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    • News & Views
    • Reviews
    • Highlights
  • Blogs
    • Manuscript Studies
      • Manuscript Studies: Contents List
    • International Congress on Medieval Studies
      • Abstracts of Congress Papers
        • Abstracts of Papers Listed by Author
        • Abstracts of Papers Listed by Year
  • About
    • Mission
    • People
      • Mildred Budny — Her Page
      • Adelaide Bennett Hagens
    • Activities
      • Events
      • Congress Activities
        • Sponsored Conference Sessions (1993‒)
          • Panels at the M-MLA Convention
        • Co-sponsored Conference Sessions (2006‒)
    • History
      • Seals, Matrices & Documents
      • Genealogies & Archives
  • Bembino
    • Multi-Lingual Bembino
  • Congress
    • Sponsored Conference Sessions (1993‒)
    • Co-sponsored Conference Sessions (2006‒)
    • Abstracts of Congress Papers
      • Abstracts Listed by Author
      • Abstracts Listed by Year
    • Kalamazoo Archive
    • Panels at the M-MLA Convention
      • Abstracts of Papers for the M-MLA Convention
  • Events
    • The Research Group Speaks: The Series
    • Seminars, Workshops, Colloquia & Symposia (1989–)
      • Seminars on ‘The Evidence of Manuscripts’
      • Symposia on ‘The Transmission of the Bible’
      • The New Series
        • 2019 Anniversary Symposium Program: The Roads Taken
        • 2019 Anniversary Symposium Registration
        • 2019 Anniversary Symposium Registration Open
    • Abstracts of Papers for Events
      • Abstracts of Papers for Seminars on ‘The Evidence of Manuscripts’
      • Abstracts of Papers for Symposia, Workshops & Colloquia
    • Receptions & Parties
    • Business Meetings
    • Photographic Exhibitions & Master Classes
    • Events Archive
  • ShelfLife
    • 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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Verso of Leaf from the Dialogues of Gregory the Great, Book III, chapter 7. Photography by Mildred Budny
2023 International Congress on Medieval Studies: Preparations
The Weber Leaf from “The Warburg Missal” (Otto Ege Manuscript 22)
Folio 4 with Latin Blessings for Holy Water and an Exorcism for Salt
Portfolio 93 of Ege’s “Famous Books in Eight Centuries” in the Collection of Richard Weber
A Leaf from ‘Otto Ege Manuscript 214’ in the Collection of Richard Weber
Two Ege Leaves and Two Ege Labels in the Collection of Birgitt G. Lopez
2022 International Congress on Medieval Studies: Program
2022 Spring Symposium on “Structures of Knowledge”
Two Old Testament Leaves from ‘Otto Ege Manuscript 14’ at Smith College
Catalogs, Metadata, and Databases (Part I)
I Was Here . . .
Lead the People Forward (by Zoey Kambour)
The Curious Printing History of ‘La Science de l’Arpenteur’
A Leaf in Dallas from “Otto Ege Manuscript 14” (Lectern Bible)
How to Be Indiana Jones in the Catalog
Southern Italian Cuisine Before Columbus
Florence, Galleria degli Uffizi, Anonymous, Still Life of an Illuminated Book, German School, 15th century. Oil on Wood. Opened book with fanned pages. Image via Wikimedia, Public Domain.
Barbara Williams Ellertson and the BASIRA Project, with a Timeline
Two Vellum Leaves from a Large-Format Latin Breviary in Gothic Script
An Illustrated Leaf from the Shahnameh with a Russian Watermark
2021 International Congress on Medieval Studies Report
J. S. Wagner Collection, Leaf from Ege Manuscript 22, verso, bottom right: Ege's inscription in pencil.
Another Leaf from the Warburg Missal (‘Ege Manuscript 22’)
Hermes Trismegistus. Frontispiece image (Lyons, 1669) via Wikimedia Commons and Wellcome Images (Wellcome_L0000980).
Medieval Magic in Theory
More Leaves from a Deconstructed Sinhalese Palm-Leaf Manuscript
Private Collection, Sinhalese Palm-Leaf Manuscript, End-Leaf 01, Left.
A Sinhalese Palm-Leaf Book in Deconstructed and Reconstructed Order
Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Otto Ege Collection, FOL Set 3, MS 40, Specimen 1: folio '1'r, Top Left. Photography Mildred Budny.
Specimens of Ege Manuscript 40 in the Ege Family Portfolio
Otto F. Ege: Fifty Original Leaves from Medieval Manuscripts, Leaf 40, Printed Label, Special Collections and University Archives, Stony Brook University Libraries.
Otto Ege Manuscript 40, Part II: Before and After Ege
rivate Collection, Koran Leaf in Ege's Famous Books in Nine Centuries, Front of Leaf. Reproduced by permission.
Otto Ege’s Portfolio of ‘Famous Books’ and ‘Ege Manuscript 53’ (Quran)
J. S. Wagner Collection, Early-Printed Missal Leaf, Verso. Rubric and Music for Holy Saturday. Reproduced by Permission.
Carmelite Missal Leaf of 1509
Private Collection, Castle Cartulary Fragment, Inserted Folded Sheet, Opened: Top Righ
Fragments of a Castle ‘Capbreu’ from Catalonia
Grapes Watermark in a Selbold Cartulary Fragment.
Selbold Cartulary Fragments
Smeltzer Collection, Subermeyer (1598), Vellum Supports Strip 2 Signature Surname.
Vellum Binding Fragments in a Parisian Printed Book of 1598
Set 1 of Ege's FOL Portfolio, Leaf 14 recto: Lamentations Initial.
Some Leaves in Set 1 of Ege’s FOL Portfolio
Church of Saint Mary, High Ongar, Essex, with 12th-Century Nave. Photograph by John Salmon (8 May 2004), Image via Wikipedia.
A Charter of 1399 from High Ongar in Essex
View to the Dorm at the End of the Congress.
2019 Congress Behind the Scenes Report
Opening of the Book of Maccabees in Otto Ege MS 19. Private Collection.
A Leaf from ‘Otto Ege Manuscript 19’ and Ege’s Workshop Practices
2020 Spring Symposium: Save the Date
At the Exhibition of "Gutenberg and After" at Princeton University in 2019, the Co-Curator Eric White stands before the Scheide Gutenberg Bible displayed at the opening of the Book of I Kings.
“Gutenberg and After” at Princeton University Library
J. S. Wagner Collection. Leaf from from Prime in a Latin manuscript Breviary. Folio 4 Recto, Initial C for "Confitimini" of Psalm 117 (118), with scrolling foliate decoration.
A Leaf from Prime in a Large-Format Latin Breviary
J. S. Wagner Collection. Detached Manuscript Leaf with the Opening in Latin of the Penitent Psalm 4 or Psalm 37 (38) and its Illustration of King David.
The Penitent King David from a Book of Hours
Bust of the God Janus. Vatican City, Vatican Museums. Photo by Fubar Obfusco via Wikimedia Commons.
2019 M-MLA Panel Program
Coffee Break at our 2002 British Museum Colloquium. Our Director, Dáibhí Ó Cróinin, and Giles Constable. Photograph by our Associate, Geoffrey R. Russom.
Revisiting Anglo-Saxon Symposia 2002/2018
The red wax seal seen upright, with the male human head facing left. Document on paper issued at Grenoble and dated 13 February 1345 (Old Style). Image reproduced by permission
2020 ICMS Call for Papers: Seal the Real
Yale University, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, MS 1183. Photograph courtesy Kristen Herdman.
2019 Anniversary Symposium Report: The Roads Taken
Detail of illustration.
Sanskrit and Prakrit Manuscripts
Detail of recto of leaf from an Italian Giant Bible. Photography by Mildred Budny
2019 International Congress on Medieval Studies Program Details
Thomas E. Hill stands at the entrance to the Vassar College Library. Photography by Mildred Budny
Another Visit to The Library Cafe
Leaf 41, Recto, Top Right, in the Family Album (Set Number 3) of Otto Ege's Portfolio of 'Fifty Original Leaves' (FOL). Otto Ege Collection, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University. Photograph by Mildred Budny.
More Discoveries for ‘Otto Ege Manuscript 41’
Augustine Homilies Bifolium Folio IIr detail with title and initial for Sermon XCVI. Private Collection, reproduced by permission. Photograph by Mildred Budny.
Vellum Bifolium from Augustine’s “Homilies on John”
Rosette Watermark, Private Collection. Reproduced by Permission
2019 International Congress on Medieval Studies Program
Libro de los juegos. Madrid, El Escorial, MS T.1.6, folio 17 verso, detail.
2018 International Congress on Medieval Studies Program
Poster Announcing Bembino Version 1.5 (April 2018) with border for Web display
Bembino Version 1.5 (2018)
Lower Half of the Original Verso of a Single Leaf detached from a prayerbook in Dutch made circa 1530, owned and dismembered by Otto F. Ege, with the seller's description in pencil in the lower margin. Image reproduced by permission.
A New Leaf from ‘Otto Ege Manuscript 214’?
Slice of Brie. Photograph by Coyau via Wikipedia Commons.
Say Cheese
Verso of the Leaf and Interior of the Binding, Detail: Lower Right-Hand Corner, with the Mitered Flap Unfolde
A 12th-Century Fragment of Anselm’s ‘Cur Deus Homo’
Reused Leaf from Gregory's Dialogues Book III viewed from verso (outside of reused book cover) Detail of Spine of Cover with Volume Labels. Photograph © Mildred Budny.
A Leaf from Gregory’s Dialogues Reused for Euthymius
Detail of the top of the verso of the fragmentary leaf from a 13th-century copy of Statutes for the Cistercian Order. Reproduced by permission.
Another Witness to the Cistercian Statutes of 1257
Initial d in woodcut with winged hybrid creature as an inhabitant. Photography © Mildred Budny
The ‘Foundling Hospital’ for Manuscript Fragments
Decorated opening word 'Nuper' of the Dialogues, Book III, Chapter 13, reproduced by permission
A New Leaf from ‘Otto Ege Manuscript 41’
Close-Up of The Host of 'The Library Cafe' in the Radio Studio. Photography © Mildred Budny
A Visit to The Library Café
Invitation to 'Canterbury Manuscripts' Seminar on 19 September 1994
Seminar on the Evidence of Manuscripts (September 1994)

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

February 8, 2022 in Manuscript Studies, Uncategorized

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

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

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

Single Leaf within a matted frame
Double columns of 50 lines

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

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

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

[Posted on 8 February 2022, with updates]

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

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

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

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

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

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

Otto Ege Manuscript 14 and Manuscript Studies

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

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

See also The Illustrated Handlist (Number 4).

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

The Rosenbrook Leaf

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

We greatly admire this view!

A Note on the Photographs of the Leaf 

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

Read the rest of this entry →

Tags: 'Fifty Original Leaves from Medieval Manuscripts', Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Book of Deuteronomy, Brent Rosenbrook Collection, Dallas Public Library, Ege's FOL Portfolios, FOL Portfolio Set Number 39, Latin Vulgate Bible, Lectern Bible, Medieval Manuscript Fragments, Otto Ege, Otto Ege Collection, Otto Ege Manuscript 14, Reconstructing Manuscripts Virtually, Running Titles, Stony Brook University Library
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Another Leaf from the Warburg Missal (‘Ege Manuscript 22’)

April 25, 2021 in Manuscript Studies, Reports

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

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

The Wagner Leaf

from Ege Manuscript 22

***

“The Warburg Missal”

Folio CLVI in the Temporale

with Part of the Mass for Corpus Christi

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

Double columns of 31 lines

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Read the rest of this entry →

Tags: 'Fifty Original Leaves from Medieval Manuscripts', Benedictine Missal, Bergendal Collection, Bergendal Manuscript 69, Binding History, Ege Manuscript 22, Ege's FOL Portfolio, Fragmentology, Leander van Ess, Measure Theory, Medieval Manuscript Fragments, Missal Herbipolensis, Missale Coloniense, Otto Ege, Otto Ege's Manuscripts, Parochial Church of St John the Baptist Warburg, Reused Binding Fragments, Sales Catalogues, Sir Thomas Phillipps, Sothebys, The Warburg Missal
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Otto Ege Manuscript 40, Part II: Before and After Ege

April 3, 2021 in Manuscript Studies

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

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

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

PART II

Before and After Ege

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

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

The series began with

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

See also our Contents List.

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

Ege’s Label for Manuscript Specimen 40
in the FOL Portfolio

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

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

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

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

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

Ege’s Label for the Specimen in the (Unnumbered) Contents List for FBNC

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

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

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

Specimen Pages

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Manuscript Before and After Ege

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Duschnes, Catalogues 54 & 74 (1945–1946)

I’m on the lookout for:

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

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

Sotheby’s, 26 November 1985, Lot 80

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

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

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

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

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

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

An Observation on the Usefulness of Sales Clippings

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

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

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

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

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

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

Davis & Orioli (1924 & 1925)

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

1) SDBM_262153

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

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

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

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

2) SDBM_261443

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

[Etc., as before]

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

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

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

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

The Number(s) of Leaves

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

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

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

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

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

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

More to Come

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

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

azure, 3 crescents or between a chevron of the same

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

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

*****

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

*****

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

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

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

Next stop, Part III:

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

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.

*****

Tags: Aquinas on the Sentences of Peter Lombard, Clippings from Sales Catalogues, Davis & Orioli, Ege Manuscript 40, Ege Manuscript 51, Ege's FOL Portfolio, Ege's Portfolio of Famous Books, Fragmentology, Humanist Manuscripts, Medieval Manuscript Fragments, Otto Ege, Philip Duschnes, Sothebys, Thomas Aquinas
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Another Leaf from the Warburg Missal (‘Ege Manuscript 22’)

March 23, 2021 in Manuscript Studies, Reports

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

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

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

 

Tags: 'Fifty Original Leaves from Medieval Manuscripts', Benedictine Missal, Bergendal Collection, Bergendal MS 69, Binding History, Ege Manuscript 22, Ege's FOL Portfolio, Fragmentology, Leander van Ess, Measure Theory, Medieval Manuscript Fragments, Missal Herbipolensis, Missale Coloniense, Otto Ege, Parochial Church of St John the Baptist Warburg, Reused Binding Fragments, Sir Thomas Phillipps, The Warburg Missal
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Otto Ege’s Aquinas Manuscript in Humanist Script (‘Ege Manuscript 40’)

March 4, 2021 in Manuscript Studies

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

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

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

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

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

Written in Latin on vellum

Italy, probably late 15th Century (circa 1475)

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

Double columns of 37 lines

in Humanist Script (with Gothic Features)

*****

Folio 300

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Famous Books in Nine Centuries

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

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

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

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

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

Contents List and Specimen Leaves

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

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

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

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

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

Contents List: Manuscripts and Other Texts

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

[Parts II–IV]. The Printed Leaves

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

[Part I]. The Manuscript Leaves

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

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

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

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

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

To recap from our previous post:

The Manuscript Leaves in FBNC and their Ege Manuscript Numbers

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

— also in the Oriental Leaves Portfolio

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

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

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

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

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

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

— in both FBNC and FBEC

[4]. Livy of ‘1436’ (Ege MS 52)

— in both FBNC and FBEC

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

— only in this Portfolio of Nine Centuries (FBNC)

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

— also in FOL (Leaf 40)

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

The Aquinas Manuscript in Humanist Script

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Peter Lombard’s Sentences

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

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

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

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

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

Aquinas’s Commentary on the Sentences

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

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

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

— Sentences Commentary.

The Texts, Editions, and Translations

Among freely available editions online, examples include:

1. The Sentences by Peter Lombard in Latin

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

A translation of the full work in English:

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

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

2. The Commentary by Aquinas on those Sentences in Latin

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

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

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

The Commentary rendered in English

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Book I of the Commentary

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

Ege’s Labels for the Aquinas Manuscript

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

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

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

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

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

Thus:

1470 Italy

St. Thomas Aquinas, Commentary
on the Sentences

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Label states:

THOMAS AQUINAS * COMMENTARY ON THE SENTENCES

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

Humanistic Manuscript, written in Italy, 1470

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on the Sentences

(Super Primo Libro Sententiarum)

FROM THE COLLECTION OF OTTO F. EGE

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

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

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

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

4. The Contents List for the FOL Portfolio

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

First:

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

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

Second:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

‘Diagnostic’ Terms for the Distributions of Leaves

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Utrum id quod est praeter voluntatem Dei praecepto non subjaceat

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

Articulus IV: Utrum Deus velit mala fieri.

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

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

The Span of Text on the Leaf

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

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

to within

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

to within this point:

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

The Span of Text on Other Leaves

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

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

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

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

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

Provisional List of Leaves

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

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

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

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

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

I. Locations Unknown or Unspecified

*****

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

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

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

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

*****

Folios ??. Location(s) unknown.

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

*****

Folio ?. Location unknown.

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

*****

Folio ?. Location unknown.

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

*****

II. Locations in Alphabetical Order

*****

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

*****

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

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

*****

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

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

*****

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

*****

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

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

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

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

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

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

*****

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

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

*****

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

*****

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

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

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

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

Recto

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

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

Verso

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

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

*****

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

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

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

*****

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

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

*****

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

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

*****

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

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

*****

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

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

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

*****

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

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

*****

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

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

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

*****

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

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

*****

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

*****

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

*****

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

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

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

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

*****

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

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

*****

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

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

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

*****

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

*****

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

*****

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

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

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

*****

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

*****

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

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

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

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

*****

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

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

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

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

*****

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

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

*****

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

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

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

*****

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

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

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

Original Recto

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

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

Original Verso

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

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

*****

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

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

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

*****

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

*****

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

*****

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

*****

Etc.

*****

A Note about Consecutive Leaves

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

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

1) Evidently adjacent

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

2) Evidently not

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

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

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

Near Rather than Adjacent

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

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

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

A Note about Descriptions and Metadata

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

*****

Specimens

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

*****

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

  • The Manuscript Before and After Ege

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

*****

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

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

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

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

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

*****

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

June 19, 2020 in Manuscript Studies

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

[Published on 18 June 2020]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

May 1, 2020 in Manuscript Studies, Uncategorized

An Old Testament Leaf from ‘Otto Ege Manuscript 19’

And Ege’s Workshop Habits
in Assembling His Portfolios

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

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

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

End of Malachi (within 2:13 – 4:10),
Jerome’s Prologue to Maccabees, Argumentum,
and Opening of I Maccabees (1:1 – within 1:21)

J. S. Wagner Collection

[Posted on 1 May 2020, with updates]
A detached leaf from ‘Otto Ege Manuscript 19’, now in the J. S. Wagner Collection, provides the transition from one Old Testament Book to the next.  In reporting its survival and setting it into the context of its former manuscript and the known patterns of Otto Ege’s distribution of his dismembered manuscripts, we examine the leaf, its presentation as part of a larger series (initially as Ege’s Number 19, altered for some reason to a Number 13), and Ege’s evolving “workshop practices” in mounting and distributing manuscript leaves to wider audiences.

[Note:  This post began as the report of a Leaf from one of the manuscripts dispersed by Otto F. Ege, to follow our earlier reports for some other manuscripts of his.  It grew into a report also of Ege’s varying workshop practices over time in assembling or reassembling his Portfolios of specimen Leaves extracted from manuscripts and other books.  Selected specimens would be mounted in mats, often with identifying labels or inscriptions in print or pencil, arranged in groups (notably in the Portfolios, but also in other batches) or distributed as left-overs, and sold far and wide.  Mercifully, apart from cutting the individual leaves out of the books, Ege did not crop them except by the rectangular windows of their mats.

As reported in other posts on this blog (see the Contents List), our cumulative examination of various Portfolios, individual sets thereof, and individual leaves either extracted from Portfolios or distributed on their own (as “Strays”), has yielded detailed grounds for conjectures about Ege’s evolving and revolving practices over an extended period of intense activity dedicated to maximizing the teaching (and commercial) potential of his collection.  We share some results of that research here.]

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

Wagner Leaf from Ege Manuscript 19, verso, detail.

With thanks to the present collector, J. S. Wagner, who drew this find to our attention on account of our blog (You are Here), we present the images, front and back, of a detached leaf from a small-format 13th-century Vulgate Latin Bible dispersed by Otto F. Ege (1888–1951).  The leaf was formerly part of Ege Manuscript 19 (Gwara, Handlist, No. 19, page 124).

Already, in our blog on Manuscript Studies (You are Here), we have considered leaves from other manuscripts distributed by Ege.  See our Contents List for the series of discoveries, which so far principally concern Ege Manuscripts 8, 14, 41, 51, 61,  and 214; we begin work also on Ege Manuscript 56 in Armenian.

This new opportunity opens the possibility to consider another of Ege’s dismembered manuscripts showcased in his Portfolio of Fifty Original Manuscripts (= “FOL”), for which a core study was developed with the website devoted to a group of its survivors as ege.denison.edu, and for which work has continued to advance apace in multiple centers.

This Portfolio is one of several which Ege devoted to specific titles or genres of books in manuscript and/or print (such as the Bible in several languages).  Ege gave this one the title of Fifty Leaves from Medieval Manuscripts, XII–XVI Century [sic for the plural].  Ege numbered its Leaves as “1–50”, in the sequence which he chose for their presentation there.  Their source manuscripts, accordingly, in Scott Gwara’s Handlist of Ege’s manuscripts are known as “Ege Manuscripts 1–50” (of at least 1–325, and counting).  A provisional summary of the contents of this Portfolio and some of its known sets appears online in The Otto F. Ege Palaeography Portfolio: Towards a Virtual and Interactive Reconstruction of Fifty Dismembered Manuscripts.  Virtual reconstructions of one and another of its manuscripts continue to emerge, as with FOL Leaf 15, the 14th-century Beauvais Missal.

J. S. Wagner Collection. Leaf from from Prime in a Latin manuscript Breviary. Folio 4 Recto, Initial C for "Confitimini" of Psalm 117 (118), with scrolling foliate decoration.

Already, in this blog, we have presented 2 leaves from the J. S. Wagner Collection:

  • The Penitent King David from a Book of Hours
  • A Leaf from Prime in a Large-Format Breviary .

Now we turn to the Ege Leaf in that Collection.

Read the rest of this entry →

Tags: "Fifty Original Manuscripts", Bible Manuscripts, Charles Carmichael Lacaita, Ege's Portfolios, Ege's Workshop Practices, J.S. Wagner Collection, Latin Vulgate Bible, manuscript fragments, Otto Ege, Otto Ege Manscript 61, Otto Ege Manuscriipt 23, Otto Ege Manuscript 13, Otto Ege Manuscript 14, Otto Ege Manuscript 19, Otto Ege Manuscript 41, Otto Ege Manuscripts, Portable Bibles, Sir Joseph Lacaita
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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
No Comments »

2017 M-MLA Panel Report

November 14, 2017 in Abstracts of Conference Papers, Announcements, Conference, Conference Announcement, Manuscript Studies, Reports

Chandelier and Ceiling Murals at the Netherland Plaza Hotel. Photography by Mildred Budny.

“Seeing the Light”. Chandelier and Ceiling Murals at the Netherland Plaza Hotel.

Artists, Activists, and Manuscript Evidence

Research Group on Manuscript Evidence
Permanent Panel
at the
Midwest Modern Language Association (M-MLA)

2017 Convention
Cincinnati, Ohio
November 9-12, 2017

Our 2017 Panel

With the accomplishment of the 2017 M-MLA Convention in Cincinnati, we happily report the Permanent Panel which the Research Group on Manuscript Evidence sponsored, in the second year of its participation at the Convention. As this participation continues to build, we create a Page devoted to the Panels at the M-MLA Convention, along with our many Activities and Events.

Like last year’s pair of sponsored Panels, described in our 2016 M-MLA Report, this year’s Panel was expertly organized by our Associate Justin Hastings of Loyola University Chicago, institutional host of the Midwest Modern Language Association.

The plan for our 2017 Panel arose in responding to the theme chosen for the 2017 Convention, “Artists and Activists”. Naturally, we selected the themes of “Artists, Activists, and Manuscript Evidence”, which might include, or also include, printed books and other forms of written materials.  Our Call for Papers invited contributions for multiple subjects and approaches, including textual, art-historical, codicological, and palaeographical, which might center upon facets, or stages, of the material evidence of manuscripts in their travels across time and space.  The variety of responses to the Call shaped the Program for the Panel, as announced in the Convention Program Book and for our 2017 M-MLA Panel.  Updates for our Announcement soon provided the Abstracts for the 3 papers, also with some images.

The time has come for the Report.  You are Here.

Read the rest of this entry →

Tags: Cincinnati Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County, Colonial Records of Pennsylvania, Conrad Weiser, Coronation Roll of Edward IV, Free Library of Philadelphia, Iriquois Nation, Manuscript studies, Midwest Modern Language Association, Netherland Plaza Hotel, Otto Ege, Yogi Berra
No Comments »

2017 M-MLA Panel

August 19, 2017 in Announcements, Manuscript Studies, Uncategorized

“Artists, Activists, and Manuscript Evidence”

Research Group on Manuscript Evidence
Permanent Panel
at the
Midwest Modern Language Association (M-MLA)

2017 Convention
Cincinnati, Ohio
November 9-12, 2017

Following the successful Call for Papers, we announce the program for our sponsored Panel at the 2017 Convention of the M-MLA. Organized by Justin Hastings, this panel forms the second year of our participation at the Annual Convention of the M-MLA. Last year’s pair of panels, organized by Justin, are described in the 2016 M-MLA Report.

The panel planned for the 2017 Convention explores a comparably broad range of subjects. In keeping with the 2017 M-MLA Convention’s theme of “Artists and Activists,” the Research Group on Manuscript Evidence sponsors a panel on manuscripts and printed books and the illuminators, scribes, editors, and other artists who created them and the scholars and readers who used or disseminated them. The session explores multiple subjects and approaches, including textual, art historical, codicological, and paleographical.

*****

Our 2017 Panel

Make It and/or Break It:
the Material Evidence
of Creating, Using, Disseminating, and Dispersing Manuscripts

Sponsored by: Research Group on Manuscript Evidence

Organizer and Presider

Justin Hastings (Loyola University Chicago)

Presenters

1. Laura Melin (University of York, United Kingdom)

“The Coronation Roll of Edward IV and Its Audience”

Abstract:

My paper will focus on the artwork on the Chronicle of the History of the World from Creation to Woden, with a Genealogy of Edward IV (Free Library of Philadelphia, Lewis 201), otherwise known as the ‘Coronation Roll’, to see what its content reveals about possible audiences. The Roll was commissioned circa 1461 by Edward IV, who needed to legitimise his usurpation of the English throne from Henry VI in order to gain the support of both the English nobility and international noble (and royal) audiences. I will argue that the artists of the Coronation Roll appealed to both sets of audiences through the creative use of traditional iconographies of kingship within the genealogical format. After emphasising the common use of genealogies among the nobility, both at home and abroad, I will examine three key artistic clues within the Coronation Roll:

  • the strong emphasis on Edward’s personal heraldry and badges, which line the Roll and are intertwined with the genealogical table, included to appeal to the nobility’s sense of heritage and lineage;
  • Edward’s equestrian portrait, which echoes similar portraits found on seals, coins, and manuscripts across Europe;
  • and the inclusion of emblems such as the Order of the Garter, which would have been familiar to an international noble audience.

I will conclude by assessing available evidence to determine how the Roll might have been displayed for the visual consumption of his audience.

Note: See the manuscript online here: Coronation Roll, and the Arms of Edward IV here (from this manuscript:

©The British Library Board. London, British Library, Royal MS 14 E. I, folio 3r, detail: Arms of England for Edward IV.

©The British Library Board. London, British Library, Royal MS 14 E. I, folio 3r, detail: Royal Arms of Edward IV.

2.  Katie Gutierrez (Loyola University Chicago)

“Native American Misrepresentation in Early America:
A Study on the Variants Presented in Conrad Weiser’s Travel Narrative:
A Journal of the Proceedings of Conrad Weiser”

Abstract:

The Native American translator and colonial government official Conrad Weiser (1696 – 1760) is an often-overlooked figure in Early American history. As a translator for the Pennsylvanian government, Weiser occupied a unique position in both colonial America and the Iroquois nation.  Conrad Weiser’s state-sponsored travel narrative, “A journal of the proceedings of Conrad Weiser: on his journey to Ohio with a message & present from the government of Pensilvania to the Indians there, 1748 Aug. 11 – Oct. 2”, exists in four separate versions.  By applying a critical lens to the text, this paper will illuminate the significant changes between its versions, particularly by examining the representation of the Sinicker tribe of the Iroquois nation.

This paper will carefully outline the variants that occur over the four versions of Weiser’s travel narrative:

  • Weiser’s original manuscript written in 1748,
  • a copy of Weiser’s journal transcribed by his descendent Hiester Muhlenberg in 1830,
  • a copy of Weiser’s journal proceedings published in the Colonial Records of Pennsylvania in 1851,
  • and a reproduction of Weiser’s journal proceedings published in 1847 in I.D. Rupp’s Early history of western Pennsylvania: and of the West, and of western expeditions and campaigns from MDCCLIV to MDCCCXXXIII.

By examining these four versions simultaneously, it is evident that Conrad Weiser’s interactions with Queen Scayhuhady of the Sinicker tribe were omitted in the later versions of his document, the official colonial record book and historical book of Pennsylvania.
I will argue for a restoration of Weiser’s original 1748 travel-narrative in order to re-establish historical accuracy and to include the interactions with the Sinicker tribe omitted from later historical documents and records.  This paper will attempt to answer questions of how and when changes were introduced to Weiser’s narrative and to outline themes between each set of variants that occur, as well as their importance to a modern reader.

Note:  Images of Conrad Weiser appear to be scarce, little attested, or confected after the fact.   We might glimpse an old image of his tombstone and a fanciful or wishful image for tobacco purveyance, as here.

Tombstone of Conrad Weiser, from Morton L. Montgomery, "Life and Times of Conrad Weiser" (1893), via Wikipedia Commons.

Tombstone of Conrad Weiser, from Morton L. Montgomery, “Life and Times of Conrad Weiser” (1893), via Wikipedia Commons.

Conrad Weiser Cigars, manufactured in Lebanon Pennsylvania, via Wikipedia Commons.

Emblem for Conrad Weiser Cigars, manufactured in Lebanon Pennsylvania, via Wikipedia Commons.

3.  Mildred Budny (Research Group on Manuscript Evidence)

“ ‘It’s amazing what you can see when you look’:
New Light on Old Manuscripts Dispersed by Otto Ege”

Just as Yogi Berra’s catchy turns of phrase encourage, or, for that matter, require, us to think, as well as rethink, so, too, does the process of looking, and looking again (even again and again), have the power to conjure forth fresh views, insights, and understandings.  The term ‘conjure’ here may convey some of the steps, skills, and wondrous results in that process — when it works — of close interaction between the scholar, viewer, beholder and the materials in question.

In this case, we consider the potential for medieval (and other) manuscripts of many kinds, dates, genres, subjects, patterns of transmission, and challenges in general or particular.  All the more so when accomplished cumulatively, with assembled, tested, and refined expertise, whereby, fortunately and ‘magically’, the total gain is far greater than the sum of the parts.

This paper reports new, also cumulative and collaborative, discoveries concerning some of the vast numbers of leaves detached and dispersed from their former manuscripts by the notorious bibliophile and self-styled ‘biblioclast’ Otto F. Ege (1888‒1951), whose spheres of activity mostly centered upon Cleveland.  In the past few years, as my own tasks of conservation and research regarding telling cases of those manuscript ‘strays’ or ‘orphans’, seemingly unrelated, turn out to be related powerfully in terms of linked or implicated transmission, discerned by means of discovery through expertise gathered cumulatively over the years, across a broad range of written and printed materials.

Our celebration of these rediscoveries may include fresh observations of materials close to Otto Ege’s home base. Surprises await when we look.

Note:  Some discoveries are reported on our website, for example here:

  • A New Leaf from ‘Otto Ege Manuscript 14’
  • A New Leaf from ‘Otto Ege’s Manuscript 41’
  • More Leaves from ‘Otto Ege Manuscript 51’
  • A New Leaf from ‘Otto Ege’s Manuscript 61’
  • 2016 Symposium on ‘Words & Deeds’ Report

Leaf 41, Recto, Top Right, in the Family Album (Set Number 3) of Otto Ege's Portfolio of 'Fifty Original Leaves' (FOL). Otto Ege Collection, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University. Photograph by Mildred Budny.

Leaf 41, Recto, Top Right, in the Family Album (Set Number 3) of Otto Ege’s Portfolio of ‘Fifty Original Leaves’ (FOL). Otto Ege Collection, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University. Photograph by Mildred Budny.

Respondent

4.  Justin Hastings

“Making, Breaking, and Using Manuscripts:
New Looks at Material Evidence”

*****

More information about the Convention itself appears on its website. Full details for the 2017 Annual Convention are now published in its Program Book.

As Permanent Session 55 at the Convention, our sponsored panel will take place on Friday, 12 November 2017, from 11:30 a.m. to 12:45 p.m. at the Convention venue.

Please join us!

*****

Tags: Conrad Weiser, Coronation Roll of Edward IV, Free Library of Philadelphia, Manuscript studies, Midwest Modern Language Association, Otto Ege, Yogi Berra
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