Byzantine Saints

The Digita Vaticana program to digitize manuscripts at the Vatican has just placed one of most noted and colourful Byzantine illuminated manucripts online. Known as the Menologion of Basil II and dating from about 1000 CE, codex Vat. gr. 1613 shows half a year of saints' feasts and depicts a great deal of blood, torture and martyrdom.

The image here shows Fausta (a 13-year-old girl), the sage Evilasius and the eparch Maximus being boiled alive in a cauldron for their faith:

Here is the full list of this most interesting batch of 83 new items uploaded on June 15. The posted total has now reached 2,160:

1. Arch.Cap.S.Pietro.H.33, contains De Re Militari of Flavius Vegetius Renatus, the only ancient manual of Roman military institutions, unilluminated
2. Barb.lat.358, a pocket prayerbook?
3. Barb.lat.2132
4. Barb.lat.3995
5. Barb.lat.4052, Tasso's Gerusalemme liberata or Jerusalem Delivered
6. Barb.lat.8615
7. Borgh.198.pt.2
8. Borgh.208, Olivetani Panegyrica et carmina in cardinalis Scipionis Caffarelli Burghesii ordinis Olivetani protectoris
9. Borgh.210, Boethius, De institutione arithmetica, a 12th or 13th century copy not very well used, suggesting it may have belonged to a lazy student. Here's a table of angles:
   
   
10. Cappon.13
11. Cappon.15
12. Cappon.94
13. Cappon.95
14. Cappon.96, Ovid, Letters
15. Cappon.97
16. Cappon.98-100
17. Cappon.101, Relation of the Death of Troilo Savello, decapitated in Rome on April 18, 1592
18. Cappon.102
19. Cappon.104
20. Cappon.105, Frattato Cabalistico
21. Cappon.108
22. Cappon.109
23. Cappon.110
24. Cappon.111
25. Cappon.112
26. Cappon.113
27. Cappon.115
28. Cappon.116
29. Cappon.117
30. Cappon.118
31. Cappon.123
32. Cappon.125
33. Cappon.126
34. Cappon.128
35. Cappon.129
36. Cappon.130
37. Cappon.133
38. Cappon.134
39. Cappon.138
40. Cappon.142
41. Cappon.146
42. Cappon.147
43. Cappon.150
44. Cappon.151
45. Cappon.156
46. Cappon.170
47. Cappon.173
48. Cappon.174
49. Cappon.178
50. Cappon.180
51. Cappon.183
52. Cappon.184
53. Cappon.185
54. Cappon.187
55. Cappon.190
56. Cappon.196
57. Cappon.211
58. Cappon.213
59. Cappon.216
60. Chig.H.IV.135, poetry of Aeneas Sylvius Piccolomini (1405-1464, elected Pope Pius II in 1458), a figure of the Renaissance
61. Pal.lat.1831, a student's lecture notes taken at the Protestant university of Wittenberg, Germany at the height of the Reformation; this item is new online, as it is not listed among the Heidelberg digitizations to date
62. Pal.lat.1832, like the item above, notes from Reformation lectures by Philip Melanchthon and others
63. Reg.lat.329, contains Aldhelm's Aenigmata
64. Reg.lat.1709, also with a section of Ovid's Fasti [Missing: folios 34-35 which form Rome's part of the Fragmenta Floriacensia (more in BNF, Lat. 6400 B), a key source of the Chronica of Eusebius of Caesarea]
65. Urb.lat.1154, late antique grammar by Probus, Instituta artium
66. Vat.estr.or.19
67. Vat.estr.or.55, contains this extraordinary Christian chronology diagram in Chinese by Carlo di Orazio da Castorano (1673-1755); discussed in detail by Ad Dudink, who notes that the Septuagint chronology, not the Masoretic/Vulgate chronology is being used in it.
      
    In the tracks above, the ancestry descends from Adam to David, then divides into Luke's genealogy in the left loop and Matthew's in the right loop. This design surprised me a lot, as it is fairly similar in its basic layout idea to what the Great Stemma's designer was doing, left to right, back in the fifth century (below):
    
68. Vat.estr.or.81
69. Vat.estr.or.82
70. Vat.estr.or.147.pt.18
71. Vat.estr.or.147.pt.22
72. Vat.estr.or.148, adventures of Jiraiya, according to Mare Nostrum
73. Vat.et.264, hagiographical text from the Ethiopian collection, badly singed, discussed in detail by Alessandro Bausi
74. Vat.gr.752.pt.1
75. Vat.gr.1613, The Menologion of Basil II (Wikipedia)
76. Vat.lat.40, New Testament
77. Vat.lat.92, Peter Lombard, commentary on psalms (printed catalog at Archive.org)
78. Vat.lat.3199, a gift copy of the Commedia sent by Boccaccio to Petrarch
79. Vat.lat.4803, Colocci
80. Vat.lat.6435, Opicinus de Canistris, with cosmographical diagrams
81. Vat.lat.9850, autograph manuscript by Thomas Aquinas: Summa contra Gentiles, Super Boet. De Trin., Super Isaiam
82. Vat.lat.11458, Orations by Cicero, a manuscript from 1417 containing eight recovered Cicero speeches
83. Vat.lat.12895, a book of autograph letters from figures including Cardinal Angelo Mai and Pius IX

As ever, if you can identify any of these further, please add a note in the comments box below. [This is Piggin's Unofficial List 15.]