PLATE LXXVI.

GREEK UNCIAL WRITING.

XTH CENTURY.

THE GOSPELS, ACCORDING TO THE USE OF THE GREEK
CHURCH.

THE volume which has furnished the fac-simile before us, is of a 4to form, written upon the finest vellum, and remarkable for the elegance of its execution. Its history is also interesting.

The form of the letters would lead us to suppose, that it was written in Greece by a skilful calligrapher, either for some church or for a person of distinction; whilst various notes in Arabic prove, that it subsequently belonged to some Christian in the East. Portraits of St. Luke, St. Mark, and St. John, wretchedly executed by a Slavonic artist, precede their respective Gospels, and a Slavonic inscription is written near the figure of St. Luke; hence it is conjectured, that this manuscript passed from the East to the Muscovite territories. Subsequently its destiny carried it to France, where it became the property of the learned Abbé François de Camps, who presented it to Louis XIV., by whom it was placed in the Bibliothèque Royale, where it bears the No. 48.

The volume commences with the table of the Gospels for the festivals throughout the year, followed by the notice of Eusebius concerning the canons, the canons or concordances themselves, the chronology of the texts, by Hippolytus, and the Gospels, with marginal references to the canons. We find in this, as in most of the more ancient copies of the Greek

Gospels, the name of Joachim is introduced in the genealogy of Christ given in St. Matthew's Gospel, between Josias and Jechonias, which name is not admitted into the Latin Vulgate.

The fac-simile represents the first page of the manuscript. A vignette with a white ground occupies the top of the first column, composed of a square, having the angles floreated, within which is a double circle, inclosing a floreated cross, with four roundels introduced into the open spaces. Beneath this we read in letters of gold, ΕΥΑΓΓΕΛΙΟΝ ΚΑΤΑ MATBAION + BIBAOC гENECEWC IY XY (IHCOY XPICTOY) being the title and first line of the Gospel of St. Matthew; the remainder being the continuation of the first chapter of this Gospel. The fac-simile comprises the first seven and half of the eighth verse, according to the ordinary division, of which, however, the manuscript offers no trace. It will be perceived that, for greater clearness, each generation is separated in the text from the one following by a small red Greek cross.

The letters of the title are rather larger, and more like capitals than the rest of the text. Several of the round letters are thickened inside, but the whole is in a fine, full, massive, Greek uncial character, slightly sloping from left to right; the hair-strokes elegantly united with the thick ones; the P with a long slender pointed tail; the cross-bar of the extending beyond the sides of the letter, and the basal stroke of the ▲ elongated, and terminated by two triangular points.

Montfaucon asserted, that no Greek manuscript was written in uncial letters posterior to the ninth century, with the exception of certain volumes destined for the offices of the church; an assertion which would be embarrassing in respect to the volume before us; and the learned Benedictine has himself stated, that the writing of the present volume indicates the ninth century. This style of writing, however, was

retained in liturgical works during the tenth, and even the eleventh centuries; the manuscript in question was written for the use of a church, as appears by the interlineary musical notes; and we find in it also some various readings by a contemporary hand, written in cursive characters;—all of which circumstances indicate the tenth century as the real era of the manuscript*. Spirits and accents occur in the text, but grammarians will find cause to complain of the scribe in respect of this portion of his work; the spirits retain their ancient form. Both kinds of orthographical signs are found in manuscripts of the eighth century, but more frequently in those of the ninth and tenth.

PLATE LXXVII.

UNCIAL AND CURSIVE GREEK WRITING.

XTH CENTURY.

COMMENTARIES ON THE PSALMS, AND BIBLICAL PRAYERS.

THE several specimens of Greek writing represented in this Plate are copied from a magnificent folio volume, belonging to the Bibliothèque Royale at Paris, No. 139, written on fine and beautifully white vellum. The variety and perfection of the characters, as well as the number of the miniatures with which it is ornamented, and the merit and singular style of these paintings, render this volume one of the most remarkable monuments of Greek palæography.

These miniatures, thirteen in number, were executed, as well as the text itself, at Constantinople, and the figures in them, which are not less than 11 inches high, exhibit * Montfaucon, Palæographia Græca, p. 260.

numerous vestiges of the art of the ancients, and of the careful study which the artist had made of its monuments. Natural phenomena and the human passions are personified with boldness, and are introduced into scenes together with historical personages, whose costume is copied from the antique with remarkable skill and exactness.

The employment of prosopopoeia will thus appear to have been one of the most constant characters of Greek art in all its stages; and if the study of the vases painted with representations of the mythology of Greece has furnished an extensive nomenclature of the natural facts or ideas thereby personified, the monuments of art executed when Greece was christianized, teach us also that Greek genius remained constantly inventive and impassioned, but disposed to the marvellous, and extending far beyond the bounds imposed by nature.

The number of illuminated Greek manuscripts existing is considerable, both in regard to sacred and profane texts; in all of which iconographic inventions abound.

Many and very varied examples of this talent of the Greek artists for personification may be selected from the manuscript before us. The first miniature exhibits David playing on the harp, and near him is a female, representing Melody, and the figure of a man with the upper part of the body naked, the lower enveloped in a blue mantle, the right hand resting on his head, crowned with verdure, and the left extended on the trunk of a tree, being a personification of the Mountain of Bethlehem. In other paintings David is represented accompanied by personifications of Invention, Force, Meekness, Courage, Arrogance, Wisdom, Prophecy, and Prayer.

The passage of the Red Sea is a model for compositions of this class. A female clad in a blue tunic, with a stelliferous blue veil over her head, represents Night; near her is seated a young man covered with a red mantle, and with arms

extended; this is the Desert. Out of the gulf of waves of the Red Sea rises the figure of a swarthy man of hideous form, who seizes the King of Egypt with his vigorous arms, and draws him downwards; this is the Abyss. Behind him a female figure holds an oar in her left hand; this is the Red Sea:-the names of each not being arbitrary, but distinctly written near each personage.

From these details it will be seen, that the present volume furnishes a profound and interesting study, but as our work has not for its object either the representation or interpretation of such miniatures, we must confine our remarks to the beautiful calligraphic characters of the volume, of which the Plate represents four varieties, copied from different leaves.

The specimen from fol. 141, verso, is written in fine small golden uncial capitals, round, upright, truncated, and continuous; with the bases and tails of some of the letters triangular. The accents are properly placed, and the spirits of the ancient form. The passage commences with the words EIC TO TEAOC CYNECEQC, etc.

μὲν τοὺς δεσμούς,

The second specimen, copied from fol. 10, verso, is written in cursive characters, round, continuous, elegant, and conjoined; the spirits and accents of the ordinary form, and the phrases separated by two points; the first line being App My Tous deoμous, etc. This is the text of the Psalms, according to the usage of the Greek scribes, to write the passages taken from the Scriptures in larger letters than were employed for the commentaries on them, as shewn by the present manuscript, which contains a Catena of the Greek Fathers on the Psalms; and the third specimen in the Plate, although in a hand similar to that of the second example, is smaller, being a passage quoted from the writings of Origen. The most illustrious writers of the Greek Church, Athanasius, Chrysostom, Cyril, Gregory of Nyssa, Eusebius, and others, have contributed to this voluminous compilation.