Cicero Palimpsest

Of all the world's palimpsests, probably the most famous is that at the Vatican Library which recovered for us much of the Roman political philosopher Cicero's work De republica (On the Commonwealth).

Palimpsests, of which Rome has a good number, mostly contain familiar texts which we hardly need to read yet again. Angelo Mai's discovery in 1819 that Vat.lat.5757, a 7th-century copy of Augustine's On the Psalms, was written over a lost book, a 4/5th-century uncial text of De republica, was immensely more thrilling.

The 151 leaves contain roughly a quarter of Cicero's dialogue, enabling us to at least read it in summary form. There are quotes from De republica in other works, but had it not been for this book recycling by the poor monks of Bobbio in northern Italy, the Cicero work would have stayed lost forever.

The digitization of the Cicero Palimpsest is very painstaking, with alternate natural-light and ultraviolet exposures to show up the undertext, and careful analysis of the bifolium and quire orders. The big text in this violet view is the Cicero:

Mai's discovery triggered 200 centuries of hunting for more palimpsests. Among the finds, the Archimedes Codex discovered by Heiberg has perhaps been the second greatest prize.

Check Jeremy Norman's brief account, or the Wikipedia article on De republica, or James Zetzel's very readable introduction via Google Books. The Cicero Palimpsest's digitization, completed on November 11, might perhaps be experienced as a reminder to all to keep faith with our political institutions after a week when Donald Trump won the US presidential election.

Naturally the codex is also of enormous interest to palaeolography, since it is an ultra-rare example of late fourth or early fifth-century uncial (CLA 1 35, Trismegistos 66130) and at the same time a quite rare example of seventh-century script (CLA 1 34, Trimegistos 66149). [Late add: see CLA too on the new Galway Database.]

Here is the full list of November 11 releases, which bring the posted total to exactly 6,100.

1. Urb.lat.365
2. Vat.gr.303.pt.3
3. Vat.gr.751, Book of Job and commentary with catenae, Apollinaris of Laodicea, variously dated 13th or 14th century, or earlier according to a Wikipedia list. With many beautiful miniatures throughout, some unfinished blanks. Leaf through and admire items such as this image of Job's early wealth:
   
4. Vat.lat.230, Praeparatio evangelica of Eusebius of Caeasarea, translated to Latin by George of Trebizond, HT to @LatinAristotle who notes this is one of 51 extant manuscripts of the translation.
5. Vat.lat.484
6. Vat.lat.533
7. Vat.lat.939
8. Vat.lat.957
9. Vat.lat.990
10. Vat.lat.992
11. Vat.lat.1009
12. Vat.lat.1011
13. Vat.lat.1022
14. Vat.lat.1023
15. Vat.lat.1025
16. Vat.lat.1026
17. Vat.lat.1027
18. Vat.lat.1035
19. Vat.lat.1059
20. Vat.lat.1073
21. Vat.lat.1124
22. Vat.lat.1126
23. Vat.lat.1142
24. Vat.lat.1903, Life of Hadrian
25. Vat.lat.3173, Horace
26. Vat.lat.3210, Pietro Bembo autograph
27. Vat.lat.3255, Georgics, heavily annotated
28. Vat.lat.3302, a manuscript belonging to Fabio Mazzatosta, a very wealthy student at Rome in the 15th century who died before getting his first job. This has the Punica of Silius Italicus. At 12,000 lines this is claimed to be the longest preserved poem in Latin literature. Here, just books 1-9, 12-17. With fine illumination, plus end-paper drawings like these horses:
    
    This seems to be by the German artist Joachim de Gigantibus. The BAV owns five of the seven Fabio Mattatosta Codices, all commissioned by M from his pal Pomponio Leto. The others are Vat.lat.3264 (Fasti of Ovid), 3279 Thebaid Statius, 3285 (Pharsalia of Lucan) and 3875 (Silvae and Achilleis). One more is at the British Library. Source: Diz. Biografico.
29. Vat.lat.5757 (above)

This is Piggin's Unofficial List number 78. If you have corrections or additions, please use the comments box below. Follow me on Twitter (@JBPiggin) for news of more additions to DigiVatLib.

First Handbook

If you are keen on historic warfare or the fantastical war machines created for battles in Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings films, you'll be hooked by a 1455 book by Roberto Valturio on the military arts which is full of wonderfully creative images of military machines, real and imagined.

The Vatican Library's manuscript of De re militari (On matters military) arrived online October 24 and Urb.lat.281 is a real page-turner. Leonardo da Vinci is reputed to have read this and to have been inspired by it to some of his own inventions. On folio 147v we find an astonishing dragon machine with a cannon in its snout, capable of firing incendiary missiles:

That is just part of the image.This particular dragon just happens to have a basket on its head with nine commandos wearing blue helmets, ready to jump down and hack you to bits.

Who doesn't remember the James Bond Aston-Martin with knives that emerge from the hubcaps? In this book, it's a heavy battle-wagon drawn by oxen that does the same.

On  fol. 168v there's a tortoise, a machine for getting up close to walls and battering them down, and of course it even looks like a tortoise:

Ponder the weird raking fire weapon on fol. 166r:

Or how about some 15th-century Meccano on fol. 144r:

Valturio (1405–1475) (see French Wikipedia) was a man of letters rather than a proper engineer and this handbook is derivative rather than original. It even starts off with a copious list of sources:

De re militari is also remarkable in book history. A couple of dozen manuscripts were made at great cost to be presents to princes (this is Federico da Montefeltro's copy), but 17 years later a print version appeared in 1472 for the new mass market. It is regarded as the first modern handbook on any subject, dealing with the entirety of its topic in a systematic way, and integrating images and text.

A total of 72 manuscripts came online in this batch. Here is the full list:

1. Pal.gr.14
2. Pal.gr.265
3. Urb.lat.81
4. Urb.lat.96
5. Urb.lat.248 , ‏@LatinAristotle on Twitter (Pieter Beullens) points out this is Galen, De simplicium medicamentorum facultatibus in the Latin of Niccolò da Reggio
6. Urb.lat.281, De re militari (above). Anthony Grafton's Rome Reborn catalog calls the book the most important Renaissance forbear of Machiavelli's Art of War. The St. Louis catalog notes that this copy is dated May 11, 1462 and signed by the scribe Sigismondi Nicolai Alamani.
7. Urb.lat.410
8. Urb.lat.423
9. Urb.lat.674
10. Urb.lat.732
11. Urb.lat.740
12. Urb.lat.763
13. Urb.lat.772
14. Urb.lat.774
15. Urb.lat.789
16. Urb.lat.793
17. Urb.lat.797
18. Urb.lat.812
19. Urb.lat.814.pt.
20. Urb.lat.820.pt.1
21. Urb.lat.823.pt.3
22. Urb.lat.825.pt.2
23. Urb.lat.827.pt.1
24. Urb.lat.827.pt.2
25. Urb.lat.828.pt.3
26. Urb.lat.829.pt.1
27. Urb.lat.829.pt.2
28. Urb.lat.829.pt.3
29. Urb.lat.832.pt.2
30. Urb.lat.836
31. Urb.lat.837
32. Urb.lat.847
33. Urb.lat.848
34. Urb.lat.850
35. Urb.lat.854.pt.2
36. Urb.lat.855
37. Urb.lat.868
38. Urb.lat.870
39. Urb.lat.873
40. Urb.lat.881
41. Urb.lat.883
42. Urb.lat.887
43. Urb.lat.889
44. Urb.lat.890
45. Urb.lat.892
46. Urb.lat.897
47. Urb.lat.910
48. Urb.lat.916
49. Urb.lat.923
50. Urb.lat.926
51. Urb.lat.927
52. Urb.lat.931
53. Urb.lat.960
54. Vat.gr.303.pt.1
55. Vat.gr.303.pt.2
56. Vat.lat.855
57. Vat.lat.897
58. Vat.lat.920
59. Vat.lat.922
60. Vat.lat.923
61. Vat.lat.947
62. Vat.lat.951
63. Vat.lat.960
64. Vat.lat.963
65. Vat.lat.996
66. Vat.lat.1002
67. Vat.lat.1028
68. Vat.lat.1031
69. Vat.lat.1032
70. Vat.lat.1043.pt.2
71. Vat.lat.1089
72. Vat.lat.3281, a magnificent old palimpsest containing fragments from a 5th- or 6th-century Vulgate Bible, scribed in southern Italy perhaps as soon as 50 years after the death of Jerome. It was torn apart and re-used in the 12th century for the Achilleid of Statius in Beneventan script (Lowe 1 14, Trismegistos 66110).

This is Piggin's Unofficial List number 74. If you have corrections or additions, please use the comments box below. Follow me on Twitter (@JBPiggin) for news of more additions to DigiVatLib.

12 Greatest TextArch News Stories

I posted last week on the fuss over The Gospel of Jesus's Wife, where the new evidence overwhelmingly indicates this tiny papyrus at Harvard University is a forgery.

That prompted me to look for a list of great news stories in the past few years about the archaeology of text, that is to say, recognizing by intelligent reading that a found historical text or diagram attaches to a noted author or a previously unsuspected context. There isn't any list I can find that spans ancient, medieval and modern, so I have compiled one for your reading pleasure.

In this 21st-century tally of great recent #TextArch news stories in date order: the years are of the media attention, not of the discoveries:

1. Troyes ms. 1452 contains 113 anonymous love letters attributable to Héloïse and Abelard (2000 book reviews)
   
2. BAV Vat. sir. 623 contains an unknown comedy by Menander palimpsested with Dyscolus (Harlfinger 2003; Pearse 2011)
3. Artemidorus Papyrus (below) contains only known ancient Greek topographical map (2006 exhibition)
   
4. Archimedes Palimpsest found to contain lost Stomachion and The Method of Mechanical Theorems by Archimedes, Against Timandra and Against Diondas by Hyperides (2007 book)
5. Vlatadon 14 found to contain Galen's lost On Consolation from Grief (2010 Libé; Pearse)
6. Munich BSB cod. graec. 314 found to contain lost Homilies on Psalms of Origen (2012; edition)
7. Papyrus lent to Harvard claimed to contain an unknown Gospel of Jesus's Wife (2012; discredited 2016)
8. Copiale Cipher (book in private ownership?) decoded and linked to German Oculists (2012)
9. Cod. Hierosolymitanus Sancti Sepulcri 36 found to contain a lost text of Euripides (2013)
10. Green Collection cartonnage said to contain portions of two poems by Sappho (2014)
11. Sulaymaniyah Museum Tablet T.1447 revealed to contain 20 lost lines of Gilgamesh (2015)
    
12. Paris BNF NAL 3245 (below) identified as a lost Vita of Francis of Assisi by Thomas de Celano (2015)
    

And next year? Maybe the publication of my book disclosing that an unsuspected Roman-era chart of genealogies and timelines has been reconstructed from segments in medieval manuscripts and turns out to be the world's oldest information visualization. Let me know now (by comments or by Twitter) if this is a book you would want to read or spread word about!

The criteria for my list above (and these all concern the identification of a text or a diagram, not the finding of the support on which the text is written) are:

• the text or diagram lacks any author's name or date;
• scientifically tenable grounds are advanced for the attribution;
• the work is famed: either lost or altering our knowledge of the past;
• stories of it had to crop up over several days in major news media.

I suspect these bunch in years because we in the media tend to re-enact memes, then grow weary of them. A recent article in The Guardian, John Dugdale lists celebrated refindings of 20th-century works in a sudden 2015 rush, which I think tends to support my explanation. I nearly included two great media feasts of 2006:

1. Linking of the anonymous Poetical Essay on the Existing State of Things to Percy Bysshe Shelley, but that was essentially about finding the sole surviving printed copy
2. Launch of Antikythera Mechanism project, culminating in this year's Almagest 7/1 edition, but that is essentially an artefact story.

There's also a list at Oxford including some more obscure Graeco-Roman rediscoveries.

And what would you add to my list?

Trio of Vergils

The Roman Vergil is among the world's most celebrated old books: a 5th-century illustrated manuscript of the works of the Latin writer Virgil with the Vatican library shelfmark Vat. lat. 3867.

It has just entered the internet, marking a fresh historic moment in the Vatican digitization program. On the same day, the Vatican's leaves of a non-illuminated Virgil from the same period, the Vergilius Augusteus (Vat. lat. 3256), arrived online.

The even older Vatican Vergil, Vat. lat. 3225, another Late Antique illustrated book with which these two are commonly compared, has been online for over a year. These two additions make the set complete. Now you can compare all three at high resolution, in colour.

Classical Rome did not have illustrated codex books. Late Antiquity invented them in one of its major advances in media and public education. The rest as they say is history.

Here is the Roman Vergil's treatment of a shipbound Aeneas enduring a storm released by the goddess Juno against him. It is often said that the style seems like a precursor to medieval art:

The Wikipedia article Vergilius Romanus notes a theory that the Roman Vergil was made in Britain. Robert Vermaat accessibly sums up the argumentation for this. If true, the Roman Vergil is the oldest of any book from England in existence.

Here is the full list of 143 digitizations on April 11, bringing the posted total to 4,215. Click (tap) on the images to go straight to the pages. I want to rush this major news to you now, and will continue to mark the list up, with more of the goodies to be described in the next few days, so do come back.

The Bibioteca in Rome has no RSS feed, no running announcements, nothing. If you want news on what they put out, you'll have to come to my unofficial site, the only news stream on the internet covering the subject. Follow me on Twitter: there's a one-click button at right to make it easy.

1. Borg.copt.109.cass.XVI.fasc.59, fragments, Gospel of Luke 8:36-9:41 and 12:39-14:9, looking extremely old even to my untrained eye
   
2. Chig.C.IV.100,
3. Urb.lat.603, the Breviary of Blanche of France, a major art treasure
4. Vat.lat.29 ,
5. Vat.lat.268,
6. Vat.lat.284,
7. Vat.lat.287,
8. Vat.lat.303,
9. Vat.lat.317,
10. Vat.lat.326,
11. Vat.lat.333,
12. Vat.lat.335,
13. Vat.lat.357,
14. Vat.lat.358,
15. Vat.lat.359,
16. Vat.lat.361,
17. Vat.lat.363,
18. Vat.lat.365,
19. Vat.lat.367,
20. Vat.lat.370,
21. Vat.lat.374,
22. Vat.lat.379,
23. Vat.lat.383,
24. Vat.lat.386,
25. Vat.lat.387,
26. Vat.lat.388,
27. Vat.lat.390,
28. Vat.lat.391,
29. Vat.lat.394,
30. Vat.lat.395,
31. Vat.lat.402,
32. Vat.lat.403,
33. Vat.lat.404,
34. Vat.lat.406,
35. Vat.lat.408,
36. Vat.lat.411,
37. Vat.lat.417,
38. Vat.lat.419,
39. Vat.lat.420,
40. Vat.lat.421,
41. Vat.lat.422,
42. Vat.lat.423,
43. Vat.lat.426,
44. Vat.lat.429,
45. Vat.lat.431,
46. Vat.lat.432,
47. Vat.lat.437,
48. Vat.lat.442,
49. Vat.lat.443,
50. Vat.lat.447,
51. Vat.lat.448,
52. Vat.lat.455,
53. Vat.lat.456,
54. Vat.lat.457,
55. Vat.lat.460,
56. Vat.lat.462,
57. Vat.lat.464,
58. Vat.lat.469,
59. Vat.lat.470,
60. Vat.lat.473,
61. Vat.lat.477,
62. Vat.lat.482,
63. Vat.lat.488,
64. Vat.lat.492,
65. Vat.lat.493,
66. Vat.lat.497,
67. Vat.lat.499,
68. Vat.lat.502,
69. Vat.lat.503,
70. Vat.lat.504,
71. Vat.lat.506,
72. Vat.lat.508,
73. Vat.lat.509,
74. Vat.lat.511,
75. Vat.lat.512,
76. Vat.lat.515,
77. Vat.lat.517,
78. Vat.lat.520,
79. Vat.lat.522,
80. Vat.lat.523,
81. Vat.lat.524,
82. Vat.lat.526,
83. Vat.lat.528,
84. Vat.lat.529,
85. Vat.lat.530,
86. Vat.lat.531,
87. Vat.lat.532,
88. Vat.lat.536,
89. Vat.lat.537,
90. Vat.lat.538,
91. Vat.lat.541,
92. Vat.lat.542,
93. Vat.lat.547,
94. Vat.lat.548,
95. Vat.lat.551,
96. Vat.lat.553, Eucherius of Lyon, a 9th-century manuscript possibly originating from Germany. Lowe number, CLA 1 6  
97. Vat.lat.554,
98. Vat.lat.559,
99. Vat.lat.562,
100. Vat.lat.570,
101. Vat.lat.574,
102. Vat.lat.579,
103. Vat.lat.583, Gregory the Great in an 8th-century manuscript, Lowe number CLA 1 7, with this fine fishy Q:
     
104. Vat.lat.589,
105. Vat.lat.590,
106. Vat.lat.591,
107. Vat.lat.595,
108. Vat.lat.605,
109. Vat.lat.607,
110. Vat.lat.608,
111. Vat.lat.613,
112. Vat.lat.614,
113. Vat.lat.621,
114. Vat.lat.643,
115. Vat.lat.1112, commentary on the Sententiae 
116. Vat.lat.1164, theological including Giacomo da Pesaro
117. Vat.lat.1165, theological, first half is a Spanish printed book of 1548
118. Vat.lat.3198, Petrarch with portrait:
     
119. Vat.lat.3212, Italian poetry of Antonio del Alberti, etc.
120. Vat.lat.3256, the Vergilius Augusteus (see the Wikipedia article)
121. Vat.lat.3305,
122. Vat.lat.3321, a late antique glossary, in an 8th-century central Italian manuscript, Lowe CLA 1 15: a sort of dictionary and Roget's Thesauraus combined. I originally marked this as Isidore of Seville, Differentiae (Isidore was a bit of a plagiarist and fond of substituting new words in quotes to make them his own) but it seems that this is a source used by Isidore. The manuscript has been edited (see the 1834 Rome edition on Google Books) and there is a huge bibliography suggesting this is an important source for Latin lexicography and linguistics.
     
     
123. Vat.lat.3357,
124. Vat.lat.3437,
125. Vat.lat.3773: Thanks to ParvaVox who was quick to point out this is an old pictorial Mexican Nahua manuscript, and to @carolinepennock, who adds that it's a tonalamatl (divinatory calendar), probably from Tlaxcala. She says it is one of only a handful believed to be pre-conquest, and another digital reproduction is available at www.famsi.org. It was probably made in the 16th century, but the manuscript's history previous to the Vatican cataloguing of 1596-1600 is unknown. She says it part of what is called the Borgia group. Here's one of the hundreds of figures in it:
     
126. Vat.lat.3797,
127. Vat.lat.3867, the Roman Vergil, in rustic half-uncial script with many illustrations (see above)
128. Vat.lat.3869, Hippocrates' Iusiurandum translated to Greek: ETNG
129. Vat.lat.3886, Enea Silvio Piccolomini's 1458 autograph manuscript of Germania, a famed humanist review praising the orderliness and prosperity of the new Germany. It was to appear in print in Leipzig in 1496. This second part is marked Aeneas Cardinalis Sancte Sabine ad objectiones Germanorum in a 16th-century hand on the front flyleaf. See Gernot Michael Müller
     
130. Vat.lat.4104, 16th-century letters to Angelo Colocci, Fulvio Orsini and others
131. Vat.lat.4221, 11th-century three-column bible, possibly with some Vetus Latina readings, with fine canon tables:
     
132. Vat.lat.4329, folio 87, a flyleaf, is a recycled 7th- or 8th-century page with Liber Comitis on it, Lowe number CLA 1 20:
     
133. Vat.lat.4777, Dante? incomplete
134. Vat.lat.4782, Dante, two-column ms
135. Vat.lat.4965, the 9th-century report/translation from the Greek concerning the 8th Ecumenical Council in Constantinople for Pope Hadrian II by Anastasius Bibliotecarius: he seems to have got scribes in the papal scriptorium to write up this fair copy 870-871, then wrote his corrections on it. With these remarkable alterations, this manuscript offers insights into a first-millennium translation bureau (link to Berschin). HT as well to @LatinAristotle who flags a major article by Réka Forrai about this papal translator and diplomat.
136. Vat.lat.5697, Peter Comestor's Historia Scholastica , early 15th century, one of the masterpieces of Gothic illumination, with wonderful images such as this scene:
     
     
     This is a charming Eve about to bite the apple as the Devil tells her it's sooo good:
     
     Notice the selfie-like distortion? Please, somebody, post this on Instagram.
137. Vat.lat.5704, a 6th-century Latin translation of Cassidorus's Historia Tripartita almost certainly made in his own scriptorium at Vivarium, Italy. Lowe number CLA 1 25. It has been argued by some scholars that marginal notes to the Enarratio in Canticum Canticorum of Philo Carpasianus may be by the hand of the great Cassiodorus himself:
     
     If we had not had the Vergils, I would certainly have headlined this week's post with this treasure.
138. Vat.lat.5759, Ambrose of Milan on Genesis and the Evangeliorum Libri of Juvencus, late 10th century, written over the top of an 8th-century gospels probably from Bobbio, Italy. The final pages have not been refilled, so you can see clearly how a palimpsest was prepared. Lowe number CLA 1 37
139. Vat.lat.7016, an 8th-century gospels from Italy intact, Lowe number CLA 1 51 with canon tables:
     
140. Vat.lat.7189, commentary on canon law by Johannes de Turrecremata (died 1468): the missing volume of an autograph series Vat. lat. 2572-2576 (Gero Dolezalek). 
141. Vat.lat.11258.pt.B, a book of designs and plans for baroque Rome.
     
     Anthony Grafton notes in the Rome Reborn catalogue that this architectural drawing (folio 200r) for the centrepiece of the Piazza Navona by Francesco Borromini was not implemented.
142. Vat.sir.598, an 1871 copy of records of 19 oriental synods
143. Vat.turc.150,

This is Piggin's Unofficial List 45 and not the last. Follow me on Twitter (@JBPiggin) for news of more additions to Digita Vaticana, and join this site with Google Friend Connect (right) or you'll miss out on the next releases. If you have corrections or additions, please use the comments box below.

A Costly Petrus Roll

Last week in New York, Sotheby's sold at auction for $250,000 a parchment roll containing a 13th-century copy of the Compendium of Petrus Pictaviensis, a timeline of biblical history compiled in Paris in the late 12th century for use in education. Of about 200 extant copies of this huge diagram, the auctioned item is probably the only one left in private ownership.

It is one of the items listed in my manuscript survey, which offers links to many of the digitized rolls. The sale description notes that the just-sold item, of English origin, is "inscribed with a few sixteenth-century annotations, attesting to the roll’s continued usefulness as a guide to biblical and other history."

This week, Digita Vaticana added 15 new items to its posted index, including another copy of the Compendium, this one in book form. Pal.lat.963 dates from the 15th century and was made in Germany with many fine miniatures. The New York sale gives a rough idea of the immense market value of the Rome item. In Pal.lat.963 we can admire the dynamics of Abraham being stopped as he is about to sacrifice Isaac:

The second image is a fine little Nativity from the same book. Mary seems to have a very comfortable bed in this stable, but Joseph looks tired and cold. The manuscript is not completely fresh online. It was available last year or even earlier on Heidelberg's Biblioteca Palatina portal, but is now on the Vatican's server as well.

Here is the full list of 15 new postings:

1. Pal.lat.939,
2. Pal.lat.941,
3. Pal.lat.962,
4. Pal.lat.963, Petrus Pictaviensis, with Candelabra and Compendium
5. Pal.lat.1014,
6. Pal.lat.1024,
7. Ross.884, Lucretius, De Rerum Natura, and Terence, Eununchus, now believed to have been copied out by Machiavelli himself. See Alison Brown's discussion. (And all praise to the scanner for opening up the foldouts.)
8. Vat.lat.376, Augustine of Hippo: On Epistles of John and other extracts
9. Vat.lat.377, Ado of Vienne, Martyrologium, etc.
10. Vat.lat.392, John Chrysostom, in Latin
11. Vat.lat.393, John Chrysostom, Homilae, Epistulae
12. Vat.lat.1894, Diogenes Laertius, Latin translation by Ambrose Traversari, of De vitis philosophorum - 15th century
13. Vat.lat.3306, a 12th-century manuscript of the Comedies of Terence (possibly with glosses from the Commentum Brunsianum)
14. Vat.lat.3594, De regno, by Leodrisio Crivelli. Text here (PDF).
15. Vat.lat.3833, the Collectio Canonum by Deusdedit, written between 1083 and 1087. This is the sole complete manuscript of this legal work. See Lotte Kéry. Notable for tabular material, but no diagrams. This is a palimpsest with four Vulgate gospels from the 7th or 8th century underneath (see Trismegistos).

As a later addition to this post (in January 2016), I will list the 34 most recent BAV manuscripts issued online on Biblioteca Palatina. These were all announced by its RSS feed on December 7, 2015.

1. Pal. lat. 646 Io(annis) Mo(naehi) apparatus sexti libri decretalium (14-15th century)
2. Pal. lat. 650 Bonifatii VIII sextus decretalium cum apparatu Ioannis Andreae (14-15th century)
3. Pal. lat. 652 Bernardi (Circa) prepositi papiensis breuiarium decretalium (14th century)
4. Pal. lat. 654 Nicolai (Siculi) episcopi panormitani lectura super 2a parte et sic super toto 2° libro decretalium (1460)
5. Pal. lat. 660 Nicolai Siculi: Nicolai Siculi abbatis episcopi panormitani lectura super primo decretalium (15th century)
6. Pal. lat. 661 Nicolai Siculi: Nicolai Siculi episcopi lectura super prima parte secundi libri decretalium (15th century)
7. Pal. lat. 662 Nicolai Siculi: Nicolai Ciculi (l. Siculi) doctoris excellentissimi in monasterio sce. Marie de monacbis in Sicilia lectura in tertium librum decretalium (15th century)
8. Pal. lat. 663 Nicolai Siculi: Nicolai Sciculi (l. Siculi) episcopi panormitani tractatus in secundum librum deeretalimn: Lectura de prima parte secundi libri decretalium (15th century)
9. Pal. lat. 665 Nicolai Siculi: Dni. (Nicolai) abbatis de Scicilia (sic) famosissimi et monarchae iuris canonici doctoris lectura super quinto decretalium (15th century)
10. Pal. lat. 666 Nicolai Siculi: Sammelhandschrift (15th century)
11. Pal. lat. 669 Tractatus in constitutiones clementinas (15th century)
12. Pal. lat. 670 Ioannis Andreae: Novella primi (1407)
13. Pal. lat. 674 Iohannis Caldarini bonon. tabula auctoritatum et sententiarum biblie inductarum in compilacionibus decretor. et decretalium ; Flores ex libris sacrorum canonum et legum nec non ex libris reuerendorum doctorum dedic. Eberardo praeposito ecclesie Hoyern (15th century)
14. Pal. lat. 677 Reinheri ord. predicatorum liber hereticorum ; Articuli mgri. lohannis Wiclef condempnati in Anglia per . XIII . episcopos et XXX . magistros in theologia . in Conuentu frm. predicatorum anno dni. 1380; Dni. Petri de ordine celestinorum inquisitoris hereticorum processus (15th century)
15. Pal. lat. 678 Sammelhandschrift (13th century) 
16. Pal. lat. 679 Sammelband (15th century), in two parts
17. Pal. lat. 680 Fris. Nycolai Eymerici ord. pred. sacre theologie magistri Cappellani domini nri. pape etc. in terris domini Regis Aragonie inquisitoris liber inquisicionis (15th century)
18. Pal. lat. 681 Fratris Nicolai Eymerici directorium inquisitionis haereticae pravitatis (15th century)
19. Pal. lat. 682 Fratris Martini (Poloni) ord. praedicatorum tabula decretorum et decretalium ordine alphabetico (15th century)
20. Pal. lat. 683 Sammelhandschrift (15th century)
21. Pal. lat. 684 Egudii Bellimere (sic) decisiones in ius canonicum ; Bertrandi de Arnassana sacri palatii causarum auditoris ordinacio decisionum antiquarum (praecedentium) redacta sub congruis titulis in hoc presenti compendio (15th century)
22. Pal. lat. 685 Sammelhandschrift (15th century)
23. Pal. lat. 686 Sammelhandschrift (15th century)
24. Pal. lat. 690 Martiniani (i. e. Martini Poloni) summa iuris canonici (15th century)
25. Pal. lat. 692 Bartolomaei Pysani
26. Pal. lat. 693 Sammelhandschrift
27. Pal. lat. 694 Bartholomaei Pisani 
28. Pal. lat. 696 Bern(ardi) Papi(ensis)
29. Pal. lat. 700 Sammelhandschrift
30. Pal. lat. 701 Liber formularum, in two parts
31. Pal. lat. 706 Iohannis 
32. Pal. lat. 698 Tabula super summam Beymundi (de Pennaforti) (13th century)
33. Pal. lat. 699 Tabula iuris
34. Pal. lat. 1906 Epigrammata et Epistolae

If you can contribute more data, please use the comments box below. Follow me on Twitter (@JBPiggin) for more information.

French Picture Bible

One of the greatest graphic-arts innovations of medieval Europe is the Bible Moralisée, a thirteenth-century reconception of the Christian Bible as thousands of short "comic strips" that each compare one topic from the Old and the New Testament with an explanation in ordinary French.

The Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana in Rome possesses just one Bible Moralisée (BM), which was made in Paris in about 1410 and is a later evolution of this work with just 76 images (vastly fewer than the 5,112 of the greatest of them all, BNF fr. 167). The appearance online of the Vatican BM, Reg.lat.25, on October 2, 2015 is major news. It has many fine illuminations including this scene of  David in a running stream listening to the word of God:

A BM is not to be confused with a Biblia Pauperum (which I discussed a couple of years ago on this blog), nor is it the same as an Angevin Legendary (BAV released one online this year), although both those latter types are also bibles in pictures. The great expert on BMs, John Lowden, published an article in 2005 that explores the place of Reg.lat.25 in the BM tradition: "The Bible Moralisée in the Fifteenth Century and the Challenge of the Bible Historiale," Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, 68 (2005) pp. 73-136 (click the link or go to Jstor to read it).

There were 147 new releases on October 2. Here is the full list:

1. Arch.Cap.S.Pietro.D.179,
2. Arch.Cap.S.Pietro.D.188,
3. Arch.Cap.S.Pietro.D.191,
4. Arch.Cap.S.Pietro.D.195,
5. Arch.Cap.S.Pietro.D.196,
6. Barb.lat.4030,
7. Barb.lat.4037,
8. Barb.lat.4092,
9. Barb.lat.4113,
10. Barb.lat.5695 ,
11. Borg.copt.109.cass.VII.fasc.23,
12. Borg.copt.109.cass.VII.fasc.65.2,
13. Borg.copt.109.cass.VIII.fasc.26,
14. Borg.copt.109.cass.VIII.fasc.27,
15. Borg.copt.109.cass.VIII.fasc.28,
16. Borg.copt.109.cass.X.fasc.31,
17. Borg.copt.109.cass.X.fasc.32,
18. Borg.copt.109.cass.XI.fasc.33,
19. Borg.copt.109.cass.XI.fasc.34,
20. Borg.copt.109.cass.XI.fasc.36,
21. Borg.copt.109.cass.XI.fasc.37, Gospel of Matthew, chapters 10-12 (thanks @TuomasLevanen)
22. Borg.lat.384, Antonio Pucci, various works
23. Borgh.236, Aristotle, Metaphysics and Physics
24. Borgh.248, Rottfried: civil law, canon law
25. Borgh.321, Bonaventure
26. Borgh.347, Henry of Ghent, Quaestiones
27. Cappon.86,
28. Cappon.106,
29. Cappon.194,
30. Cappon.252.pt.A,
31. Cappon.252.pt.C,
32. Cappon.288,
33. Cappon.309,
34. Chig.G.VIII.222,
35. Chig.L.VIII.294,
36. Ferr.698,
37. Ott.gr.472,
38. Ott.lat.2229,
39. Ott.lat.2373,
40. Ott.lat.2865, Dante, Divine Comedy
41. Patetta.1769,
42. Reg.lat.25, 15th-century Bible Moralisée, a French-language commentary on the bible (discussed above)
43. Reg.lat.352, a collection of miscellaneous orations, notes on historical antiquities of Rome and medical prescriptions
44. Reg.lat.1945, Livy, Ab Urbe Condita
45. Ross.487, Dante, with this fine opening illumination:
    
46. Ross.711, many fine pageantry/heraldry images in the German-language Stamm- und Turnierbuch aus der Kraichgauer Ritterschaft um 1615:
    
    This is Heinrich of Saxony:
    
47. Sbath.723,
48. Urb.lat.3, Four Gospels, 10th century (catalog)
49. Urb.lat.9, Psalter (Vulgate)
50. Urb.lat.12, Job, Catholic Epistles, etc, glossed by Walafried Strabo and Anselm of Laon
51. Urb.lat.23, Thomas Aquinas, On Job
52. Urb.lat.25, Thomas Aquinas, On Isaiah and On Matthew
53. Urb.lat.28, Thomas Aquinas, On Luke
54. Urb.lat.30, Origen of Alexandria, various in Rufinus's Latin
55. Urb.lat.32, John Chrysostom, some Basil the Great (catalog)
56. Urb.lat.36, John Chrysostom, Damasus
57. Urb.lat.37, Hilary of Poitiers
58. Urb.lat.38, ditto
59. Urb.lat.40, Ambrose of Milan, letters, other works
60. Urb.lat.49, Martyrdom of Jerome and of Adonis (catalog)
61. Urb.lat.54, Pseudo-Jerome, Breviarium in Psalmos
62. Urb.lat.58, Lactantius and Pseudo-Lactantius, 15th century
63. Urb.lat.60, Gregory of Nazianz, John Chrysostom
64. Urb.lat.62, Pseudo-Dionysius and John of Damascus
65. Urb.lat.63, Cyprian, Letters, and Pontius (catalog)
66. Urb.lat.64, Tertullian
67. Urb.lat.66, Augustine, Vigilius
68. Urb.lat.68, Augustine on Gospel of John
69. Urb.lat.70, Augustine, Vigilius
70. Urb.lat.71, Augustine
71. Urb.lat.72, Augustine
72. Urb.lat.74, Augustine on Psalms
73. Urb.lat.75, ditto
74. Urb.lat.79, Augustine, De Trinitate, etc
75. Urb.lat.80, Augustine, Letters, Pelagius
76. Urb.lat.83, Augustine, Contra Faustum Manichaem
77. Urb.lat.84, Augustine, Cyprian, Alcuin, Pope Innocent I
78. Urb.lat.88, Haymo of Halberstadt, Bede, Hugh of Folieto, etc. (catalog)
79. Urb.lat.91, Bernard of Clairvaux, various
80. Urb.lat.95, Peter Damian, Peter Chrysologus
81. Urb.lat.98, Gregory the Great, Ambrose
82. Urb.lat.100, Bede, Leo the Great
83. Urb.lat.104, Birgitta, Revelations (catalog)
84. Urb.lat.106, Hugh on heresy, Isidore
85. Urb.lat.107, Hugh of St Victor, Anselm, John of Damascus
86. Urb.lat.108, Hugh of St Victor and others, sermons, etc
87. Urb.lat.111, Franciscan Breviarium Romanum
88. Urb.lat.113, William Durant, Rationale of the Divine Offices (Rationale divinorum officiorum) (1286), an exhaustive interpretation of the symbolism of ecclesiastical liturgy and architecture
89. Urb.lat.117, Duns Scotus and Peter Lombard (catalog)
90. Urb.lat.121, Francis of Mayron
91. Urb.lat.127, Thomas Aquinas
92. Urb.lat.130, ditto
93. Urb.lat.132, ditto, from Summa
94. Urb.lat.134, ditto, De Veritate
95. Urb.lat.137, Thomas Aquinas
96. Urb.lat.139, ditto
97. Urb.lat.152, Alvarius Pelagius
98. Urb.lat.154, Giannozzo Manetti (1396-1459), Italian hebraist who collected many of the Hebrew manuscripts now at the Vatican, Against the Jews. See the Jewish Encyclopaedia.
99. Urb.lat.179, letters etc of Pseudo-Isidore (and the real Isidore?)
100. Urb.lat.188, philosophical commentaries of Boethius, a 14th-15th century manuscript. Sadly, the Commentary on the Isagogue of Porphyry seems to lack the famous arbor porphyriana diagram. I had this manuscript listed on my arbor page as a potential source of the diagram, but will now have to scratch it from the list.
101. Urb.lat.199, Apuleius, fine Renaissance manuscript with floral illuminated initials
102. Vat.ebr.110, three tracts of Talmud B (thanks @TuomasLevanen)
103. Vat.ebr.122,
104. Vat.et.260,
105. Vat.gr.316, with Septuagint text, Rahlfs 667, 10th century, reportedly containing material from prophets and Ezekiel (thanks to Rick Brannan (his blog) for these notes)
106. Vat.gr.2066,
107. Vat.gr.2442,
108. Vat.lat.1, a 15th-century Vulgate Latin bible
109. Vat.lat.20, the Bologna Bible, one of the major illuminated bibles. Here is a detail from the Letter to the Colossians:
     
110. Vat.lat.31, a 16th-century Latin bible
111. Vat.lat.71, Glosses on Paralipomenon (Chronicles)
112. Vat.lat.73, Glosses on Tobias, Esther, Judith, Ruth
113. Vat.lat.81, a 12th-century graeco-latin Psalter Gallicanum with Canticles, Beuron number 264 on account of this text containing many Vetus Latina elements. In Septuagint studies, this is Rahlfs 1297, notes Rick Brannan (his blog)  
114. Vat.lat.89, commentary on psalms Gilbert of Poitiers, palimpsest layer Pliny the Younger
115. Vat.lat.98, Augustine of Hippo on psalms
116. Vat.lat.109, Anselm of Laon, commentary on Jeremiah and Daniel. Particularly interesting is the appended biblical chronicle manuscript, from fol. 218v onwards
117. Vat.lat.161, Nicholas of Lyra on Job, Proverbs, etc.
118. Vat.lat.170, Dionysius Areopagita, Epistulae etc, 15th-century manuscript
119. Vat.lat.209, Origen of Alexandria, homilies on Leviticus, Rufinus translation, 12th century, fine figural initials including this:
     
120. Vat.lat.229, Eusebius of Caesarea, Praeparatio Evangelica
121. Vat.lat.264, Ambrose of Milan, c.340-397, on Luke, plus sermons
122. Vat.lat.271, Ambrose of Milan, On Hexaemeron (creation)
123. Vat.lat.272, ditto
124. Vat.lat.280, Ambrose of Milan, 83 letters
125. Vat.lat.282, Ambrose of Milan, various essays
126. Vat.lat.283, Ambrosiaster commentary, plus Augustine letters
127. Vat.lat.285, Ambrose of Milan, letters
128. Vat.lat.289, Ambrose of Milan, letters, essays, homilies
129. Vat.lat.290, Ambrose of Milan, various
130. Vat.lat.294, Ambrose of Milan, De officiis ministrorum libri I-III
131. Vat.lat.297, Ambrose of Milan, De excessu fratris sui Satyri
132. Vat.lat.301, Basil the Great, On Hexaemeron
133. Vat.lat.302, ditto
134. Vat.lat.304, Basil the Great, various
135. Vat.lat.306, John Chrysostom
136. Vat.lat.307, Gregory of Nazianz, in Rufinus translation
137. Vat.lat.313, John of Damascus, On Orthodox Faith
138. Vat.lat.314, Ambrose of Milan, diverse
139. Vat.lat.319, Jerome of Stridon, letter to Eustochium on Isaiah
140. Vat.lat.320, Jerome, Commentationum in Isaiam, libri I-XVIII, with fine opening illumination of Jerome with stigmata (spoiled by the watermark: will that go away some day?)
     
141. Vat.lat.321, Jerome, exposition on Isaiah
142. Vat.lat.336, Rabanus Maurus (and Jerome?) on epistles
143. Vat.lat.2835, poetry by Antonius Thebaldeus 1463-1537
144. Vat.lat.3205, troubador songs, from Provence
145. Vat.lat.3214, Dante
146. Vat.lat.3389, autograph, poetry by Antonius Thebaldeus 1463-1537
147. Vat.slav.8, psalms, canticles, Marian hymns

As always, if you can add or correct details, use the comments box below. Follow me on Twitter (@JBPiggin) for more news on digitizations. [This is Piggin's Unofficial List 26.]