John the Deacon, Vita S. Gregorii Papae, etc.; 11th century, end, Austria(?), Carinthia(?)

Title

John the Deacon, Vita S. Gregorii Papae, etc.; 11th century, end, Austria(?), Carinthia(?)

Shelfmark

MS. Canon. Misc. 575

Place of origin

Austria(?), Carinthia(?)

Date

late 11th or early 12th century

11th century, end

Language

Ancient Greek (to 1453)

Latin

Contents

Form

codex

Support

parchment

Physical extent

i (paper) + 1 + 136 + 1 + i (paper)

Hands

Caroline minuscule; incipits in majuscules.

Rustic capitals for rubrics and fol. 122.

Decoration

(fol. iii verso) A full-page partially-coloured drawing, doubtless intended to represent St Gregory, consisting of a drawing of a saint in ecclesiastical garb, including a pallium, holding a book and blessing; the Dextera Dei blesses him from the upper left corner and in the lower left corner a figure kneels at his feet; a wide framing border incorporates pairs of birds, foliage, and the heads of strange horned creatures. Around the figure’s halo is added in Greek majuscules: ‘Ο ΑΓΙΟϹ | Ο ΑΓΙΟϹ | ΓΡΕΓΟΡΙΟϹ ΠΑΠΑ ΡΟ’ (‘O agios O agios Gregorios papa Romae’). A later hand added ‘Sanctus Iohannis’ above the figure, the name subsequently erased. Near the kneeling figure, whose face has been effaced, is another added inscription, subsequently erased: ‘misero domine monacus(?)’.

Large elaborate vegetal initials, drawn in ink and partially coloured in red, green, and yellow, at the beginning of the preface and each book (fols. 1r, 2v, 21v, 51v, 88r).

Diagrammatic climate map, fol. iii recto.

Musical notation

Adiastematic neumes added above an added marginal antiphon for the feast of St Gregory: ‘Sex struxit in sicilia vir clarus monasteria’ (CANTUS 004878) (fol. 122v).

Adiastematic neumes added above two short lines written horizontally on recto of the former back pastedown (fol. 136r), both with the same melody: ‘puer ginitur nec mater ulla premitur angustia loco antiphon’ (Dreves, Analecta Hymnica, xx (1895), p. 67 no. 42, part of the third stanza), and: ‘Si commeditis de pomis loco positis perennia’ (cf. ibid., stanza 5)

Binding

18th- or early 19th-century Italian binding. Sewn on four double bands laced into pasteboards covered with rough brown (sheepskin?) leather, each covered framed with triple gilt filets; the spine with red leather title-piece lettered in gilt capitals ‘Ioan diacon | Vita beati | Gregorii | Cod. memb. | perantiq.’

Acquisition

Purchased by the Bodleian in 1817. Former Bodleian shelfmarks: ‘Canon: Miscel: 575’ (fol. ir)

Provenance

Benedictine monastery of St. Paul im Lavanttal, Carinthia: with 12th-century copies of two of its documents on fol. iii recto; identifiable as no. 171 in its 1782 booklist: ‘Vita S. Gregorii Papae per Joannem Diaconum auf Pergament, Folio.’ (H. Menhardt, ‘Weitere Nachrichten von Kärntner Klosterbibliotheken’, Zentralblatt für Bibliothekswesen, 44 (1927), 593–611 at 602). Sporadic marginalia.

Matteo Luigi Canonici, 1727–1805

Giuseppe Canonici , -1807

Title

John the Deacon, Vita S. Gregorii Papae

Shelfmark

MS. Canon. Misc. 575

Date

11th century, end

Language

Latin

Physical extent

1 volume