inheritance, orphans, rights, and more.  The text here differs slightly from the online version which we found (for example, Quran; see also Sacred-texts), in that the words occur in a different order. Continuing through An-Nisa, the page ends in the middle of verse  174.  The text continues on the other side of the leaf, on which Line 3 ends An-Nisa.

Next comes the rubricated title, spanning a full line, for Surah Al-Ma`idah (“The Table”, “The Table Spread”, or “The Table Spread with Food”), that is, Surah 5 which spans 120 verses.  See, for example, the opening and bilingual text of this Surah in Sacred-texts.

With a broader nib than the main text, the title is written in a single line of red pigment, spread the full width of the column (line 4).  Red dots above and below the characters provide the letter identifiers.  Marks in black ink indicate the vowel- and length-marks for reading.

Private Collection, Koran Leaf in Ege's Famous Books in Nine Centuries, Title for Surah 5. Reproduced by permission.

Private Collection, Koran Leaf in Ege’s Famous Books in Nine Centuries, Title for Surah 5. Reproduced by permission.

Spread across another full line, in the same ink and script of the main body of text, there follows the Basmala, the standard invocation

بِسْمِ ٱللَّٰهِ ٱلرَّحْمَٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ) (bi-smi llāhi r-raḥmāni r-raḥīmi , “In the name of Allah the merciful . . . “).

This phrase leads to the Surah text, starting at verse 1 and ending within verse 4 at the bottom of the page.  Thus, the span of text on the leaf extends from within Surah 4:163 to within 4:175 on the recto, and from thence to Surah 5:1–4 on the verso.

The polychrome verse-markers take the form of 6-petalled rosettes, usually raised above the baseline of script.  The group of petals surround a circular center of red pigment.  Smaller circular motifs, 6 in number, alternating in color (red and green?), nestle between, or emerge from, the outer tips of each pair of petals.

The addition of script at the lower right on the patch supplies the missing elements لَهُمۡۖ from the severed, covered, and repaired section at the beginning of the line of text.

Textual Divisions

Upside-down in the right-hand margin below the title, at an angle leading toward (‘descending to’) line 10, and partly trimmed away at the edge of the leaf, there stands an inscription to indicate the opening of a section.  Written in red, with letter-identifiers in red and vowel- and length-marks in black ink, it has a similar prominence and style as the title.  It appears to be the work of the same scribe.

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, Back of Leaf, Detail. Reproduced by permission.

Seen right-way up, that is, inverted with relation to the text, the marker reads thus:

Private Collection, Koran Leaf in Ege's Famous Books in Nine Centuries, Back, lines 8-10, Inverted. Reproduced by permission.

Private Collection, Koran Leaf in Ege’s Famous Books in Nine Centuries, Back, lines 8-10, Inverted. Reproduced by permission.

The partly severed entry marks a division in the text.  The first word is نصف (nsf), meaning ‘half’.  There follow the letters z b (‘b’ certainly; ‘z’ is less certain), which might be read as زب — presumably a contraction of حزب  (ḥizb’), meaning ‘group’.  (Elsewhere the manuscript, as we can discover, preserves in full a comparable marking, so as to confirm this conjectured reading.)

The other side of the ‘new’ Leaf carries a second form of indicator for textual division.  Entered solely in black ink apparently by a different hand than the scribe of the text, it forms a descending angle in the outer margin at the end of line 4.  Upright with relation to the main text, it begins with the word ربع (rubuʿ, rubʿ, or rubue), “quarter”.  In its full form, it designates:  ربع حزب (‘quarter-hizb‘).

Private Collection, Koran Leaf in Ege's Famous Books in Nine Centuries, Front, lines 1-6. Reproduced by permission.

Private Collection, Koran Leaf in Ege’s Famous Books in Nine Centuries, Front, lines 1-6. Reproduced by permission.

The 2 marginal entries on recto and verso belongs to a graded system of inscriptions marking textual divisions in the Quran, intended to facilitate its recitation.  Briefly, the elements of the system, as it has evolved over time and place, comprise a variety of units.

  • Surah, or “Chapters”, 114 in number (of varying lengths), provided with titles
    — divided into verses, or ayah ʾĀyāt (of varying numbers), on which see ayah
  • Juz’ ( جُزْءْ, ), or “Part”, 30 in number (of varying lengths)
  • Hizb ( حزب , ḥizb), or “Group”, 60 in number (roughly equal lengths)

Further divisions also pertain.  For example (see, among others, Rub el Hizb):

  • A juzʼ is divided into ḥizbāni (“two Groups”)
  • A ḥizb is one-half of a juz’
  • Each ḥizb is subdivided into four quarters, making eight quarters per juzʼ
  • Each of these is called Arba (ارباع) “quarter”, or alternately maqraʼ (“Reading”), making 240 Ahzab or ‘quarters’ in the full Quran.

Moreover, longer chapters among the surah might receive other forms of subdivisions for purposes of recitation, without breaking the flow of the topic.

  • Ruku (رُكوع‎, Rukūʿ), “Passage” or “Stanza”, denoting a group of thematically related verses in the Quran, and amounting to 558 rukūʿs within it.

Each Hizb is subdivided into four equal parts, that is, a ‘quarter’ or Arba (ارباع). The three middle quarters of a ḥizb have these names:

  • First quarter of Hizb:  Rub ul Hizb (ربع الحزب)
  • Second quarter of Hizb:  Nisful Hizb (نصف الحزب)
  • Third quarter of Hizb:  Thalathatu (ثلاثة ارباع الحزب)

The ‘new’ leaf has diagonal entries in the margins marking both a ‘first’ and a ‘second’ quarter (without the ‘ul’).  The second is inscribed in rubricated, polychrome form similar to the Surah title and of an equivalent prominence.  The first appears less formal, inscribed only in ink and by a different, less polished, hand.  One marker is upright; the other is upside-down in relation to the Quran text.

According to the site https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juz%27 , the first-quarter of Hizb 11 (spanning the text of Surahs 4:148 to 5:26) should occur at 4:163  (within An-nisah, as here).  The first verse on the leaf stands within 4:163.  Might we, perhaps, expect its marking (‘Hizb‘?) to stand at the bottom of the previous leaf?  Now dislocated from this one, perhaps it survives in some other collection.

In sum

To sum up the contents of the leaf:

Recto:   Surah 4:163 to 4:175 (in An-Nisa, “The Women”)

Verso:  Surah 4:175 to 4:176 (end of the Surah)

Rubric title for 5 Al-Ma`idah (“The Table Spread”) and the Bismallah

Surah 5:1 to 5:4 (halfway through the verse)

Margins:

Quarter-hizb near 4:166

Half-hizb near 5:3

From the Wikipedia site ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juz’), the divisions of hizb 11 are:

4:148–4:162         (ḥizb)

4:163–4:176         (quarter-ḥizb)

5:1–5:11                (half-ḥizb)

5:12–5:26              (three-quarter-ḥizb)

The annotations on the leaf do not line up exactly with the WebSite ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juz%27), if they are to mark the start of the section specified there.  However, the interval between them is consistent with the length of the passages.

The pattern(s) of textual division-markers applied to this Koran manuscript dismembered by Ege for his Portfolios may show its intentions for use in its original shape, its signs of use and adaptation, and perhaps also its position within the ‘evolution’ over time and place of practices of such markings — both upside-down and upright — for purposes of recitation.

Recto and Verso

By TAKASUGI Shinji - Own work, Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

Right-to-left Language Books. Diagram by Takasugi Shinji (Own Work), via Wikimedia Commons.

It is possible, perhaps probable, that the prominent smear across the middle section of the rubricated line of script of the title led Otto Ege to chose to place this side of the leaf on the hidden side within the mat, with the unsmeared page facing outward through the window.  The placement turned the original recto of the Arabic leaf into a Western recto, reversing its location within the original manuscript, properly to be read from right to left on the page and from front to back on its leaf.

Note that the terms ‘recto’ and ‘verso might mean different things, depending on the reading direction and the point of approach to the ‘start’ of the leaf.  See, for example, Recto and Verso (“Front” and “Back”). Here we use ‘recto’ to indicate the first side of the leaf intended to be read in the course of the text, and ‘verso’ to indicate the second side in the direction of reading.

Ege’s positioning of the selected leaves from whatever book within their windowed mats customarily masks from view the full contours of specimen.  As a result, it is often impossible to tell from the windowed front of a framed Specimen alone whether the Leaf comes from an original recto or verso.  In some exceptions, as with some specimens in the ‘new’ set, the framed view shows a folio-number, with one number to the leaf, or 2-sided folio.  Sometimes, instead, the number in view can pertain instead to a page-number, applying one number to each side of a leaf, or page.  Unless the observer is familiar with the edition in question, or has access to a view of the other side of the leaf, it could be unclear whether the number seen within the mat pertains to one folio (both recto and verso), or to only one side (either recto or verso).

A couple of cases in the ‘new’ Portfolio exemplify the range.

First, a manuscript, showing folio-number “35” (twice) within the mat (in ink at top right and in pencil at bottom right):

Private Collection, Ege's Famous Books in Nine Centuries, Aristotle Leaf within Mat. Reproduced by permission.

Private Collection, Ege’s Famous Books in Nine Centuries, Aristotle Leaf within Mat. Reproduced by permission.

(As it happens, the presence of these folio-numbers can significantly aid the virtual reconstruction of the manuscript in question, and contribute to the study of its history.  As shown in this blogpost: More Leaves from ‘Otto Ege Manuscript 51’.)

Second, a printed specimen, showing page “118” at the front (with page “117” turned to the back):

Private Collection, Ege's Portfolio of Famous Books in Nine Centuries, Jovius, Illustrious Men (1577) Specimen Front in mat. Reproduced by Permission.

Private Collection, Ege’s Portfolio of ‘Famous Books in Nine Centuries’, Jovius, ‘Illustrious Men’ (1577) Specimen Front in mat. Reproduced by Permission.

The practice of selecting, and visually cropping, a seemingly privileged side of a leaf — and not necessarily its original ‘recto’ — governs the presentation of Ege’s Specimens, regardless of whether they come from Western or other writing systems.

The Leaf and Its Manuscript

Private Collection, Ege FBNC Koran Leaf Label.

Private Collection, Ege FBNC Koran Leaf Label.

On this manuscript, and the individual specimen, Ege declared in his Label:

The Koran, the book of laws and religion of over 200 million Moslems, was dictated by the prophet Mohammed after extensive travels to Syria and Palestine with a wealthy uncle. It was on these expeditions that Mohammed gained his concepts of monotheism and star worship. The 114 chapters of the Koran, arranged according to their length, have strange titles such as The Ant, The Spider, The Greeks, and The Sun. The followers of Mohammed believed that the text contained revelations from the angel Gabriel, given to Mohammed in dreams after the year 600 [CE]. The Koran gave all believers equality and eliminated the priestly class. It is held in great respect by Moslems, who, according to George Sale, the first translator of the Koran into English, do not dare to touch it without first being washed, nor to hold it below their girdles, nor knowingly suffer it to be in the possession of any person of a different persuasion. They swear by it and carry it into battle.

With religious fervor rivaling that on the medieval monks, and with an alphabet surpassing the European one in artistic possibilities, the Moslem calligraphers of the Koran gained just honor and lasting renown. The art of writing is regarded by the Moslems as the finest of the arts, but few wrote before the time of Mohammed; in his own tribe, the Koreishites [Qyarysh], only seventeen knew how to write. The prophet is not numbered among these. This leaf was written by the Egyptian calligrapher Mohammed ibn Kuzel Al Isawai with a reed, on egg-glazed paper that antedates any European-made paper by half a century.  [Emphasis added.]

Ege’s entry for the Leaf in his Contents List identifies the work as

Mohammed, Koran Manuscript on paper, written by the calligrapher Mohammed ibn Kuzel Al Iswai.  Small illuminated rosettes.

Private Collection, Ege FBNC, Contents List, Manuscripts 1 & 2.

Private Collection, Ege FBNC, Contents List, Manuscripts 1 & 2.

The Manuscript and Its Date

The date, place of production, and name of the scribe must derive from a scribal colophon which the manuscript contained, but which Ege’s dismemberment dislocated from the other leaves.  Those pieces of information had to circulate with Ege’s notes and his labels, without our ability by direct observation to challenge or to affirm the claims of the colophon, its manner of execution, and other means.

Alongside Ege’s attribution, Scott Gwara’s Handlist (p. 137) provides a different assessment:

Ege Description:  “Manuscript written in Egypt (Cairo), 1122 A. D. (500 A. H.)”.

Gwara Description:  “MS on paper.  Egypt, dated 1122 but Mamluk dynasty, s. xv”

The span of the Mamluk Sultanate extended from 1250–1517.  At the purported date of the manuscript (or its exemplar), Egypt belonged under the control of the Western caliphate and the Fatimid dynasty (969–1174), followed by the Ayyubids.  Many studies and reference works examine manuscript production for these periods.  See the suggestions for Further Reading at the end of this post.

When I asked our Associate, David Sorenson, what view he might have about the date-range of the “new” leaf and its manuscript, he replied:

Re. Quran — Boyd Mackus had one at K[alama]zoo [i. e. one year or other at the Annual International Congress on Medieval Studies; see its Archive].  It looked to me like a typical Mamluq leaf, 14th–15th century, as Scott says.  The easy way is to check the paper; if it has any chain lines it’s got to be after 1250 or so.  [Emphasis added.]  The writing style looks later, anyway.  You can look through Blair to see examples.  1100 or so would be an earlier type (late Fatimid) with a quite different script style.

The reference here to “Blair” indicates Sheila S. Blair, Islamic Calligraphy (Cairo, 2006).  Suggestions for further references and links to manuscript collections online appear at the end of this post.

Recently, in working to create a Gallery dedicated to Watermarks and the History of Paper, the Research Group on Manuscript Evidence has published the updated and downloadable version of David’s illustrated conference paper on “Paper-Moulds and Paper Traditions:  What Mould-Patterns in Near Eastern and Indian Paper Suggest Regarding Origins of Local Papermaking” (2020).  (See Paper Moulds and Paper Traditions and the downloadable paper.)  It includes observations about the importation and manufacture of paper in Egypt, or with Egyptian provenance, from about the ninth and tenth centuries (CE) onward (see especially pp. 5–7, with specimens).

Ege’s Portfolio of Oriental Leaves perhaps has a different Label for specimens from this Koran manuscript than its Label for Famous Books in Nine Centuries (as shown above).  So far, I have not yet seen an example of either the Contents List or “explanatory caption” for the Oriental Leaves, apart from quotations of information which accompanied the Leaf in some form.  The title of that Portfolio describes itself thus:

Fifteen Oriental Manuscript Leaves of Six Centuries:
Twelve of the Middle East, Two of Russia, and One of Tibet
from the Collection of and with Notes Prepared by Otto F. Ege

The online images of both sides of the Koran Leaf in the Oriental Leaves Portfolio at the Brooklyn Museum are accompanied by a caption quoting “Printed material” in these terms (presumably Ege’s?):

“Koran by Mohammed:  Egypt, Cairo, early 12th century 1122 A. D.; Arabic Mohammedan text, Arabic script, Nashki style.” (Koran Leaf)

On the style of script, see, for example Naskh (Script).

Leaves in Other Sets

Some other leaves from this manuscript appear online.  Under current conditions of bibliographical research, with access to many libraries closed or limited, exploring Ege’s Portfolios and their dispersal mainly requires resorting to online resources and the books and other materials which I have to hand, or can find.  Among them are stores of photographs from visits to multiple collections on the track of research on Ege’s Portfolios and other quests.

Some leaves from the Quran manuscript belong to one or other set of Ege’s Portfolio of Famous Books in Nine Centuries (as at the North Carolina Museum of Art in Raleigh).  Some belong to a set of Ege’s Portfolio of Oriental Leaves (as at the Brooklyn Museum in New York ).  Some appear to be separate leaves.  The appearance, or apparent condition, of separate leaves might in some cases (many?) reflect their institution’s label, the removal of the individual leaves from the set and the mats, and/or the distribution into different divisions of the larger collection or into different collections altogether.  As a result, for various reasons, the labelling or cataloguing by the collection or institution can mask, bury in ‘fine print’, or outright ignore the connection with Ege, or with one or other of his Portfolios.

Needless to say, such factors can impede or interfere with research to recognize different leaves from the manuscript now in different locations.

My consultation and photography, with permission, of the set (Number 20) now at the Princeton University Library several years ago provides the opportunity to re-examine it virtually offline, and to identify its place within the former manuscript.

  • Princeton, Princeton University Library, Firestone Library, Special Collections, Oversize 2008-007E;
    The recto, beginning midway through Surah 13:40, Ar-Ra’d (“The Thunder”), carries the rubricated title for Surah 14, Ibrahim (“Abraham”); the verso carries the rubricated upside-down marker ‘half-hizb’ in the outer margin opposite 14:10, and closes within 14:22.

A few examples of leaves as seen in print or online:

  • New York, Brooklyn Museum, Ege’s Portfolio of Oriental Leaves, Koran Leaf

Recto

Brooklyn Museum, Libraries and Archives, Z209 Eg7, Koran Leaf, Recto. No known copyright restrictions.

Brooklyn Museum, Libraries and Archives, Z209 Eg7, Koran Leaf, Recto. No known copyright restrictions.

The recto starts with verse 74 within Surah 11, “Hud“.  Note that the rubricated entry in the outer margin (partly trimmed, like the one on the ‘new’ leaf) marking the textual division of a “Half-Hisb“, or “Half-Group”, stands upright with relation to the text (unlike the orientation on the ‘new’ leaf).  Note also the modern paper repair across the bottom of the leaf.

Verso

Brooklyn Museum, Libraries and Archives, Z209 Eg7, Koran Leaf, Verso. No known copyright restrictions.

Brooklyn Museum, Libraries and Archives, Z209 Eg7, Koran Leaf, Verso. No known copyright restrictions.

  • Private Collection, Koran Leaf within a set of the Famous Books Portfolio, illustrated (one side only, cropped without revealing whether recto or verso) in Disbound and Dispersed:  The Leaf Book Considered (2005), page 82.
    Its red title opens Surah 13:  Ar-Ra’d (“The Thunder”).
  • Location Unknown, FBNC Set 28, sold at Christie’s on 21 September 2020 as Lot 10.
    Provenance: (1) Otto F Ege (1888-1951). (2) Bruce Ferrini. (3) Alexander E. Vida, by descent.
    Images of both sides of the Quran leaf (gallery-13 and gallery-14) show its span of text. It contains part of Ar-Ra’d (“The Thunder”), Surah 13, starting in 13:15, with the page-break at mid 13:29, and ending mid 13:40. The hizb marker is roughly correct for Ar-Ra’d 13:19.
  • Memphis, Tennessee, Rhodes College, Archives and Special Collections, Hanson Collection, Ege Box 3, Leaf 1
    (identifier:  http://hdl.handle.net/10267/20164) – a leaf which, it is said, arrived within Ege’s mat for it.
    The red title, on the verso, opens Surah 28: Al-Qasas (The Stories”).
    Note the pair of paper patches at the lower edge, with a subtriangular patch at the outer margin and a longer horizontal patch across the bottom, like the ‘new’ leaf.

Recto

Rhodes College Archives and Special Collections, Memphis, TN. Hanson Collection 3, Koran Leaf, original recto, via http://hdl.handle.net/10267/20164.

Rhodes College Archives and Special Collections, Memphis, TN. Hanson Collection 3, Koran Leaf, original recto, via http://hdl.handle.net/10267/20164.

Verso

Rhodes College Archives and Special Collections, Memphis, TN. Hanson Collection 3, Koran Leaf, original verso, via http://hdl.handle.net/10267/20164.

Rhodes College Archives and Special Collections, Memphis, TN. Hanson Collection 3, Koran Leaf, original verso, via http://hdl.handle.net/10267/20164.

  • Queens, NY, Saint John’s University, Archives & Special Collections, FBNC, verso only; otherwise [access restricted]
    The text on this page extends from Az-Zumar (“The Groups”) at the start of Surah 39:63 ‘لَهُ مَقَالِيدُ السَّمَاوَاتِ’ to the end 39:75, followed in the last line by the title for Ghafir (“The Forgiver”) ‘غَافِر‘ (Surah 40).
    The rubricated inscription for the textual division of a “Half-Hizb” stands upside-down in the outer margin (see above).
  • Raleigh, North Carolina Museum of Art, Near Eastern Department, Leaf from a Koran, showing only the recto and citing the date 1122.
    (This leaf and its Portfolio set of Famous Books in Nine Centuries is not recorded in Gwara’s Handlist.)
    The rubricated inscription for the textual division of a “Half-Hizb” in the outer margin (see above) remains in full, uncropped; at an angle, it stands upright with relation to the text.
  • Columbia, South Carolina, University of South Carolina, Ernest F. Hollings Special Collections Library, Early Ms. 128 (the gift of Scott Gwara)
    — with no image, but with the information that “the word ḥizb is written upside down on the margin of the verso”, indicating a textual division.

In this latter case, the online catalogue entry not only refrains from identifying the span of the text, but also leaves uncertain whether the Leaf belongs to, or came from, one or other of Ege’s Portfolios, or circulated in some other way instead.  It states:

“[The leaf] Relates to a Qur’an leaves [sic] included in Otto F. Ege’s Fifteen original [Oriental] manuscript leaves of six centuries and Original leaves from famous books. This leaf was attributed to Mohammed ibn Kuzel Al Isawai by Otto F. Ege. Ege dated the ms. ca. 1122.”

More research, and more available information, would reveal further details about the structure of the manuscript as a whole, its context, its scribal attribution, and other features.

The Scribe and the Date

With accompanying labels or notes, the variously circulated leaves have mostly traveled to their current locations with a report of the name of the calligrapher as “Mohammed ibn Kuzel Al Iswai”, the date of “1122 [CE]”, and the place of origin as Egypt, and particularly Cairo.  This knowledge would have travelled with the leaf, whether in some note, label, or contents list by Ege.  Sometimes, alas, the specific form of transmission is not reported, or is only inconsistently or ambiguously mentioned, by the institution in its cataloguing or the accompanying metadata.

Sometimes the information about the leaf may have appeared in, or also in, handwriting — as seems to be the case with the leaf at the Brooklyn Museum of Art (to judge by part of the online catalogue description).  It was not uncommon for Ege to have inscribed such information in pencil at the bottom of the mat and/or on one side of a detached leaf itself, as the leaves from a book were separated and dispersed variously on their own or in company with severed leaves from other books or manuscripts, Portfolios and other means included.  Examples are illustrated in other blogposts about Ege’s manuscript fragments.  (See our Contents List.)

For the Koran manuscript, presumably we must assume that Ege derived the name of the calligrapher and the exact date from a scribal colophon within the manuscript — if not from some extra-textual information which came to him with the book, say on an endleaf or the binding, or in some other form from the seller.

As stated in his Label for the Nine Centuries Portfolio (seen above):

This leaf was written by the Egyptian calligrapher Mohammed ibn Kuzel Al Isawai with a reed, on egg-glazed paper that antedates any European-made paper by half a century.

So far, a scribal colophon has not come into view on any leaf as yet recognized as part of the same book. Occasionally for some of Ege’s manuscripts, a colophon surfaces somewhere in a dispersed leaf, as the case with 2 other manuscripts deployed as specimens in the Famous Books Portfolios:

  • the Aristotle manuscript (Ege Manuscript 51) and
  • the Livy manuscript (Ege Manuscript 52).

The latter case survives at Rhodes College, with the colophon reporting the date as 12 September 1456; it is shown here.  Multiple colophons in the former are described and illustrated in More Parts of ‘Otto Ege Manuscript 51’ .

One wonders what other information a colophon in Arabic might have conveyed, not only in terms of its textual contents, but also in terms of its script, its location within the book, and other material evidence.

As for a different date between the wording of a colophon and the apparent date of the manuscript, it is not unknown in manuscript production, both Eastern and Western, that the colophon of an earlier scribe, with its earlier date, could be copied unchanged in the process of transcribing the exemplar.

Presumably, Ege took the colophon at face value, without recognizing other features which could signify a much later date for the script, paper, textual markings, and other features.

Coda:  Reed or Pen

It is uncertain whence Ege derived his belief that “This leaf” (namely, whichever one accompanied his Label) “was written . . . with a reed”.  The use of a reed pen, especially for papyri (and cuneiform), is well attested. The images available for view from the Koran manuscript show rapid gradations in widths of strokes more characteristic of quill pens.

Perhaps Ege drew his inference from his belief that the manuscript represented an early, pre-European form — replete with egg-glaze as a finish.

*****

Further Reading

On the production of Quran manuscripts over time and place, from the 7th century (CE) onward, their scripts and calligraphic practices, and their structure, punctuation, and embellishment, see, for example:

For the Metropolitan Museum of Art:

  • Maryam Ekhtiar and Julia Cohen, Early Qur’ans (8th–Early 13th Century)“The introduction of paper into the region [with the importation from China to the Middle East] allowed for the production of far more Qur’ans than had previously been possible.”

For the British Library:

  • Colin F. Baker, Calligraphy of the Qur’an.

For islamic-awareness.org:

  • The Qur’anic Manuscripts.
    — with a list of links to “The Qur’anic Manuscripts In Museums, Institutes, Libraries & Collections”

Further references

Colin Baker, Qur’an Manuscripts: Calligraphy, Illumination, Design (London:  The British Library, 2007)

Sheila S. Blair, Islamic Calligraphy (Edinburgh:  Edinburgh University Press, 2006)

Francois Deroche. The Abbasid Tradition: Qur’ans of the 8th to 10th centuries A.D. (London:  Nour Foundation in association with Azimuth Editions and Oxford University Press, 1992)

———, Islamic Codicology:  An Introduction to the Study of Manuscripts in Arabic Script. (London:  Al-Furqān Islamic Heritage Foundation, 2005)

Mohammad Gharipour and Irvin Cemil Schick, eds. Calligraphy and Architecture in the Muslim World (Edinburgh:  Edinburgh University Press, 2013)

David Roxburgh, Writing the Word of God:  Calligraphy and the Qur’an (Houston:  Museum of Fine Arts, 2007)

Yasin Safadi, The Qur’an:  Catalogue of an Exhibition of Qur’an Manuscripts at the British Library (London:  World of Islam Publishing Co. Ltd for the British Library, 1976)

*****

We thank the owner of the “new” Portfolio of Famous Books in Nine Centuries for permitting us to examine and publish this find.  We likewise thank the owners of other materials from Otto Ege’s collection for allowing access to the sources and related evidence.  We give thanks also to our Associates and others for advice over the years about Ege’s manuscripts and their distribution, and now to Leslie French and David Sorenson for advice specifically about the Koran/Qur’an manuscript.

Further posts might present other leaves from this Portfolio and their relatives, as well as other discoveries for Ege Manuscripts.

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, Back of Leaf, Detail. Reproduced by permission.

Do you know of more leaves from this manuscript?  Of other sets of the Portfolios of Famous Books (in Nine and/or Eight Centuries) or Oriental Books?  Do you have suggestions for the date and origin of this manuscript?  Other works by the named scribe?

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

*****

Tags: Brooklyn Museum, Dispersed Manuscript Leaves, Ege's FOL Portfolio, Ege's Portfolio of Famous Bibles, Ege's Portfolio of Famous Books, Ege's Portfolio of Oriental Books, Koran Manuscripts, Medieval Manuscript Fragments, North Carolina Museum of Art, Otto Ege Manuscript 51, Otto Ege Manuscript 53, Otto Ege Portfolios, Qur'an Manuscripts, Rhodes College
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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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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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The Pearly Gateway: A Scrap from a Latin Missal or Breviary

April 26, 2020 in Manuscript Studies, Uncategorized

The Pearly Gateway:
A Scrap from a Latin Missal or Breviary

[Published on 25 April 2020]

A scrap of a late-medieval Latin manuscript joins the company of fragments from religious texts for collective use, including missals and breviaries, and also that of medieval manuscript fragments retrieved from secondary reuse in binding other forms of text.  See the Contents List for this blog.

Private Collection, "Margaritas" fragment front side.

Private Collection, "Margaritas" fragment back side

Recently a small fragment of a leaf was acquired for a private collection from an unknown Latin manuscript.  We had the opportunity to examine and photograph the fragment, and we offer images of it here, along with preliminary observations.   Perhaps you recognize the script or text?

The scrap retains part of a single column of text, including some of the upper margin of the leaf.  The text amounts to one side of the column and 7 of its lines, plus the top of a next line.  One side of the scrap holds the opening, or left-hand side, of the column of text; the other holds the ending, or right-hand side, of its column.

The shape of the scrap shows that it was excised or trimmed down to its present limited extent by an uneven vertical slice both at the left of the column and through its middle, and an uneven horizontal slice through the top of its line 8.  It may have seemed unnecessary to cut through the upper margin, so perhaps the present height of the margin is the same as it was when the spoliation occurred.

Other forms of damage affect the scrap, including fold-lines, creases, tears, stains, and pigment offsets.  The patterns of folds, rubbed portions of text, and the losses probably from a mitred corner may show that this scrap came from a reused piece of vellum which served as the covering of a binding for some other text.  If so, the trimming of the part-column would have followed the retrieval of that reused vellum and its division into smaller portions for individual distribution, that is, sale.

Fuller leaves deformed by reuse in bindings have passed through our blog.  They show more of the folding and mitering patterns which such reuse would have entailed.  For example, A Leaf from Gregory’s Dialogues Reused to Bind Euthymius:

Verso of Leaf from the Dialogues of Gregory the Great, Book III, chapter 7. Photography by Mildred Budny

Verso of Leaf from the Dialogues of Gregory the Great, Book III, chapter 7. Photography by Mildred Budny

Script and Layout

It is not clear whether the original leaf originally held a single column or double columns of text.  The margin to the right of the column might represent part of the inner margin of the leaf or part of the intercolumn separating the 2 columns (let us call them ‘a’ and ‘b’ from left to right).  If it came from a double-column format, this scrap would represent the first part of column a or b on one side, and the last part of the reverse (column b or a) on the other.  The distance textually between those remnants, as yet unknown, could help to assess the length of the columns as well as their number per page.

The text is written in ink, with rubricated elements in red pigment.  That pigment remains bright, without discoloration, probably indicating its vegetal (rather than metallic) origin.  Line 1 stands below the top ruled line of the framework for the text.  The ladder-like framework has outlined ‘rungs’ upon which the lines of script stand.  The lines of the framework are made in ink on one side of the scrap, but partly in ink and partly (in the lower part) in red pigment on the other side.

The text is written clearly in upright Gothic textura, with a few capitals.  The script employs a few abbreviations, low points for punctuation, and diagonal hairline strokes rising to the right as the dots over the i‘s.  The letter a has a firmly closed double-compartment bow.

Side 1

Private Collection, "Margaritas" fragment back side

Private Collection, “Margaritas” fragment back side.

Lines 1–3 on Side 1 correspond to part of De Uirgine que Martyr Fuerit in the published Missal of Saint Augustine’s Abbey, Canterbury, Appendix B, page 167. Here.  Andreas Falow observed that the passage belongs to the Responsonium
Simile est regnum caelorum homini negotiatori.

From these sources we supply, within square brackets [thus], the missing parts of each line opening the column.  Line 1 begins mid-word.

Line 1

[ne-/]gociatori queren[ti bonas]

margaritas. [inuenta u-]

[-]na preciosa ma[rgariti]

dedit omnia sua [et conp-]

Line 5

[-]aruit eam.  ¶ [ . . . ]

[]ue erineit ?est i[ . . . ]

[-]te us’ op die feria [ . . . ]

[ . . . ]

The passage in full would begin on at the bottom of the preceding column of text, either on the same page (in column a for column b in 2-column layout) or on the preceding page (in the single column in 2-column layout or in column b for 2-column layout).  Depending upon the location of this damaged column, it if stood at the left on the recto, the preceding column would have belonged to the preceding leaf.  By these words, we might recognize it, if it comes to light among surviving fragments.

The Response:

Simile est regnum caelorum homini negotiatori,
quaerenti bonas margaritas;
inventa una pretiosa margarita,
dedit omnia sua
et comparavit eam.

In German:

Das Reich der Himmel gleicht einem Kaufmann,
der schöne Perlen suchte.
Als er eine kostbare Perle fand,
gab er all das seine
und kaufte sie.

As Chris Nighman observes, the passage refers to the Parable of the Pearl, related in Matthew 13:45–46:

45 iterum simile est regnum caelorum homini negoiatori quaertenti bonas margaritas
46 inventa autem una pretiosa margarita abiit et vendid omnia que habuit et emit eam

In the King James Version:

Again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto a merchant man, seeking goodly pearls: Who, when he had found one pearl of great price, went and sold all that he had, and bought it.

That passage, known as the Parable of the Pearl, or the Pearl of Great Price, alludes to the rarity and value of pearls both as physical and as symbolical treasures.

Washington, D. C., National Gallery of Art. Jan Vermeer, "The Pearl Merchant" or "Woman holding a Balance"(circa 1665). Image Public Domain via Wikimedia.

Washington, D. C., National Gallery of Art. Jan Vermeer, “The Pearl Merchant” or “Woman Holding a Balance” (circa 1665). Image Public Domain via Wikimedia.

Side 2

Private Collection, "Margaritas" fragment front side.

Private Collection, “Margaritas” fragment front side.

Line 1

[ . . . ]s et [ . . . ] eligit eam

[ . . . ]tare  [ . . . ]au[?]i facit

[ . . . ]uaci [ . . . ]o suo In

[ . . . ]le uii[ . . . ] Au’ de lau-

Line 5

[ . . . ]feria [.]s. Cap[itu]l[um] in

[ In] ecclesiis altissi[-]

[ -m]i apieret os su-[um . . . ]

In the Breviarium Remense (1830), In ecclesiis altisimi apieret os suum is a Response in Dominica I post Epiphianium in II Nocturno.

The Columns of Text Reconstructed

The portions of text which we can so far reconstruct through their recognition in other sources establish that each column had short lines, of which the scrap retains about one-half to one-third the former width.  Such presentation may indicate that the original manuscript had double columns.

Front & Back

It is not yet clear which side of the scrap was the front, or recto in the manuscript.  More research may clarify the issue.

But we can see which side of the skin is which.

The whitish flesh side of the animal skin stands on the side of the fragment which opens its column of text and places the word margaritas (“pearls”) in line 1.

Private Collection, "Margaritas" fragment back side, lines 2-5.

Private Collection, “Margaritas” fragment back side, lines 2-5.

The darker hair side includes a few short hairs from the animal on the partly-healed hole which interferes with the lower part of the o of os in the last line.  The slice through the leaf below this line bisects the hole.

Private Collection, "Margaritas" fragment front side, lines 4-7.

Private Collection, “Margaritas” fragment front side, lines 4-7.

It was the hair side which the leaf turned outside when it was reused to cover a binding.

*****

Do you recognize this scribe or the texts?

Please leave your Comments here, Contact Us with your questions and suggestions, and visit our Facebook Page.

Also, watch this blog for more discoveries.

*****

Tags: Breviary, manuscripts reused in bindings, Medieval Manuscript Fragments, Missal, Parable of the Pearl, Pearl of Great Price
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2020 Spring Symposium: Save the Date

February 15, 2020 in Announcements, Conference, Conference Announcement, Events, Index of Medieval Art, Princeton University, Reception, Uncategorized

New York, Grolier Club, \*434.14\Aug\1470\Folio. Flavius Josephus, De antiquitate Judiaca and De bello Judaico, translated by Rufinus Aquileinensis, printed in Augsburg on paper by Johannn Schüsseler in 2 Parts, dated respectively 28 June 1470 and 23 August 1470, and bound together with a manuscript copy dated 1462 of Eusebius Caesariensis, Historia ecclesiastica.

New York, Grolier Club, *434.14Aug1470Folio.

“From Cover to Cover”

Activities Devoted to Manuscripts, Early Printed Books & Beyond
From Collecting & Cataloguing to Deciphering & Beholding

2020  Spring Symposium
of the Research Group on Manuscript Evidence

Princeton University
Friday & Saturday 13–14 March 2020

 

Update 5 April 2020

The Symposium Booklet, with illustrations and Abstracts of Papers, is now published and available for download.
See Keeping Up: Updates for Spring 2020.

The Abstract of one paper in the 2020 Symposium Booklet has been expanded to a Draft Paper, available for Feedback:

  • “A Quick Introduction to Indian Manuscripts for the Non-Specialist”, with examples and illustrations,
    downloadable here.

Update 9 March 2020

This event is now cancelled, as Princeton University and other institutions respond to current health concerns, and take precautions regarding travel and meetings of various kinds in person.
The Symposium might be rescheduled, conditions permitting.  

Meanwhile, the Research Group aims to complete the Symposium Booklet and distribute it to contributors, registrants, and others, as a souvenir of our speakers’ good intentions.  Already, as a sign of appreciation, we have adopted the custom of posting on our website the abstracts of contributors who become unable to attend to present in person (as with the 2018 Congress, among others).

This time, under wider — even global — circumstances affecting the ensemble as a whole, we wish to show appreciation for the remarkable enthusiasm and dedication for the collaborative event demonstrated by our hosts, sponsors, speakers, moderators, and others.  This knowledge is something to remember with satisfaction, gratitude, and praise.

The publication could, perhaps, give a token to show for our shared efforts, and to demonstrate something of the spirit of dedication and focus which prepared to assemble for the event itself.

This aim might help to ease some of the disappointment over cancellation, while the cancellation itself might ease some uncertainties about travel at present.

P. S.  Only once before, in more than 30 years of activities in many centers in the United States and elsewhere (see our Events and Congress Activities}, has the Research Group had to cancel an event.  It, however, was only 1 Session among 7 sponsored and co-sponsored Sessions at the 48th International Congress on Medieval Studies in May 2013, when the Session organizer and 2 presenters were unable to travel to the Congress.  We honored their intentions to contribute by continuing to record their abstracts and the statement of purpose of the Session on this  website.

Similar solidarity pertains to our record of this intended 2020 Spring Symposium.  A summary of this Update appears in its own post.

Here we preserve the description of the event in the updated version just before the decision to cancel this Symposium, among many gatherings at Princeton University and elsewhere at the beginning of the week in which the Symposium was planned to take place.

*****

What We Planned

Saint Andrew. Oil on Canvas. Artus Wollfort (1581–1641). Private Collection, Public Domain. Via Wikipedia Commons.

Saint Andrew. Oil on Canvas. Artus Wollfort (1581–1641). Private Collection, Public Domain. Via Wikipedia Commons.

We announce the next Symposium of the Research Group on Manuscript Evidence, to be held at Princeton University on Friday afternoon and Saturday, 13–14 March 2020. This event follows from, and builds upon, our earlier events, including our 2019 Anniversary Symposium, also held at Princeton University.

Our subject this time: “From Cover to Cover”.   Some say, “That Covers It”.  (We might well agree.)

Such activities include Collecting, Curating, Conserving, Cataloguing, Deciphering, Editing, Reading, Teaching, Translating, Displaying, Accessing, Beholding, Reconsidering, and More.  Cover to Cover.

Naturally, these activities need not necessarily occur in that order, and often they appear in combination.

In addition we consider activities dedicated to manuscripts, early printed books, and beyond, in terms (as is our custom) of both media and chronology.  As often, we consider medieval manuscripts and early printed books from Western Europe, but also— as usual — we examine materials from other cultures, languages, and time-frames.

This recognition of the processes (necessarily integrated) infuses the collection of presentations and conversations which our Symposium aims to gather.  In a nutshell:  Food for Thought, Refreshments included.

For which ability, we have Sponsors, Hosts, Trustees, Associates, Contributors, and Volunteers heartily to thank.

Sponsors

Research Group on Manuscript Evidence

Department of Art & Archaeology, Princeton University

The Index of Medieval Art at Princeton University

Program in Medieval Studies, Princeton University

James Marrow and Emily Rose

Barbara A. Shailor

Celia Chazelle

The Schoenberg Institute for Manuscript Studies

The Bibliographical Society of America

Vassar College

On the Road

Poster 1 for 2019 Anniversary Symposium, with symposium information with images of manuscript and early printed pages..

Poster 1 for 2019 Symposium

Poster 2 for 219 Anniversary Symposium, with symposium information and 2 images of cropped initials, from 12th-century Latin manuscripts, from the Princeton University Art Museum.

Poster 2 for 2019 Symposium

Following upon, and building upon, the success of our Anniversary Symposium last year, we prepare the 2020 Spring Symposium.  Its date is now set, as is the Schedule.  (See below.)

For our 2019 Anniversary Symposium, see its Report and its freely downloadable 2019 Anniversary Symposium Booklet.  Like the Booklet, the 2 Posters (seen here) illustrate examples of manuscripts (Western and non-Western) showcased in the Symposium, its papers, and its workshops.

All these publications, as customary, are set in our very own copyright multilingual font Bembino , and designed and laid out according with our Style Manifesto.  This font is freely available through our website, for your use – whether individual, nonprofit, or commercial.

Both the font, and its descriptive Booklet, are downloadable here .  We have also prepared a booklet showing its abilities in setting multiple languages, both Western and non-Western.  See Multi-Lingual Bembino . Plus our Style Manifesto .

Cover Story

Now we turn to our 2020 Spring Symposium.  Please register (details below).

Gladly we list the Sponsors, Speakers, and Moderators.

Speakers and Moderators (in alphabetical order)

Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Libraries, Lawrence J. Schoenberg Collection, MS LJS 101, folio 1v. Opening of Boethius's translation of Aristotle's "Peri erimenias" within a collection of secular and classical texts, France, possibly at the Abbey of Fleury (Saint-Benoît-sur-Loire), 9th–11th centuries. Photograph courtesy OPenn.

Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Libraries, Lawrence J. Schoenberg Collection, MS LJS 101, folio 1v. Photograph courtesy OPenn.

Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, MS latin 190, folio 1r. Opening page of the Commentarii notarum tironiarum, with an enlarged initial decorated with interlace and foliate ornament. Image via gallica.bnf.fr.

Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, MS latin 190, folio 1r. Photograph via gallica.bnf.fr.

Christine E. Bachmann (Art History Department, University of Delaware and Graduate Student Fellow 2019–2020, Schoenberg Institute for Manuscript Studies, University of Pennsylvania)

Mildred Budny (Director, Research Group on Manuscript Evidence, Princeton)

Raymond Clemens (Curator, Early Books and Manuscripts, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University, New Haven)

Meghan Constantinou (Librarian, The Grolier Club, New York, New York)

Barbara Williams Ellertson (Books as Symbols in Renaissance Art and Research Group on Manuscript Evidence)

Lynley Anne Herbert (Curator of Manuscripts and Rare Books, The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore, Maryland)

Carson Koepke (Program in Medieval Studies, Yale University)

Laura Light (Director and Senior Specialist, Text Manuscripts, Les Enluminures)

John T. McQuillen (Associate Curator, Printed Books & Bindings, The Morgan Library & Museum, New York, New York)

Bernard Maisner (Bernard Maisner and Bernard Maisner, Master Calligrapher)

New York, Morgan Library & Museum, PML 7, folio P2r. Blockbook of Apocalypsis Sancti Johannis, printed in Germany circa 1468. Revelation 15:1, with hand-colored illustration.

New York, Morgan Library & Museum, PML 7, folio P2r. Blockbook of Apocalypsis Sancti Johannis, printed in Germany circa 1468. Revelation 15:1, with hand-colored illustration.

Sabrina Minuzzi (Researcher in Early Modern History, Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellow, Ca’ Foscari University of Venice)

Ronald D. Patkus (Associate Director of the Libraries for Special Collections and Vassar Head of Special Collections, Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, New York)

Pamela Patton (Director, Index of Medieval Art at Princeton University)

Lynn Ransom (Curator of Programs, The Schoenberg Institute for Manuscript Studies, University of Pennsylvania Libraries)

Helmut Reimitz (Professor of History and Director, Program in Medieval Studies, Princeton University)

Jessica L. Savage (Art History Specialist, Index of Medieval Art)

Barbara A. Shailor (Department of Classics, Yale University, and President, Bibliographical Society of America)

       David W. Sorenson (Independent, Quincy, Massachusetts)

Kelly Tuttle (Project Cataloger, Manuscripts of the Muslim World, University of Pennsylvania Libraries)

Eric White (Curator of Rare Books and Acting Curator of Manuscripts, Special Collections, Firestone Library, Princeton University)

Princeton University Library, Rare Books and Special Collections, William H. Scheide Library, 53.8. Latin Bible in double columns of 49 lines, printed in Strasbourg by Johann Mentelin, not after 1460 CE.

Princeton University Library, Rare Books and Special Collections, William H. Scheide Library, 53.8. Latin Bible (printed in Strasbourg by Johann Mentelin, not after 1460 CE.) Photograph courtesy Princeton University Library, Rare Books and Special Collections.

The Aim

In a nutshell.

2020 Spring Symposium Announcement, describing the scope of the event, listing the Sponsors, and citing the link to the registration form.

The Plan

Day 1

Friday 13 March: Classes, Workshops, Discussion, and a Reception

1) 12:00–1:00, 12:00–1:30, or 12:00–2:00pm (By Invitation)
Seminar Room of the Index of Medieval Art

“Comparing Notes about Databases:  Past, Present & Futures”
An Informal Discussion

2–3) 1:00–2:45 pm or 3:00–4:45 pm
Classes on Site at Firestone Library (Registration Required and Space Limited)

For registration for these classes and the symposium, see below.

“Material Evidence: A Workshop with 15th-Century Manuscripts and Incunabules”

Classes given (twice) by Eric White, Curator of Rare Books, Princeton University Library, in the Large Classroom of Floor C (Rare Books and Special Collections) at Firestone Library

Please gather in the Lobby at the entrance to Firestone Library, for special escorted access to Floor C, where there are lockable lockers (free) for your coats and cases, before entry to Special Collections.

2) Class 1:  Meet at 1:00 for 1:15–2:45 pm

3) Class 2 (repeated):  Meet at 3:00 for 3:15–4:45 pm

or

4) Session 3:00–5:00 pm
106 McCormick Hall

“Materials, Processes & Products:  A Workshop”

This workshop offers presentations by Bernard Maisner on “The Materials and Methods of Medieval & Renaissance Manuscript Gold-Illumination Techniques” and by David W. Sorenson on “An Introduction to Indian Manuscripts for the Non-Specialist”, along with curated displays of original materials in private collections and demonstrations of results from their close study.

5) Reception

5:00–7:00 pm
Lobby outside 106 McCormick Hall

Florence, Galleria degli Uffizi, Anonymous, Still Life, German school of the XVI century, circa 1510, oil on wood, 70.2 × 65 cm. Opened book with fanned leaves showing pages of text and music set out in double columns and adorned with decorated initials and illustrations. Image via Wikimedia, public domain.

Florence, Galleria degli Uffizi, Anonymous, Still Life of an Illuminated Book, German school of the XVI century, circa 1510. Opened book with fanned leaves. Image via Wikimedia, public domain.

Day 2

Saturday 14 March:  Sessions, Refreshments, and Reception

106 McCormick Hall and its Lobby

6) 10:00 am – 5:30 pm

Sessions, Coffee Breaks, Lunch, and Discussion

7) Reception (5:30–7:00 pm)

2020 Symposium "From Cover to Cover" Poster 2

2020 Symposium Poster 2

*****

The Schedule

The Schedule is available here.

*****

Registration

Please register for the Symposium.  We offer the Registration form as a downloadable pdf .

*****

Maps and Directions

Here.

*****

Please Contact us with questions and suggestions.

Watch this space and visit our FaceBook Page for updates.

We invite you to donate to our nonprofit educational mission. Donations may be tax-deductible. We welcome donations in funds and in kind: Contributions and Donations .

Please join us at the symposium, open to all.  You can register here .

*****

Tags: Early Printing, manuscript fragments, Manuscript Illumination, Manuscript studies, Medieval Manuscript Fragments, Medieval Studies, Medieval Writing Materials, Spring Symposium
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The Plot Thickens

June 7, 2019 in Manuscript Studies, Reports

A New Leaf Found at the University of Pennsylvania
from the
“Kurdian/Chicago New Testament Praxapostolos[?]
in Old Armenian”

The “Find-Place” of this Fragment
is a Surprise
also for Our Research on “Otto Ege Manuscripts”

[In our series of blogposts on Manuscript Studies, Mildred Budny (see Her Page) reports the unexpected discovery of another leaf from the same dismembered manuscript with portions of the New Testament in Old Armenian featured in an earlier blogpost, published on 28 September 2015, with an illustrated Report available for download.  Now we prepare for an updated, downloadable Report by describing the New Find and its location.]

Cover for the Report on 'Two Detached Manuscript Leaves containing New Testament Texts in Old Armenian' by Leslie J. French for the Research Group on Manuscript Evidence, with a detail of Leaf I verso, column a lines 10-12, with the opening of Acts 23:12First the Report So Far. As part of the process of exhibiting images from manuscripts, documents, and other written materials — for example in our Galleries of Scripts on Parade and Texts on Parade, and in our Reports on Manuscript Studies — we offered a Report on ‘Two Detached Manuscript Leaves containing New Testament Texts in Old Armenian’ by our Associate, Leslie J. French.  The Report focuses upon the evidence of some New Leaves (as they came into our view), considering their materials, layout, text, apparatus, and language, with reference to the knowable features of other remnants of the manuscript, particularly the Chicago Leaf, and some relatives among other representatives of New Testament texts in Old Armenian written in bolorgir script and accompanied in the margins by the Euthalian apparatus.

The Report booklet is available for download in 2 versions. They respect options for printing which might be available to you.

  • ArmenianPages set out in individual letter-sized (or quarto) pages
  • ArmenianBooklet laid out on 11″ × 17″ sheets for folding into a 20-page booklet in consecutive reading order

Specifically for that Report, Armenian characters in both lower case and upper case were added to the multi-lingual digital font Bembino of the Research Group on Manuscript Evidence.  For information about the font and its current version, free for download and use, see Bembino.  A booklet demonstrates specimens in multiple languages, Armenian included, of the appearance on the page of Multi-Lingual Bembino.

Booklet ‘On Demand’

Old Armenian "New Leaf I", Verso. Fragment with part of the Acts of the Apostles (to Acts 23:19)

Folio Ir of Armenian New Testament fragment. Acts of the Apostles

This Report is available below for download as PDF. In the form of a booklet, it presents its materials laid out in the official font of the Research Group on Manuscript Evidence, Bembino, a multilingual digital font (which you see on this website), and in accordance with the principles of our Style Manifesto. Such an approach resembles the presentation of our Newsletter ShelfMarks in booklet form, likewise available freely for download — as are the Style Manifesto and the descriptive booklet, with specimens, for Bembino. The font itself is also FREE for download here (now in Version 1.3).

The Report examines and illustrates two detached leaves in Old Armenian which came to our attention when preparing their presentation among other specimens in various languages in our Gallery of Scripts on Parade. Then, identifying the passages of text and the elements of textual apparatus on the leaves proceeded hand in hand with an exploration of the available evidence, or records, for other parts of the same manuscript dispersed in several collections. Designing Armenian characters, lowercase and uppercase, for Bembino (in its next version, still in progress, responding to requests) allowed for the collation of the texts in full, as an aid to decipherment for readers who may be unfamiliar with the language or the medieval script forms. And so the booklet took shape.

The Manuscript in Question

These leaves, now in several collections, both private and institutional, preserve parts of dismembered manuscript in Old Armenian written in bolorgir minuscule script of the 15th or 16th century CE. The remnants contain parts of the New Testament (some observers say a Lectionary), plus a Prayer (or its opening line) and a Scribal Colophon (of unknown contents), now dispersed in parts among several collections worldwide.

Read the rest of this entry →

Tags: Bembino Digital Font, Dawson's Bookshop, Goodspeed Manuscript Collection, Manuscript studies, Medieval Manuscript Fragments, New Testament Manuscripts, Old Armenian, University of Pennsylvania Libraries
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More Discoveries for ‘Otto Ege Manuscript 41’

November 27, 2018 in Manuscript Studies, Photographic Exhibition

New Haven, Yale University, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Otto Ege Collection, Family Portfolio of Fifty Original Leaves ("FOL") of Medieval Western Manuscripts, Leaf 41, recto, column b, top. Medieval Contents List for the Volume in the upper margin, above the concluding line of the Chaper List for Book I and the Opening of that Book. Photography by Mildred BudnyOtto Ege’s
Dismembered Manuscript 41

A Latin copy of the
Dialogues of Gregory the Great,
Epistles and Homilies of John Chrysostom,
Meditations of Anselm,
And Maybe More

Double columns of 40 lines with some embellishment

Produced probably in Flanders, perhaps circa 1450

Plundered in World War I
From the Library of the Van der Cruisse de Waziers, near Lille in France

Sold circa 1925 through the Bookseller Thorpe in Surrey, England

Brought to the United States Intact, Then Dismembered and Distributed in Pieces

Continuing our series on Manuscript Studies, Mildred Budny (see Her Page) adds new evidence to her earlier reports of some leaves from medieval manuscripts dispersed by Otto F. Ege (1888–1951). Further research and newly revealed materials augment our knowledge of these manuscripts (and others). 

This report updates our earlier blogpost on parts of Otto Ege Manuscript 41.  See also the posts for Ege Manuscripts 8, 14, 51, and 61, plus updates (More Discoveries for Ege Manuscript 61), as well as the Report for our 2016 Symposium on ‘Words & Deeds’, with an illustrated Program Booklet. 

This report, drafted following a first visit in 2017 to view examples in the Otto Ege Collection now at the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Collection, benefits from updates following a new visit in October 2018, with my thanks for permission to examine and to photograph the materials, especially while they remain mostly uncatalogued.

Picking Up The Piecework

As more pieces of the manuscript come to light, and/or become recognized for what they are, the process of virtually picking up their pieces toward a reasonable reconstruction of their original contents can or must proceed piecemeal.  More discoveries advance that process considerably.  Here we report new stages.  Some of them, naturally enough, may revise the received understanding about the manuscript.

Read the rest of this entry →

Tags: Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Dialogues of Gregory the Great, Epistles of John Chrysostom, Homilies of John Chrysostom, Homilies on the Epistle to the Hebrews, library of the Van Der Cruisse de Waziers family, Manuscript studies, Medieval Manuscript Fragments, Meditations of Saint Anselm, Otto Ege Manuscript 41, Otto Ege Manuscripts
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