Manuscript on parchment (thick, but good quality) of a Collection of Texts on St. Barbara. With a miscellany of texts including patristic works, moralistic poems, and prophecies
Description:
In Latin., Script: Written in a regular heavy hybrida formata script with features of bastarda by a single scribe who placed small circular flourishes above the letter u., 10-line illuminated initial on f. 5r, blue and mauve with white designs and highlights on gold cusped ground, a blue and gold bar border extending into the left-hand margin and terminating in acanthus leaves in the lower margin; interior of initial in orange, blue and gold checkered pattern. Fine red and blue divided initials, 8- to 7-line, with parchment designs and extensive pale purple flourishes, for major texts. Smaller plain initials in red or blue with parchment designs. Headings and initial strokes in red. Some instructions to rubricator in outer margins., and Binding: ca. 1500, Belgium. Covered in brown calf with corner tongues over wooden boards, a central panel diapered with blind-tooled triple fillets. Center and corner fittings and title written in a careful gothic bookhand under a brass-framed window on the upper board: "liber gloriose uirginis et martyris christi barbare". Lower board cut in for the straps which are attached with metal plates. Hasps of a chain on the lower board. Rebacked.
Subject (Geographic):
Connecticut and New Haven.
Subject (Name):
Barbara, Saint.
Subject (Topic):
Christian martyrs, Christian poetry, Latin (Medieval and modern), Fathers of the church, Illumination of books and manuscripts, Medieval, Manuscripts, Medieval, and Prophecies
Dionysius, the Areopagite, Saint, active 1st century
Published / Created:
[between 1600 and 1610]
Call Number:
Beinecke MS 260
Image Count:
14
Resource Type:
unspecified
Abstract:
Manuscript on paper (variety of watermarks) of Part I: Dionysius the Areopagite, De caelesti hierarchia with the Paraphrasis of George Pachymeres. Part II: Dionysius the Areopagite, De divinis nominibus I.1-II.9, with Paraphrasis of George Pachymeres. Part III: Nicetas of Serres, Commentarius in Gregorii Nazianzeni orationes. Part IV: Theophanes Cerameus, Homiliae (text of 13 sermons). Part V: Andrew of Crete, Encomium in Martyres X. Part VI: Nicephorus Blemmydes, De anima. Part VII: Dionysius of Halicarnassus, De compositione verborum, extract (ch. 14-15).
Description:
In Greek., Script: The codex is composed of several small manuscripts and booklets, each copied by a different scribe but all written in similar styles of minuscule, that were originally bound together in the 17th century shortly after being copied., Part I: Carefully executed woven headpieces in black and red on ff. 1r and 7r; beginning of each portion of the text marked by large initial in red, accompanied by flowers outlined in red and filled with pale yellow. Rubrics stop on f. 22v. Part II: Crude headpiece (in imitation of that on f. 7r?) occurs on f. 100r. Large painted initials, in red, with vine-leaf appendages, mark sections of the text. Part III: Delicate floral headpiece on f. 138r: each flower is outlined in red and painted with pale grey and red washes; details added in black. More modest headpiece in similar style, but painted with yellow, occurs on f. 148v; intricate initials in same colors on ff. 138v and 148v. Part IV: Simple woven headpieces, in red, on ff. 266r and 269r. Initials with floral motifs accompany rubricated titles for each sermon; decoration is incomplete (stops on f. 320r). Part V: One initial, in black, occurs at the beginning of the text (f. 330r). Part VII: Small decorative initial and heading, in red, at the beginning of the work., and Binding: 18th-19th centuries. Rigid vellum, rebacked.
Subject (Geographic):
Connecticut and New Haven.
Subject (Name):
Dionysius, the Areopagite, Saint, active 1st century.
Subject (Topic):
Christian martyrs, Cosmology, Ancient, Fathers of the church, Illumination of books and manuscripts, Medieval, Manuscripts, Medieval, Scholia, Sermons, and Theology
