Acts and Epistles; Calabria?, 11th c.

Title

Acts and Epistles; Calabria?, 11th c.

Shelfmark

Lincoln College MS. Gr. 82

Place of origin

Italy, Calabria?

Date

11th century

Language

Ancient Greek (to 1453)

Contents

Form

codex

Support

Parchment

Physical extent

iv+210 leaves

Hands

Copied by a single scribe who wrote Χριστε παράσχου τοῖς ἐμοῖς πόνοις χάριν ( DBBE 2082) on f. 187v and whom Irmgard Hutter identifies with the priest Leo, copyist of Vienna, ÖNB, Theol. gr. 188 and Athens, EBE, 74.

Decoration

A full-length image of the evangelist Luke on f. 1v seems to be the work of a professional artist.

The remaining decoration is evidently by the scribe himself. The beginning of each preface and of each epistle is marked with a headpiece (ff. 1r, 73v, 92v) or a headband (ff. 2r, 50v, 51r, 55v, 56r, etc.), as well as with an illuminated initial letter (ff. 50v, 51r, 55v, 56r, etc.).

Some of these initials are zoomorphic (ff. 71v, 111r, 130r, 152r, 161v, 169r) or anthropomorphic (ff. 57r, 62v, 66v, 72r-v, etc.).

There are also bust-length portraits of the apostle Paul next to the text of two of his epistles (ff. 93r, 170v).

Binding

Binding (seventeenth-century) of brown suede over pasteboard. There are four protruding ridges on the spine; the covers project over the book-block; the roots of two laces remain in place. There are no pastedowns. The front flyleaves and back flyleaves are two blank vellum quaternia.

Acquisition

A parchment label written in late Gothic script and glued to f. ivv names Robert Flemyng (sic) as the book’s donor.