Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume XI.djvu/145

 MANUSCRIPT 133 14 letters each. The characters are well tecuted uncials, unconnected with each other, without spaces between the words, with no large initial letters, no breathings nor accents, and with few marks of punctuation. .The first line of each of the psalms and of the other poetical books is in red ink. It contains both the Old and the New Testament, the latter per- fect. The Codex Vaticanus, a manuscript of the Greek Bible, deficient in some parts of the New Testament, is also ascribed to about the middle of the 4th century, although Tischen- dorf considers the evidence not quite so con- clusive as in the case of the Sinaiticm. Its early history is not known, but it appears in the first catalogue of the Vatican library in 1475. It is a quarto volume, 10| inches high, 10 broad, and 4 thick, and is bound in red morocco ; contains 146 leaves of fine thin vel- lum, has three columns of 42 lines each to the page, and is written in elegant uncials, some- what smaller than those of the Sinaiticm, with no spaces between the words. As originally written, it had no large capital letters and no breathings nor accents ; but capital letters in blue or red, three fourths of an inch high, have been added at the beginning of each book by a later corrector, who also put in the breath- ings and accents, and probably the stops. Of the Biblical manuscripts of the 5th century, the Codex Alexandrinus of the British museum, containing nearly the whole of the Greek Bible, is the most important. It is in four quarto vol- umes, with pages 13 inches high by 10 broad, has two columns of 50 lines each to the page, and is written in uniform uncials, with the first three or four lines of each book in red letters. It differs from the Sinaiticm and the Vatica- nus in having large initial letters. Scholars are generally agreed in ascribing it to the mid- dle of the 5th century. (See ALEXANDRIAN CODEX.) Of the same century is the Ephraem palimpsest of the national library in Paris. It is about the size of the Codex Alexandrinm, though not quite so high, and has 209 leaves, of which 64 contain fragments of the Septua- gint and 145 various parts of the New Testa- ment. The original text, which was partly erased in the 12th century to make room for the writings of Ephraem Syrus, is in elegant uncials, without division of words or chapters, and with but one column to the page, consist- ing of from 40 to 46 lines. The Codex Bezw or Cantalrigiensis, in the library of the uni- versity of, Cambridge, belongs to the 6th cen- tury. It is a Greek manuscript, with a Latin translation on the opposite pages, of the four Gospels and Acts, with a number of pages miss- ing. It is a quarto volume of 414 leaves, with pages 10 inches high by 8 wide, and written stichometrically in a single column of 33 lines to the page. The first three lines of each book are in red ink. The characters are uncials, and the words are undivided. (See BEZA'S CODEX.) Among the fragments of manuscripts of this century, one of the most interesting is the Codex Purpurem, four leaves of which are in the Brit- ish museum, six in the Vatican, and two in the imperial library at Vienna. Tischendorf found 33 additional leaves in the island of Patmos. It is written in silver letters, now quite black from age (the names of God and Christ in gold), on very thin purple vellum, and has two columns of 16 lines each to the page. The characters are large Greek uncials, written without division of words. Among the old- est and most important of the cursive Greek manuscripts of the New Testament is the Co- dex Basilensis, in the library of Basel, ascribed to the 10th century. It has one column of 38 lines to each page, and is written in small ele- gant characters, with breathings, accents, iota subscripts, and a few illuminations, among which are portraits of the emperor Leo the Phi- losopher and his son Constantino Porphyro- genitus. The Codex Ruler, a cursive manu- script containing fragments of the New Tes- tament, in the national library at Paris, is writ- ten entirely in red ink ; it belongs to the 10th or llth century. Of the manuscripts of the Latin Bible, the Codex Amiatinm, in the Lau- rentian library at Florence, is the most impor- tant. It derives its name from the Cister- cian monastery of Monte Amiato, in Tuscany, where it was owned previous to its acquisition by the Laurentian library. From intrinsic evidence it is supposed to have been written about 541 by Servandus, abbot of the Benedic- tine monastery near Alatri, on the borders of Latium. It consists of 1,029 leaves, of which 796 are devoted to the Old Testament and 232 to the New. It is written in well formed Ro- man uncials, and has two columns to the page, each having in general 43 lines stichometri- cally arranged. The first line of each book is rubricated. Other renowned manuscripts of the same century are a Virgil in the Vatican, a Prudentius, the sermons of St. Augustine on papyrus, the psalter of St. Germain-des- Pr6s in silver letters, and a copy of the Theo- dosian code, all in the national library at Paris ; the unique copy of the fifth decade of Livy, in the imperial library at Vienna; a Lactantius and the breviary of Alaric at Bo- logna ; and a palimpsest containing 4,000 lines of the Iliad in the British museum. The cele- brated manuscript of the Digest of Justinian too, in the Laurentian library at Florence, be- longs probably to the close of the 6th century. The science of reading and judging ancient manuscripts is called diplomatics, and is a branch of palaeography. In examining a man- uscript in order to judge of its antiquity, it is necessary to consider the quality and charac- ter of the material on which it is written; the style of the writing; the inks used; its miniatures, vignettes, and arabesques, and the colors with which they are executed ; the cov- er, its material and ornamentation ; and the character of the contents. The oldest Greek and Latin manuscripts are written in square capital letters, without division of words or