From copy to facsimile: a millennium of studying the Vatican Vergil
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16.78 MB
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Resource type
Journal article
Creator (person)
Wright, David H.
Date published
May 1991
Abstract
BOOKS do have their fate. When it was produced in Rome sometime around A.D. 400, presumably for a wealthy pagan aristocrat of the old school, the manuscript we know as the Vatican Vergil (Vat. lat. 3225) was a nice book for a gentleman's library, but not an extraordinary artistic accomplishment. It consisted of about 440 folios of fine parchment, but included some leaves with minor defects. The pages were about 24 cm. high and 21 cm. wide (the height of this Journal but one inch wider), much smaller than the slightly later classical books we know as the Codex Romanus of Vergil (about 35 by 33-5 cm.) or the Codex Augusteus of Vergil (about 42 by 35 cm.), two very pretentious coffee-table books. The text was written by a good scribe in a fluent version of Rustic capitals, the script expected for such a book, but it was not free of errors and careless omissions. It was illustrated with about 280 framed paintings inserted in the text at the appropriate places, a modest undertaking by comparison with the slightly later Greek Christian manuscript known as the Cotton Genesis, which had about 360 illustrations for only one book of the Bible.
Journal title
British Library Journal
Volume
17
Issue
1
Publisher
British Library
Place of publication
UK
ISSN
0305-5167
eISSN
2056-2829
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In Copyright
DOI