Some musings on the 32 manuscripts added this week to the digital archives of the BAV. They continue to add manuscripts containing sketches or paintings of decorations in Roman churches, some long since lost. Vat.lat.5407 is an example of that, see what must be an Apse and Dome decoration from a Greek church to the right (p. 23). Also added was a necrology described as being "from the ancient Monastery of St. Lawrence in Benevento", Vat.lat.5419.

Of more earthly interest is Vat.lat.1958 a Humanist colletion of classical works dated to 1449 in the colophon on f.90v. It starts with Pliny the Elder's Natural History. To wrap it up, Sbath 267, from the personal library of Paul Sbath, Syrian priest of Aleppo is a copy of an Arabic translation of the great fable cycle of the two jackels Kalilah wa-Dimnah.

The bottom border is a fragment of the marginal decoration from Ross.479 f.2v