Volume / Number: 10 / 1491

• Vienna Austria Österreichische Nationalbibliothek Lat. 847 (foll. 7–115)

Origin uncertain, probably a great centre in North Italy like Ravenna, to judge from the decoration and from the provenance, if one may assume that the Greek canon tables were already attached to our manuscript when the aphorisms in Latin cursive were entered. Ravenna has in its special favour, besides its ornamental connection, the bi-lingual character which our manuscript manifestly presupposes. The assumption that the manuscript came to North Italy and specifically to Bobbio from Vivarium has no foundation in fact. Towards the end of the sixteenth century the manuscript was in the library of Ambras Castle, whence it came to the Imperial library in 1665.

Script is uncial of an ancient type and a superb calligraphic performance by a scribe who is even more expert in Greek than Latin (see fol. 12): the bows of P, q, and R are rather small. Fol. 63 was already retraced early in the eighth century. Some interlinear transcriptions and marginal notes by late fifteenth and sixteenth-century hands. Foll. 1v, 5v, and 6v of the Greek part contain aphorisms in eighth-century Latin cursive whose distinctive features are the form of ꞇ, v-shaped final ꞅ, and the ligature cc; the spelling shows frequent confusion of e and i, also ci for ti. The script has features in common both with the well-known cursive from North Italy, including Bobbio, and with the familiar Merovingian types, but possesses a character of its own; on the whole it seems more Italian than French, despite the spelling ci for ti (such spelling is occasionally found in North Italian cursive; cf. CLA 9, final facsimile).

☛ti ligatures on ff. 1v , 5v, 6v.

• Script: MSS with reverse beta ti ligature