{"id":9357,"date":"2017-05-23T01:45:41","date_gmt":"2017-05-23T01:45:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/manuscriptevidence.org\/wpme\/?p=9357"},"modified":"2021-06-08T23:13:58","modified_gmt":"2021-06-08T23:13:58","slug":"more-discoveries-for-otto-ege-manuscript-61","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/manuscriptevidence.org\/wpme\/more-discoveries-for-otto-ege-manuscript-61\/","title":{"rendered":"More Discoveries for “Otto Ege Manuscript 61”"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Initial<\/a>

Zachariah. Courtesy of Flora Lamson Hewlett Library, Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley, CA.<\/p><\/div>\n

More Fragments are Revealed
\nfrom a Dismembered and Dispersed
\n32-line French Vulgate Pocket Bible
\nMade Probably in Southern France
\ncirca 1325 C.E.
\n= \u201cOtto Ege Manuscript 61\u201d
\n<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Probably Southern France, circa 1325<\/p>\n

Circa 186 \u00d7 126 mm
\n< written area circa 119 \u00d7 81 mm >
\nDouble columns of 32 lines, with embellishments and running titles<\/p>\n

[Posted on 23 May 2017, with updates<\/em>]<\/p>\n

Updating an earlier blogpost reporting A New Leaf from “Otto Ege Manuscript 61”<\/a> in our series on Manuscript Studies<\/a>, Mildred Budny (see Her Page<\/a>) describes further progress in locating and identifying more parts from that little book.\u00a0 It should be said that, after the initial discovery and draft write-up, in the excitement of new discoveries, some long illnesses and a wrenching death in the family, with some gratuitous onslaughts from so-called family members, made it difficult to return on course.\u00a0 Back again.
\n<\/em><\/p>\n

These new discoveries go hand-in-hand with a rapid pace of strides further in continuing research on some other dismembered “Ege Manuscripts”, owned and dispersed by\u00a0Otto F. Ege<\/a> (1888\u20131951), as well as on some other manuscript fragments\u00a0\u2013 which turn out to have unexpectedly interlocking patterns of transmission by 20th-century sellers.\u00a0 The advances are described in Updates for Some ‘Otto Ege Manuscripts’<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

Read On, Dear Reader, Read On. To say that “The Plot Thickens” would take the words right out of our mouth.<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"Recto<\/a>

Budny Handlist 7, Recto<\/p><\/div>\n

Our blog on Manuscript Studies<\/a> (with a convenient Contents List<\/a>) first introduced a “New Leaf” from this dismembered Ege manuscript, after that isolated leaf had been recognized as such in the course of conservation, photography, and research for my Illustrated Handlist<\/a> of a group of Medieval and Early Modern Manuscripts, Documents, and Printed Materials.\u00a0 In the Handlist<\/em>, it holds Number 7<\/strong><\/span>.\u00a0<\/em> It looks like this, scale and color-guide included.
\n<\/em><\/p>\n

First the recto (at the right and below), then the verso.\u00a0 The leaf appears as Ege cast it out into the world, removed from its former fellowship in its original manuscript, where it had been nestled between the other leaves in their consecutive flow of text.<\/p>\n

As identified and described in its debut blogpost<\/a><\/em>, this leaf carries part of the Old Testament Book of Ezekiel, in its transition from Chapters 10 to 11.\u00a0 It has disconnected running titles on both sides of the leaf (EZE\/CHI across the former openings between facing pages) and polychrome embellishment standing the full height of the page for the opening of the new chapter.\u00a0 The attractive style of compact layout, with decorative elements, provides an accomplished and distinctive standard which other leaves from the book share, and which encourages the identification of more leaves\u00a0\u2014 even where their descriptions and\/or images might circulate without identifying statements to this effect.<\/p>\n

\"Recto<\/a>

Budny Handlist 7, Recto<\/p><\/div>\n

\"Verso<\/a>

Ezekiel Leaf verso<\/p><\/div>\n

Note that the outer edge of the recto retains the remnants of Ege-style mounting tapes, which show that it had been matted at one time.\u00a0 Whereas some Ege leaves circulate “nude” (as with A New Leaf From ‘Otto Ege Manuscript 14’<\/a>), , without mats or even without remnants of tapes for former mats, some others have been removed from their mats, with the tell-tale hinged tapes left to stand upon their edges, whether in full with their other halves, which had adhered to the mats, turned into “flaps” or in trimmed down at their hinged fold (as with More Leaves from ‘Otto Ege Manuscript 51’<\/a>).\u00a0 Here, although the strips of tape have been pulled away from the leaf (already at a stage before I first saw it in about 2006), the remnants of their adhesive and cross-woven threads proclaim their former presence.\u00a0 Note also that, as frequently in Ege’s presentations, the original recto would have been attached to the mat, thereby placing the more decorative verso to the fore, visible through the front of the mat (albeit cropped by its window opening).<\/p>\n

\"Traces<\/a>

Traces of Ege-style mounting tapes along the outer edge.<\/p><\/div>\n

Ege’s Printed and Pencil Labels<\/h3>\n

Ege described his mounted specimen leaves from the manuscript thus in the printed label attached to the bottom front of the windowed mat:<\/p>\n

\"Otto<\/a>

Otto Ege’s Caption for Any Specimen Leaf from the Manuscript. From the Set of Ege’s ‘Famous Bibles’ Portfolio in the University of Pennsylvania Libraries: Special Collections, Portfolio Bible 1 (Catalogue ID 6035076)<\/p><\/div>\n

“Our” single leaf comprising Budny Handlist 7<\/span><\/strong> (see the Illustrated Handlist<\/a><\/em>) circulated on its own, and unmatted, without such an identifying label.\u00a0 It was possible to identify the text itself, all right, given the legibility of the script, replete with running title and chapter number.\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

But the first clue for me that the leaf belonged to one of Ege’s dismembered manuscripts\u00a0\u2014 and not some other manuscript much like its small-format copy of the Vulgate Bible in double columns of 32 lines of the right dimensions with similar decoration and scribal features (say from the same center of production according to the same design template) \u2014 resided in the single-line Ege inscription in pencil at the lower margin of the recto, in Ege’s familiar script and in terms corresponding neatly to his printed label for the matted specimens. <\/span><\/p>\n

\"Ezekiel<\/a><\/p>\n

The \u2018Ege\u2019 pencil inscription \u20181310 French Bible\u2019 stands at the bottom of the recto.\u00a0 It would have been obscured, of course, when hidden behind the mat.<\/p>\n

Scale Model<\/h3>\n

Putting things into perspective, you might like a view of the small scale of some Ege-and-Other manuscript fragments and scraps.\u00a0 In this “Group Portrait” of some Manuscript Groupies<\/a> in the Illustrated Handlist<\/a>, 2 isolated leaves respectively from “Otto Ege Manuscript 61” (Star of the Show in this Blogpost) and “Otto Ege Manuscript 8” (The Star here<\/a>) stand at the left, first the one, then the other.\u00a0 By now, all the others also have their own Blogposts, as appropriate to any and all Prima Donnas. In this “Group Portrait”, the New Leaf from “Otto Ege Manuscript 61”<\/a> stands at the top left, turning its back (or verso) toward us.<\/p>\n

\"Six<\/a>

Group Portrait, View 1<\/p><\/div>\n

A Pocket Bible was designed for portability\u00a0\u2014 indeed, that was one of its main attractions.\u00a0 However, the creators of this one might be surprised to see the extent of the portability to which this one has been subjected since the 1930s (see below), what with the fragmentation and scattered dispersal of many, most, or all of its leaves.\u00a0 A survey of the ways and means of this dispersal appears in the blogpost reporting A New Leaf from “Otto Ege Manuscript 61”<\/a>.\u00a0 Some highlights of the story have a place in unravelling more of its threads, or following the way partly out of its Labyrinth, as shown here.<\/p>\n

Ege Manuscript 61<\/strong> = Gwara, Handlist,<\/em> Number 61<\/h3>\n

We scholars have come to call it “Otto Ege Manuscript 61” because of its place in the recently established Handlist<\/em> of Otto Ege’s Manuscripts, running from Numbers 1\u2013325 (so far):<\/p>\n