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      • Adelaide Bennett Hagens
    • Activities
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          • Panels at the M-MLA Convention
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  • Bembino
    • Multi-Lingual Bembino
  • Congress
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    • Abstracts of Congress Papers
      • Abstracts Listed by Author
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    • Kalamazoo Archive
    • Panels at the M-MLA Convention
      • Abstracts of Papers for the M-MLA Convention
  • Events
    • The Research Group Speaks: The Series
    • Seminars, Workshops, Colloquia & Symposia (1989–)
      • Seminars on ‘The Evidence of Manuscripts’
      • Symposia on ‘The Transmission of the Bible’
      • The New Series
        • 2019 Anniversary Symposium Program: The Roads Taken
        • 2019 Anniversary Symposium Registration
        • 2019 Anniversary Symposium Registration Open
    • Abstracts of Papers for Events
      • Abstracts of Papers for Seminars on ‘The Evidence of Manuscripts’
      • Abstracts of Papers for Symposia, Workshops & Colloquia
    • Receptions & Parties
    • Business Meetings
    • Photographic Exhibitions & Master Classes
    • Events Archive
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    • Journal Description
    • ShelfMarks: The RGME-Newsletter
    • Publications
      • “Insular, Anglo-Saxon, and Early Anglo-Norman Manuscript Art at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge” (1997)
        • Mildred Budny, ‘Catalogue’
        • The Illustrated Catalogue (1997)
      • The Illustrated Handlist
      • Semi-Official Counterfeiting in France 1380-1422
      • No Snap Decisions: Challenges of Manuscript Photography
    • History and Design of Our Website
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Portfolio 93 of Ege’s “Famous Books in Eight Centuries” in the Collection of Richard Weber

June 22, 2022 in Manuscript Studies, Uncategorized

Selected Specimens,
Manuscript and Printed,
in Portfolio 93
of Otto Ege’s Famous Books in Eight Centuries (FBEC)
in the Collection of Richard Weber

[Posted on 21 June 2022, with updates]

Richard Weber Collection, Famous Books in Eight Centuries, Portfolio Set 93, Aristotle, Folio 23 Verso. Reproduced by Permission

With thanks, we offer a preliminary view of the full, and unexpected, glimpse of the Portfolio Number 93, which had been assembled by of Otto Ege (1888–1951) from manuscripts and printed books, so as to exhibit specimens of Famous Books, religious and other, from the medieval period onwards, in the Western middle ages and beyond.

This post offers a start in exploring the treasures in this set of the Portfolio.  Earlier blogposts have begun to examine the structure and elements of the Portfolio both in general and in particular.

This post takes note of the specifics, which hold some surprises.  The post builds upon some previous investigations, which establish points of departure and advances for various of the specimens in the Portfolio, both manuscript and printed.

Earlier blogposts reflect upon such possibilities and complexities.  For example:

  • More Leaves from Otto Ege’s Portfolios of Famous Books: The Aquinas Manuscript
  • Otto Ege’s Portfolio of Famous Books and Ege Manuscript 53 (Quran)

We had intended to report more on the specimens of printed leaves, and not only the manuscripts, whilst other tasks called for attention.  The time has come to pick up those aspirations.
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Tags: Aristotle, Ege's Portfolio of Famous Books, Ege's Portfolio of Famous Books in Eight Centuries, Erfurt, Medieval Manuscript Fragments, Otto Ege Manuscript 51, Richard Weber Collection
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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 Aquinas Manuscript in Humanist Script (‘Ege Manuscript 40’)

March 4, 2021 in Manuscript Studies

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

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

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

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

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

Written in Latin on vellum

Italy, probably late 15th Century (circa 1475)

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

Double columns of 37 lines

in Humanist Script (with Gothic Features)

*****

Folio 300

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  • More Leaves from ‘Otto Ege Manuscript 51’
  • More Parts of ‘Otto Ege Manuscript 51’
Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Otto Ege Collection, Ege MS 51, Volume II, folio 1r, top left. Photography Mildred Budny.

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

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

Famous Books in Nine Centuries

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

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

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

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

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

Contents List and Specimen Leaves

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

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

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

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

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

Contents List: Manuscripts and Other Texts

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

[Parts II–IV]. The Printed Leaves

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

[Part I]. The Manuscript Leaves

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

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

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

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

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

To recap from our previous post:

The Manuscript Leaves in FBNC and their Ege Manuscript Numbers

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

— also in the Oriental Leaves Portfolio

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

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

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

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

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

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

— in both FBNC and FBEC

[4]. Livy of ‘1436’ (Ege MS 52)

— in both FBNC and FBEC

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

— only in this Portfolio of Nine Centuries (FBNC)

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

— also in FOL (Leaf 40)

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

The Aquinas Manuscript in Humanist Script

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Peter Lombard’s Sentences

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

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

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

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

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

Aquinas’s Commentary on the Sentences

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

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

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

— Sentences Commentary.

The Texts, Editions, and Translations

Among freely available editions online, examples include:

1. The Sentences by Peter Lombard in Latin

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

A translation of the full work in English:

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

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

2. The Commentary by Aquinas on those Sentences in Latin

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

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

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

The Commentary rendered in English

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

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

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

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

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

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

Book I of the Commentary

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

Ege’s Labels for the Aquinas Manuscript

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

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

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

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

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

Thus:

1470 Italy

St. Thomas Aquinas, Commentary
on the Sentences

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Label states:

THOMAS AQUINAS * COMMENTARY ON THE SENTENCES

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

Humanistic Manuscript, written in Italy, 1470

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on the Sentences

(Super Primo Libro Sententiarum)

FROM THE COLLECTION OF OTTO F. EGE

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

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

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

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

4. The Contents List for the FOL Portfolio

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

First:

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

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

Second:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

‘Diagnostic’ Terms for the Distributions of Leaves

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Utrum id quod est praeter voluntatem Dei praecepto non subjaceat

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

Articulus IV: Utrum Deus velit mala fieri.

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

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

The Span of Text on the Leaf

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

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

to within

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

to within this point:

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

The Span of Text on Other Leaves

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

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

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

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

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

Provisional List of Leaves

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

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

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

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

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

I. Locations Unknown or Unspecified

*****

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

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

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

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

*****

Folios ??. Location(s) unknown.

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

*****

Folio ?. Location unknown.

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

*****

Folio ?. Location unknown.

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

*****

II. Locations in Alphabetical Order

*****

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

*****

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

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

*****

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

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

*****

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

*****

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

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

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

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

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

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

*****

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

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

*****

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

*****

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

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

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

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

Recto

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

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

Verso

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

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

*****

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

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

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

*****

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

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

*****

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

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

*****

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

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

*****

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

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

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

*****

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

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

*****

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

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

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

*****

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

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

*****

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

*****

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

*****

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

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

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

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

*****

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

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

*****

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

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

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

*****

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

*****

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

*****

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

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

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

*****

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

*****

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

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

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

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

*****

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

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

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

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

*****

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

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

*****

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

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

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

*****

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

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

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

Original Recto

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

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

Original Verso

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

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

*****

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

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

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

*****

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

*****

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

*****

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

*****

Etc.

*****

A Note about Consecutive Leaves

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

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

1) Evidently adjacent

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

2) Evidently not

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

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

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

Near Rather than Adjacent

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

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

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

A Note about Descriptions and Metadata

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

*****

Specimens

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

*****

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

  • The Manuscript Before and After Ege

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

*****

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

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

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

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

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

*****

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

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 Some “Otto Ege Manuscripts”

March 23, 2018 in Manuscript Studies, Photographic Exhibition, Reports

More is More

New Acquisitions Exhibition at the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library in November 2016: View of Some Parts of "Otto Ege Manuscript 14".

“A Long Shot”. New Acquisitions Exhibition at the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library in November 2016: View of Some Parts of “Otto Ege Manuscript 14”.

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).

Revisions are now in order.  As we continue to look at, and for, evidence of the dispersed materials, the old and new evidence shows more.  While giving some answers, the observations also raise new questions. 

Time now for more Updates for Some “Otto Ege Manuscripts”.

[Published on 15 December 2017, with updates]

Read the rest of this entry →

Tags: Ege Memorial Microfilm, Medieval Manuscript Fragments, Otto Ege, Otto Ege Manuscript 14, Otto Ege Manuscript 41, Otto Ege Manuscript 51, Otto Ege Manuscript 61, Otto Ege Manuscript 8
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