PLATE CX.

UNCIAL GALLICAN WRITING.

VITH CENTURY.

THE PSALTER OF ST. GERMAIN, BISHOP OF PARIS.

THE splendid volume, which has supplied the present fac-simile, is one of the most remarkable and valuable monunuments of the graphic art in existence, especially in regard to France; where, as in all the other countries in which the Latin language was current, the uncial writing was more generally employed in the sixth and seventh centuries than the minuscule or cursive. The Benedictines give various reasons for this practice. At first, the uncial letters appear to have been used only for liturgical books, and for such volumes as were written for persons of wealth; whilst the other two hands were employed for ordinary purposes. But towards the middle of the sixth century, the ignorance of the clergy and scribes had increased so much, as to cause the neglect of the smaller kinds of writing, which required greater skill, since it was easier for them to use the large characters, which demanded only time and patience. It was not until the renewal of letters, in the eighth century, that the minuscule and cursive kinds of writing again came into use.

The volume before us is a magnificent example of the uncial writing of the sixth century; and it is thus exactly described by the Benedictines:

"This manuscript of the Abbey of St. Germain des Près, No. 661, is the celebrated Gallican Psalter, which an ancient tradition affirms to have belonged to St. Germain, Bishop of

Paris, who died 28th May, A.D. 576. It is one of the rarest and most precious manuscripts in Europe. It is ten inches in height and eight and a half inches wide, and consists of 291 leaves, thirty-sixty gatherings and three leaves over. These gatherings are marked by numbers placed on the lower margin, as in the most ancient manuscripts. Over each of these numbers is a short stroke, indicating an abbreviation. The vellum is stained of a purple-violet color, rather dingy in its tint, and the text is written in silver uncial letters, with the exception of the name of GOD, which is always in gold. Except after this sacred name, we find neither commas nor points. The words are not divided. The diapsalma (or rule for the chanting), in letters of gold, is always written in a separate line. In the margin is often written the letter R, cut through with a line, apparently to indicate the Responses to be made by the people. Some of the psalms are destitute of this mark, but others have two, in which the anthem or response were changed. This barred R therefore is intended for the word Responsorium. At the beginning of the manuscript is a note, written by Jacques de Breuil, in 1560, in which it is stated, that the volume had been long kept in the treasury among the relics, and was subsequently removed to the library, for the benefit of the learned. In the year 1269, the sacristan of St. Germain des Près includes in the catalogue of relics given to his charge, The Psalter of St. Germain*.”

The Benedictines add further, that the volume is written in uncial Gallican letters, with very full strokes, and that it possesses all the beauty and roundness of which uncial writing is susceptible. It is, indeed, most exquisitely proportioned, and carefully written; the letters large and neatly formed; the lower ends of the tailed-letters terminating in an oblique point; the first limb of the U is rounded; the letters are con

*Nouv. Tr. de Diplom. tom. iii., p. 163.—ED.

joined only at the ends of a line, as in the word SUNT, at the end of the fourth line of the right-hand page of the fac-simile, whilst the V at the end of the bottom line of the same page (fol. 158 of the manuscript) is very small, and almost enclosed within the R*.

The division of the verses is according to the ancient rule; the words are not divided, and the orthography very incorrect; thus, we find besteis for bestiis; and throughout the text B and V, I and E, O and U are mutually substituted for each other. Sacerdus is written for Sacerdos; lababo, benenum, vobes, for lavabo, venenum, boves, etc., shewing the barbarism of the period when this manuscript was executed. Letters of silver, such as are employed in this manuscript, are far rarer than letters of gold; the former required vellum of a purple violet color, and cannot be preserved so well. This manuscript, which presents one of the finest specimens of the use of silver ink, exhibits also many proofs of its easy deterioration. Its great age, however, namely, the middle of the sixth century, must be taken into consideration.

*This is not a correct description. The small v at the end of the line, as well as the u (in two instances), are thus written, in order to save space, as appears also by the abbreviation of the letter m, indicated by the

short stroke above.-ED.

PLATE CXI.

SEMI-UNCIAL LATIN WRITING.

VITH CENTURY.

THE INSTITUTIONS OF LACTANTIUS, IN THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF BOLOGNA.

THE manuscript which has supplied the present fac-simile is one of the most celebrated of its class. At the end of the seventeenth century, it belonged to the Congregation of the Canons Regular of St. Saviour at Bologna, where it was examined by Mabillon in 1686, who describes it thus:-"The principal Latin manuscript of this library, which is of great antiquity, is one containing the Institutiones of Lactantius, together with the books De Ira, De Opificio, and the Epitome; it was written more than eleven hundred years ago, in square Latin letters, and subsequently revised and corrected in a smaller ancient Roman hand. Unfortunately the first two or three leaves are wanting, as well as the entire preface, so that we cannot determine whether the name of the Emperor Constantine was introduced into it*." Montfaucon also mentions this manuscript+, and has given a Greek and Latin alphabet from it: it has also been noticed by the learned Italians themselves. At the present time the volume belongs to the library of the University of Bologna.

* Palæographia Græca, p. 223.

Iter Italicum, Part I., p. 196. The words Constantinus Imperator, which occur in the printed editions after Gestio enim, at the beginning of the second paragraph of the fac-simile, are not found in this manuscript.

Leo Allatius, Animadversiones in Antiquit. Etruscarum Fragmenta, 4to. Par. 1640, pp. 51, 52.

Lucius Cælius Lactantius Firmianus, the author of the works contained in this volume, is one of the best of the Latin writers who flourished in the third and fourth centuries. Born in Africa, and a heathen, he was charged by Diocletian with the task of teaching polite literature at Nicomedia; but subsequently converted to Christianity, he travelled into Gaul, and it is believed, that Constantine the Great confided to him the education of his son Crispus. It is supposed also, that he died at Treves, about the year 325. The purity and elegance of his style have caused him to be named the Christian Cicero.

His chief work, the Institutiones Divinæ, is divided into seven books, the first of which treats of false religion, the second, of the origin of error; and it is the commencement of the latter which furnishes the subject of the fac-simile, from page 23 of the manuscript. The writing is very remarkable. The page is in double columns, without ornaments, and the alinea commence with a larger letter than the text, written outside the vertical line of the column. Its general appearance would introduce it into the uncial series, but it is in reality only semiuncial; not on account of its size being smaller than the ordinary uncial (so named from uncia, an inch, which was the height of the letters), but according to the definition laid down in the Nouveau Traité de Diplomatique, tom. ii., p. 506, where the term uncial is applied to writing in majuscule letters of a rounded form, (as distinguished from the rectangular Roman capitals,) and the term semi-uncial is given to the same kind of rounded majuscules, when intermixed with minuscules. This is the case in the manuscript under notice, as seen in the letters L, P, T, and H; and this kind of intermingled uncial writing is, in fact, more common than that in pure uncials, even in the most ancient manuscripts.

The letters of the fac-simile before us are formed of thick and thin strokes, generally upright; the tops of some of the