2015-06-15

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.]

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