A Sixth-Century Fragment of the Letters of Pliny the Younger: A Study of Six Leaves of an Uncial Manuscript Preserved; in the Pierpont Morgan Library New YorkRand, Edward Kennard
General
A Sixth-Century Fragment of the Letters of Pliny the Younger: A Study of Six Leaves of an Uncial Manuscript Preserved; in the Pierpont Morgan Library New York
Rand, Edward Kennard
Manuscripts, Latin -- Facsimiles; Manuzio, Aldo, 1449 or 50-1515; Paleography, Latin; Pliny, the Younger -- Correspondence
[Footnote 6: In many of our oldest manuscripts uncials are employed.
The Pliny palimpsest of St. Paul in Carinthia agrees with our
manuscript in using rustic capitals. For facsimiles see J. Sillig,
_C. Plini Secundi Naturalis Historiae_, Libri XXXVI, Vol. VI, Gotha
1855, and Chatelain, _Paléographie des Classiques Latins_, pl.
CXXXVI.]
To judge by our fragment, each book was preceded by an index of
addresses and initial lines written in alternating lines of black and
red uncials. Alternating lines of black and red rustic capitals of a
large size were used in the colophon.[7]
[Footnote 7: In this respect, too, the Pliny palimpsest of St.
Paul in Carinthia agrees with our fragment. Most of the oldest
manuscripts, however, have the colophon in the same type of writing
as the text.]
[Sidenote: _Ornamentation_]
As in all our oldest Latin manuscripts, the ornamentation is of
the simplest kind. Such as it is, it is mostly found at the end and
beginning of books. In our case, the colophon is enclosed between two
scrolls of vine-tendrils terminating in an ivy-leaf at both ends. The
lettering in the colophon and in the running title is set off by means
of ticking above and below the line.
Red is used for decorative purposes in the middle line of the colophon,
in the scroll of vine-tendrils, in the ticking, and in the border at
the end of the Index on fol. 49. Red was also used, to judge by our
fragment, in the first three lines of a new book,[8] in the addresses
in the Index, and in the addresses preceding each letter.
[Footnote 8: This is also the case in the Paris manuscript of Livy
of the fifth century, in the Codex Bezae of the Gospels (published
in facsimile by the University of Cambridge in 1899), in the Pliny
palimpsest of St. Paul in Carinthia, and in many other manuscripts
of the oldest type.]
[Sidenote: _Corrections_]
The original scribe made a number of corrections. The omitted line of
the Index on fol. 49 was added between the lines, probably by the scribe
himself, using a finer pen; likewise the omitted line on fol. 52v, lines
7-8. A number of slight corrections come either from the scribe or from
a contemporary reader; the others are by a somewhat later hand, which is
probably not more recent than the seventh century.[9] The method of
correcting varies. As a rule, the correct letter is added above the line
over the wrong letter; occasionally it is written over an erasure. An
omitted letter is also added above the line over the space where it
should be inserted. Deletion of single letters is indicated by a dot
placed over the letter and a horizontal or an oblique line drawn through
it. This double use of expunction and cancellation is not uncommon in
our oldest manuscripts. For details on the subject of corrections, see
the notes on pp. 23-34.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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