Beschreibung:

BIBLE, in Latin, manuscript on vellum [northern(?) Italy, late 10th or early 11th century] Large, handsome leaves with ample margins, epitomising the clarity and legibility of Caroline minuscule script, and the major Carolingian achievement of pan-European standardised Bible production 2 leaves, each c.330×235mm, blind-ruled for two widely spaced columns of 33 lines written in a regular, well-spaced Caroline minuscule script with few abbreviations and clear punctuation, ruled space c.270×180mm, each sentence beginning with an enlarged initial (some darkening in the margins, a few stains, slight cockling, and some worming in the upper margin of one leaf, but generally in very good condition). Bound in grey buckram with gilt title-piece by Bøthuns Bokverksted, Tønsberg, Norway, 2018. Provenance : (1) The leaves show none of the damage usually associated with pastedowns and wrappers, and they are therefore likely to have survived as flyleaves. (2) Robert Babcock, New Haven. (3) Bernard Quaritch, 1993. (4) Schøyen Collection, MS 1766. Text : The leaves contain IV Kings 22:9–23:14 (‘et dederunt […] ossibus mortuorum’), and I Chronicles 1:39–2:38 (‘Cenez, Thamna, […] genuit Jehu’): the former concerns the Book of the Law, and Josiah renewing the Covenant; and the latter includes a list of descendants of Abraham. Script : This is an elegant and highly legible specimen of Caroline minuscule. Letters are well-spaced and well-formed, so that there is rarely any chance of confusing the minims in words like ‘cuius’ or ‘beniamin’ (leaf 2, column 2); the ‘st’ ligature is tall and graceful; the ampersand predominates, but (uncrossed) tironian ‘et’ appears occasionally in the lists of names, as if to provide some variation; diacritic marks are added over many of these names to aid pronunciation and reading aloud. The list of names in I Chronicles 1–2 provides an exceptional example of the use of uncommon letter-forms including several variants of ‘z’.