COPIED FROM THE MOST CELEBRATED AND AUTHENTIC MANUSCRIPTS IN THE LIBRARIES

AND ARCHIVES OF FRANCE, ITALY, GERMANY, AND ENGLAND,

BY

M. J. B. SILVESTRE.

ACCOMPANIED BY

34-2

AN HISTORICAL AND DESCRIPTIVE TEXT AND INTRODUCTION,

BY CHAMPOLLION-FIGEAC AND AIMÉ CHAMPOLLION, FILS.

TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH, AND EDITED, WITH CORRECTIONS AND NOTES,

BY

SIR FREDERIC MADDEN, K. H., F. R. S., M. R. I. A.,

KEEPER OF THE DEPARTMENT OF MANUSCRIPTS IN THE BRITISH MUSEUM.

HENRY G. BOHN, YORK STREET, COVENT GARDEN.

M.DCCC.L.

PREFACE OF THE EDITOR.

THE work of M. Silvestre on Universal Palæography has acquired an European reputation, not only on account of the number, extent, and beauty of its Plates of Fac-similes, but (what is of far more importance) the scrupulous fidelity with which they are copied from the original manuscripts. In both these respects no other publication that has hitherto appeared can be said to be its equal, and it would doubtless have obtained a far wider circulation in the libraries of individuals, had not the high price at which it was originally brought out, necessarily occasioned its purchase to be limited.

The work was published in parts between the years 1839 and 1841, without regard, in the first instance, to arrangement as to languages, to languages, or chronological order; and hence some instances of tautology are accounted for in the text of the French editors, which might otherwise have been avoided, as well as some discrepancies between the final collocation of the Plates and the order contemplated by the