The Townley Homer at the British Library

A very welcome addition to the British Library collection of digital manuscripts is announced on their blog today.  In an excellent article by Julian Harrison, Hooray for Homer!, we learn that BL. Burney 86, a 10th century manuscript with copious scholia, is now accessible here.

The article itself is really useful, giving the history of the Ms. in modern times, links to other Homer mss. at the British Library, and a bibliography.  It would be impossible and unnecessary to do this for every manuscript placed online; but it is nice to see, once in a while.

It is also very nice to see an appreciation of a manuscript that is of textual interest, rather than the “pretty pretty picture” type manuscript that tends too often to attract digitisation.

Scholia are remarkably hard to get access to, and only Eleanor Dickey’s handbook Greek scholarship is available to guide those interested.  So it is nice to see pictures in the blog article of the text, and some explanation (with translation) of what these have to offer.

Well done.

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Which manuscript of Leontius Byzantinus did Angelo Mai use?

The translation of Leontius of Byzantium’s Adversus fraudes Apollinistarum (CPG 6817) is going great guns.  But we have found at least one lacuna in the printed text, where a heading promises a quotation from Apollinarius, but is in fact followed by Leontius’ diatribe in reply.

The Greek text of this work was published by Angelo Mai in Spicilegium Romanum vol. X, part II, p.128-151.  I’m not sure that anyone has published an independent edition since, although Migne reprinted it in PG 86, cols. 1948-1976.

In part I of the same volume, p.v-vi, he mentions that:

I myself … obtained also a Greek codex of the treatises, ancient, complete and very rare, which once belonged to Cardinal Salvati, then to the Colonna family, and finally, a few years ago, while presiding at the Vatican library, it was brought in by me for a price; … if the Vatican codex should perish by an accident, it would be difficult to find another of this kind.

He also remarks that the Latin translation was made from a defective Greek manuscript, and indeed at one point Turrianus’ Latin did not contain the text given in Mai’s Greek.

But which manuscript did Mai use?  I could find no catalogue of Vatican Greek manuscripts online. But a search in the Pinakes database of Greek manuscripts reveals only a single manuscript of this text, Vatican gr. 2195, 10th c., and our text is on “p. 165-184.”[1]  CPG confirms that this is the only manuscript of this text known.

The work is preceded in the manuscript (p.1-50 and p.85-165) by Leontius’ Contra Nestorianos et Eutychianos libri tres, edited by Mai at the same time; and p.50-84 contain two further works against Severus.  Other works of other authors are also found therein.

The Latin translation printed by Migne was made before 1584 by Turrianus, as I remarked previously.  A correspondent, Albocicade, has kindly sent me some further information about Turrianus, or Francesco Torres, S.J., to give him his real name.  Among other things, he was the first translator of Arabic Christian writer, Theodore Abu Qurrah — presumably of his Greek works.

There is a summary of his life and work here.  There is a list of his publications here. A Google Books preview of a book that mentions him (text and n.26) is here.  All three are in French, I should add.

It would seem that others have wondered about what manuscripts Turrianus used.  There is a 1970 publication, “Zu griechischen Handschriften des Francisco Torres S.J.”, although just at the moment I cannot cope with more German.

Another correspondent, Walter Dunphy, added:

There is something about Torres in Hurter/Nomenclator vol.3,col.281. Long list of his publications in Sommerfeld: Bibliotheque (of SJ writers) vol.3, col.1231.

If you get PDF (big/slow!) from Gallica it’s image n.418.  (Difficult to navigate Gallica online.).

The work in question seems to have been published from the notes/papers left by Torres (cf. Canisius, IV, p.163).

All useful stuff to know – thank you both!

UPDATE: Reading the CPG, it looks as if a critical edition of Leontius’ works exists, by Brian Daley, and a google search reveals: “B. E. Daley, Leontius of Byzantium: A Critical Edition of his Works, with Prolegomena (Diss. Oxford, 1978).”

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  1. [1]Pinakes gives as its source of information: S. LILLA, Bibliothecae Apostolicae Vaticanae… Codices Vaticani graeci. Codices 2162-2254 (Codices Columnenses), Vaticano, 1985

Manuscripts online at the Spanish National Library

A correspondent, Surburbanbanshee, has drawn my attention to the presence of digitised manuscripts at the Biblioteca Nacional de Espana website here.  If you click on the link “manuscritos” at the foot of the BNE page, you get all their manuscripts.

Of course a lot of these are modern, and of no interest to us.  Instead go to the advanced search, at the top of the all manuscripts page, select manuscritos and language as classical Greek or Latin.

I haven’t quite worked out how their  viewer works yet.  But it looks as if some PDF download is possible, which is good.  Indeed they use Adobe to display sections of the manuscript, in 50 page chunks – an excellent idea!  Why reinvent the wheel?

Greek mss:

Not a stellar collection, it must be said, but something.

There are rather more in Latin – some 900.  Here are a few:

That was what I got from the first 300. I’m afraid I couldn’t be bothered to wade through the other 600-odd mss.  Perhaps someone else will have more dedication than I!

UPDATE (8 July 2013): Banshee has come to our aid and looked through the next 300!  Here are the proceeds:

There are a few useful items in there, once more.  Thank you!

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Bamberg manuscripts online

The library website does it’s best to conceal the fact, but there are a number of very interesting manuscripts online at the Staatsbibliothek Bamberg Kaiser-Heinrich-Bibliothek site in Munich.  The top-level site is here, but unless you can wade through oceans of PR waffle, you won’t find the manuscripts.  These are here.

The online viewer isn’t very good; not nearly as user-friendly as the one at the Bibliotheque Nationale Francais Gallica site, nor even the British Library.  But I’m finding my way around it, so I suppose it’s mainly a case of unfamiliarity.  There’s no PDF download either.  I haven’t managed to find the zoom facility either.

The texts are all Latin, as far as I can see.  Generally they are 9-10th c.

There is a 5th century ms. of Livy’s 4th decade (books 31-40).  It’s only strips, extracted from book bindings, tho.  There is also a 9th century copy of the 1st decade.

There’s a fair bit of Cicero, some of the Augustan History, a lot of Boethius, Jerome.  Aurelius Victor and Eutropius are there.  There’s some Augustine, some Ambrose, a Statius Thebais with the scholia of Lactantius Placidus.  There’s a bit of Seneca, a couple of Quintilians, a Pliny the Elder NH, a Priscian, unfortunately lacking the beginning.  There’s Origen on Judges, plus Rufinus’ translation of De Principiis. Martianus Capella is still at the wedding of Philology and Mercury, the first part of Macrobius’ Saturnalia is there.

Lucan is there.  Josephus likewise. Justinian’s Institutiones, interestingly.  There’s a Horace, and the usual dollop of Isidore of Seville.  There is a Eugippius, Thesaurus ex S. Augustini operibus, which is interesting to me if no-one else.

Worth knowing about.

The world of online manuscripts is still very immature.  In five years things will be very different.  At the moment the BNF in Paris are showing the way; but standards will certainly improve all round.

A few institutions are still in the Dark Ages – step forward Stanford University and Corpus Christi Cambridge, who have put the Parker collection of manuscripts into the hands of a commercial company, to sell access to pictures to institutions (and tough if you aren’t affiliated to one).  Shame on them both.  But this too will change, given time.

It’s an exciting time to be involved with mss.!

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Excel spreadsheet of all manuscripts at the British Library

Someone at the British Library has had an excellent idea.  They’ve uploaded a spreadsheet listing all the manuscripts they have online, with the URL.  It’s here.  They have 856 mss online at the moment; a small proportion of their holdings, but still very useful.

The spreadsheet lists shelfmark, contents, url and the project that did the upload.  The last won’t be much use, but browsing down the list of contents is exciting!

It will be very useful to me on my current project too.

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Greek mss. at the French National Library

I learned today from the Evangelical textual criticism blog that the Bibliotheque Nationale Francais have been putting manuscripts online, at their Gallica.bnf.fr portal. Locating these is not straightforward; but if you do an advanced search, leave blank the title etc, and select manuscripts, Greek, you get back a list. A good number are biblical mss., but most are not. Blessedly you can download a PDF of the whole thing in each case.

I thought that a few examples might be useful. The first item is the shelfmark

  • Coislin 352, 17th c. Palatine Anthology of Greek verse.
  • Grec 2971, 16th c. Hermogenes, Progymnasmata.  Whatever that is.
  • Grec 2868, 16th c. Apollinaris Metaphrasis Psalmorum.
  • Grec 510, 9th c. Gregory Nazianzen.
  • Grec 2929, 16th c. grammatical bits and pieces.
  • Grec 2705, 14th c., John Tzetzes on the Iliad.
  • Grec 2261, 16th c. medical ms.
  • Grec 216, 10th c. Acts of the Apostles, with the catena.
  • Grec 1853, 10th c., Aristotle
  • Coislin 291, 14th c., Simeon the New Theologian.
  • Grec 1807, 9th c. Plato
  • Grec 1685, 15th c. Ps.Callisthenes, History of Alexander; Aesop’s fables.
  • Grec 1639, 15th c. Xenophon, Cyropedia; expedition; Theophrastus, characters.
  • Grec 1759, 13th c. Diogenes Laertius, Lives of the philosophers.
  • Grec 2465, 14th c. Michael Psellus
  • Grec 1407, 15th c. Arrian, Anabasis; on India; Ptolemy’s geography, epitome.
  • Grec 1122, 14th c. John Damascene.
  • Grec 2795, 15th c. Sophocles, Electra, Orestes, etc, with scholia.
  • Grec 2850, 1475 AD, Sybilline oracles.
  • Grec 2902, 16th c. Aesop, Aristophanes, Euripides.
  • Grec 2999, 16th c. Demosthenes.
  • Coislin 1, 7th c. Greek Old Testament
  • Coislin 79, 11th c. Chrysostom.
  • Grec 2809, 15th c. Euripides.
  • Grec 2036, 10th c. Longinus on the sublime, Ps. Aristotle.
  • Grec 2706, 1500. Aristarchus, summaries and scholia on the Iliad.
  • Grec 2742, 17th c. Greek anthology of epigrams.
  • Grec 1535, 11th c. Martyrdoms.
  • Grec 164, 1070 AD. Psalms and canticles, with scholia.
  • Grec 1671, 1296. Plutarch.
  • Grec 107, 7th c. Bilingual Greek/Latin Paul’s letters. For some reason not identified by BNF.
  • Grec 1128, 14th c. Barlaam and Joasaph.
  • Grec 1767, 15th c. George Cedrenus, Narratio of meeting of Pope Silvester with some Jews.
  • Grec 1909, 15th c. Simplicius on Aristotle’s Physica.
  • Grec 2179, 9th c. Dioscorides.
  • Grec 2442, 11th c. Aelian, Tactica; Onasander, etc – military manuals.
  • Grec 2389, 9th c. Ptolemy.
  • Grec 3094, 17th c. Chrysostom, 4 homilies to Antiochenes.
  • Grec 923, 9th c. John Damascene, Sacra Parallela.
  • Grec 451, 914 AD. The Arethas codex of the Greek apologists!!!
  • Grec 781, 939 AD. Chrysostom.
  • Grec 142, 12th c. Euthymius Zigabenus, Commentary on Psalms and Canticles.

I’m about half way through and have to rush off. A few more.

  • Grec 945, 15th c. Origen.
  • Grec 414, 16th c. Gelasius of Cyzicus, Eusebius Vita Constantini, HE, etc.
  • Coislin 202, 6th c. Euthalian chapters, New Testament, note saying it was copied from Pamphilus’ exemplar (f.14r, v).

But a great number have no description, although I find that if you look inside, a slip glued onto the guard-folios at the front often tells you what the contents are.

This is marvellous, and I haven’t really digested what is here. There’s 146 Greek but only 15 Latin mss.

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Buying images of pages from a manuscript in the National Library of Russia in St. Petersburg – part 1

I need to look at some pages from a Syriac manuscript in the collection of the National Library of Russia in St Petersburg.   Rather than flying out there, paying for a hotel, it might be cheaper to just purchase a few digital photographs.  At least, one would hope so!

After a look at page on the website which talks about electronic copies, I have composed an email in English and sent it off.  It will be interesting to see whether they are cooperative or not.  Manuscript libraries can be very bolshy!

I will let you know.

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The manuscripts of Polybius

The Greek writer Polybius wrote a history in 40 books which recorded events from 264 BC down to the fall of Carthage in 146 BC.[1]  The work must still have existed in a complete form in the Byzantine era, when extracts were made from it, but has not come down to us intact.  However a great deal of it survives.

The remains can be classed as follows:

  • Books 1-5 survive complete.
  • Long extracts of books 6-18 are preserved in a collection known as the Excerpta Antiqua.  The oldest manuscript of this, F, in fact also contains excerpts of books 1-5, but later manuscripts omit these.
  • Shorter extracts from all the books are included in some of the massive historical compilations made at the command of the emperor Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus (d. 959 AD).

A monograph with a detailed study of the manuscript tradition was published by J.M. Moore.[2]

Manuscripts of the full text

The following are the manuscripts:

  • A = Vaticanus graecus 124 (once 126). 10th c., probably AD 947.
  • B = London, British Library, Add. 11728. AD 1616.
  • B2 = Marcianus gr. VII, 4. 15th c.  Copy of B.
  • B3 = Florence, Mediceo-Laurentianus Plutei 69, 9. AD 1435, made for Filefo.
  • B4 = Marcianus gr. 371. Mid 15th c.  Once belonged to Bessarion.
  • B5 = Marcianus gr. 369. AD 1470. Copied for Bessarion.
  • C = Munich gr. 157. 14th c.  Polybius is on f.1-91v, the remainder containing Herodian and Heliodorus.  It came from Constantinople after 1453, as a note on f.169r states; then to the library of Matthias Corvinus , King of Hungary (d. 1490), then to Joachim Camerarius who presented it to Albrecht V of Bavaria (d. 1579), whose library forms the nucleus of the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek today.
  • C2 = Vaticanus Urbinas gr. 101.  Written between 1455-1474.
  • Z = Vaticanus gr. 1005. 15th c.
  • Z2 = Constantinople, Top Kapu Serai, fonds Ahmet III, 25. 15th c.
  • D = Munich gr. 388 (also contains Excerpta Antiqua). 14th c.
  • E = Paris, BNF, graecus 1648. Once Medici Reg. 1859.  Late 14-early 15th c.
  • J = Vienna phil. gr. 59. 15th c.  A damaged and disarranged ms.
  • F = Vaticanus Urbinas gr. 102 (contains Excerpta Antiqua for books 1-18). 10-11th c.
  • C3 = Paris, BNF, gr. 1796 + Oxford Bodleian Laud. gr. 4. Mid. 16th c.
  • C4 = Paris, BNF, gr. 1649. AD 1547.
  • C5 = Paris, BNF, Coislin. 318. 16th c.

The following mss. contain only a single short excerpt from book 2.  They are all 15th c. except Z4 which is 16th c.

  • Z3 = Paris, BNF, gr. 1739.
  • Z4 = Paris, BNF, gr. 462.
  • Z5 = Paris, BNF, gr. 2376.
  • Z6 = Milan, Ambrosianus, gr. F88 sup.
  • Z7 = Leiden Scal. gr. 51.

All the mss. above derive from a copy in which there are certain common errors.  In book 4, 20:7 some words preserved by Athenaeus are lost, for instance.

A is the best ms.  From it derive B and its children and C4.

An independent manuscript which contained at least books 1-18 is the origin of the remaining mss.  From this ms. was made the Excerpta Antiqua, preserved in Ms. F.  and also another ms, from which the other mss descend; C, Z, D, E and J.

C3, C4 and C5 are copies of the editio princeps, which was printed from C.

The Excerpta Antiqua

There are two pages of mss. containing portions of these.  The principal mss. are:

  • F = Vaticanus Urb. gr. 102, as above.
  • F2 = Vaticanus gr. 1647. 15th c.
  • F3 = Florence, Mediceo-Laurentianus plutei 69, 21. 16th c.
  • D = Munich gr. 388, as above.
  • D2 = Vaticanus gr. 125. 16th c.
  • D3 = Oxford, Bodleian, Archbishop Selden B 18. 16th c.  Once belonged to Casaubon.
  • G = Florence, Mediceo-Laurentianus Plut. 69, 9. Ms. B3 above is also in the same physical volume. 16th c.
  • K = Paris, Bibliotheque Nationale Francais, gr. 2967. 15th c.

F is unique in two ways.  Firstly it contains excerpts from books 1-5.  Since the full text of these was available elsewhere, these did not get copied.  Secondly it not only contains the lengthy extracts, but in the margin it contains a large number of short passages from the sections not included in the main excerpts.  Most of these are also in F2, but not in the other mss (with 3 exceptions).

F, K, G and D are independent of each other.

The Constantinian Excerpts

Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus ordered the creation of a number of compilations of excerpts from earlier texts.  Most are now lost.

The extracts from books 1-5 in these compilations derive from a manuscript which is independent of the tradition we have.  The lacunae in all the mss. of the full text are not found in these excerpts.

  • P = Turonensis 980 (once 955) (Tours, Bibliotheque Municipale). 10th c. Contains the Excerpta de virtutibus et vitiis.  Two folios at the beginning praising Constantine VII were printed, but are now lost.
  • M = Vatican gr. 73 (once 91).  10-11th c.  Contains the Excerpta de sententiis.  A palimpsest, discovered by Angelo Mai with the use of chemicals, but now many pages are entirely black and unreadable.  Only ms. for this compilation.
  • Q = Scorialensis Ω 1 11 (once 1K3, 1Z2). 16th c. Biblioteca del Monasterio de San Lorenzo el Real, El Escorial.  Contains the Excerpta de insidiis.
  • T = Paris, BNF, Suppl. gr. 607. 10th c. Contains the Excerpta de strategematis.

There are also extracts from Polybius in the Excerpta de legationibus, extant in a number of 16th c. manuscripts, all derived from a manuscript lost in the fire at the Escorial in 1671.

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  1. [1]This from the introduction to the 1922 Loeb edition.
  2. [2]J.M. Moore, The manuscript tradition of Polybius, Cambridge (1965).  This post is derived mainly from this source.

The manuscripts of Pliny the Elder’s “Natural History”

Pliny the Elder, who died in the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 AD, has left us only a single work out of his vast literary activity.  This is the Historia Naturalis, a compendium of information about natural phenomena of various sort.  The work consists of a prefatory letter, addressed to his friend, the emperor Vespasian Titus, followed by 37 books.  The first book is composed entirely of a list of contents for each book from book 2 onwards.  At the end of each list is a list of the authors used to compile it.

Ancient manuscripts

Pliny’s work was read continuously and epitomised throughout antiquity; indeed the Collectanea of C. Iulius Solinus is largely derived from Pliny and can be used for the establishment of the text.   Unusually, therefore, the remains of no less than 5 ancient codices have come down to us.

  • M = St. Paul in Carinthia, Stiftsbibliothek 3.1 (25.2.36; xxv.a.3) (CLA x.1455) (=codex Moneus), 5th century.  Discovered at the Austrian monastery where it still resides in 1853 by F. Mone, hence the name.   The manuscript contains Jerome’s Commentary on Ecclesiastes, written around 700 AD in Luxeuil minuscule on reused parchment.  It also contains a 15th c. ex-libris for Reichenau.  But the book is a palimpsest.  The lower text consists of large sections of books 11-15, partly visible, in a 5th century uncial hand.  The manuscript has been treated with chemicals to try to bring out more of the ancient text. The text is of high quality. A description of the ms. and a complete transcript is available as most of vol. 6 of Sillig’s edition (Gotha, 1855).  The codex is also online here, although hard to use.
  • N = Rome, Bibl. Naz. Sessor. 55 (CLA iv.421), 5th century, uncial.  Also a palimpsest, containing patristic texts and written in the second half of the 6th century, the lower text consists of a few passages from books 23 and 25.  Both texts were written in Italy.
  • O = Vienna 1a (CLA x.1470), first half of 5th century, uncial.  Probably written in the south of Italy, it consists of fragments of 7 leaves, reused for bindings.  It contains part of books 33 and 34.
  • P = Paris lat. 9378, folio 26 (CLA v.575).  A single folio, seemingly of Italian origin, written at the end of the 6th century and containing part of book 18.  It was found, apparently, in the binding of a manuscript from St. Amand in France.
  • Pal. Chat. = Autun 24 + Paris n.a.lat. 1629 (CLA vi.725), 5th century, uncial, containing a few sections of books 8 and 9.  Presumably from Italy, it was overwritten in the late 6th century with Cassian’s Institutions, probably in Southern France.

It is telling that 3 ancient manuscripts, M, P and Pal.Chat, found their way to France but were turned into clean parchment before they could generate a tradition in that region.

The medieval manuscripts have been divided by editors into two classes, the older or vetustiores, and the newer or recentiores.  Unfortunately the dates of the mss. have been so confused that the division is not as clean as it should be.

Medieval manuscripts – vetustiores

  • Q = Paris lat. 10318 (CLA v.593), written in central Italy ca. 800 AD, in uncial.  This contains the Latin Anthology, and includes medical excerpts from books 19-20.  The source manuscript used for this was of high quality.
  • A = Leiden, Voss. Lat. F.4 (CLA x.1578), first third of the 8th century, insular, written in the north of England.  Contains books 2-6, with large gaps.  Other books may have been known to Bede, and Pliny is listed in Alcuin’s list of books present in York.  Not as good as M or Q, but better than most continental mss.
  • B = Bamberg, Class. 42 (M.v.10), first third of the 9th century, in the palace scriptorium of Louis the Pious.  It contains books 32-37, and is the only one to preserve the ending of the work.  Of excellent quality, and clearly copied carefully from an ancient codex whose notae it carefully preserves.  Online here.

There are also a number of collections of excerpts made in this period which preserve portions of the text.  They seem to be associated with the court of Charlemagne and the scholars who communicated with it.

Medieval manuscripts – recentiores

The vetustiores do not give us anything like a complete text, unfortunately.  For most of the work we are dependent on the inferior recentiores.  These contain small lacunae, but give a more or less complete text.

The main mss., which all descend from a common parent, are:

  • D+G+V = Vatican lat. 3861 + Paris lat. 6796, ff. 52-3 + Leiden, Voss. Lat. F. 61 (CLA x.1580 + Suppl. p.28), written ca. 800 AD in north-east France, perhaps in the Corbie area.  This manuscript was later divided into three.  It contains most of the work.
  • Ch = New York, Pierpont Morgan Library M.871 (formerly Phillipps 8297), first half of 9th century, written apparently at Lorsch by a scribe using the style of St. Vaast.  Contains books 1-17.
  • F = Leiden, Lipsius 7, written first half of the 9th century, by a scribe from Luxeuil collaborating with one from Murbach, possibly at Murbach.  Contains books 1-37.   Possibly copied from D+G+V before it was corrected.
  • R = Florence, Bibl. Ricc. 488, second half of the 9th century, perhaps at Auxerre.  Contains books 1-34.
  • E = Paris lat. 6795, 9-10th century, France.  Contains books 1-32.

All five mss. are related; their ancestor suffered a dislocation, where leaves from book 2-3 were swapped with some from 4-5.   Attempts were made to fix this in D and E, in a botched way.

E was prone to accident; leaves were lost in the ms. from which it was copied, and then in E itself.  Unfortunately it was E that dominated all later copies.  However some of them were clearly corrected from otherwise unknown copies of the older and better tradition, in D2, F2, R2,  and E2.

Medieval manuscripts – later recentiores

  • h = Berlin (East), Hamilton 517, 11th c.
  • X = Luxembourg 138, 12th c., from the Abbaye d’Orval.
  • Leiden, Voss. Lat. Q.43, 12th c., from Orleans.
  • n = Montpellier 473, 12th c., from Clairvaux; mainly medical excerpts.
  • Co = Copenhagen Gl.Kgl.S.212 2°, ca. 1200 AD.

All these are derived from E.

  • Oxford, Bodl. Auct. T.1.27 + Paris lat. 6798, 12th c., Mosan region.
  • C = Le Mans 263, 12th c.  A beautiful book, apparently of English origin. (Image of one opening here).

These are very close to E, and may derive from it.

  • e = Paris lat. 6796A, 12th c.  A faithful copy of E.
  • a = Vienna 234, 12th c.  Not derived from E, but from its ancestor.
  • d = Paris lat. 6797, third quarter of 12th century, Northern France, probably St. Amand.  Contains a substantial amount of the older tradition.

There are many more manuscripts, many of which have not been explored for their textual value.  One which is online is Ms. British Library, Harley 2676, written in Florence in 1465-7.  The BL site adds, ” identifiable as the missing Pliny from the Badia of Fiesole (according to unpublished notes of A. C. de la Mare at the Bodleian Library, Oxford)”.

Critical editions

The text of the NHwas established by the work of German scholars in the 19th century; J. Sillig, D. Detlefsen, L. von Jan, and K. Rück.  This culminates in the second Teubner edition, that of L. Jan and C. Mayhoff (5 vols, 1892-1906).  Much of the fundamental work on the recension was done by Detlefsen, in a series of papers[1] and in his edition (5 vols, Berlin, 1866-73).  The 20th century has only produced the Budé edition, now in more than 30 volumes, containing limited and rather stale information.

Bibliography

I am indebted for all this information to L.D. Reynolds, Texts and Transmissions, Oxford, p.307-316.

UPDATE: My thanks to J.B. Piggin for extra links.

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  1. [1]Rheinisches Museum 15 (1860), p.265-88 and 367-90; Philologus 28 (1869), p.284-337; Hermes 32 (1897), p. 321-40.

Syriac manuscripts in St Petersburg, Russia

It’s pretty hard to find out what the libraries in St Petersburg hold.  But today I discovered that Gregory Kessel produced an abbreviated translation of the 1960 catalogue by N. V. Pigulevskaya.   Better yet, he made it available online.  It’s here.

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