Beschreibung:

Two fragments of John Chrysostom, Homilies on Matthew, in Beneventan minuscule, in Latin, manuscript in Latin on parchment [Italy (probably south east), eleventh century] Substantial portion of a leaf and a long strip from same, with remains of double column of 15 lines (main fragment) and 4 lines (strip) in a good Beneventan minuscule, somewhat scuffed to reverse, small spots and stains as recovered from reuse in a binding, else good and legible condition, 171 by 208mm. and 36 by 206mm. Beneventan script survived the Carolingian reforms and continued to be written at the Abbey of Montecassino (founded by St. Benedict of Nursia c. 529) and its subsidiaries from the eighth to the sixteenth century, as a form of paleographical living fossil. It evolved from Roman cursive models, drawing on those for its cacophony of ligatures and angular strokes that break up almost all straight lines, creating a distinctively jagged and broken visual effect. The hand here is notably close to that on a leaf of the Acta Sanctorum, sold in the Schøyen sale, 10 July 2012, lot 19, which along with Naples, Bibl. Naz. VIII.B.6 (Troia, Apulia, eleventh-century) and British Library, Egerton MS 2889 (south-east Italy, eleventh-century) have been taken to indicate an otherwise forgotten foundation from Montecassino in the Norman controlled region of Troia (named by the Normans after Troy, their supposed origin place) in the main pass through the Apennines. This may well be from the same centre.