Carpentras, Bibliothèque Inguimbertine, 1260

La bible qui paroule dou viex testament (original rubric preceding the text)

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General information

Folios130
2 backend papers
Folio notes:Modern foliation. There is a 41bis. The text ends on 129v, but because of 41bis, this is in fact f.130, and indeed under the text a modern hand has written '130 f.'. The folio numbering continues, however, on to the end-papers. The second endpaper has upside down the beginning of an earlier, aborted table of rubrics for a different Histoire ancienne MS (it being in a different hand).
LanguageLanguage object (48)
Approx. date?1280 to 1320
Date notesOltrogge 1989, 240
Place(s) of productionItaly, Lombardy
See Zinelli 2012, p 164 for Lombard linguistic traits.
First words of second recto foliof. 2r: enuoia et anbati touz en p(ar)font abisme enla co(n)tree qi enfers est apele
First words of last recto foliof.129r: Coum(en)t il se poist c(on)tenir de ceste chose
Incipitf. 1r: Cestui liure sapelle labible qui paroule dou viex testament coment dieu fist leciel (et) laterre (et) leiue (et) lisoleil (et) lalune (et) lesestoile (et) le firmament (et) d(e)toz animals (et)puis fist ada(m) n(ost)re p(re)mier pere eue
Explicitf.129v: et ap(re)s li roi pheliphes .xx.ui. ans qi fu peres li g(ra)nt rois Alix(andre)s qi apres lui tint macedoine. Et co(n) quist p(er)se (et) egipte Et babiloine

Material

Material:Material object (4)
Watermark:
Condition:Some pages have parts that are effaced from wear, but mostly the MS is in reasonable condition, apart from the binding. F. 26 is about 1 cm shorter at bottom, but the trimming looks original. F. 38 has a natural hole in bottom. On f. 76r a section at the bottom about 10 cm across has been stitched in; part of the illustration obviously got torn and then repaired.

Structure

Collation:

116 28 34-68 716 8-138 142

Quire structure:While the majority of the quires are quaternions, the first and seventh have eight bifolia and the third quire is a ternion. F. 128-9 are a single bifolium that seem to be part of the original collation.
Quire marks:MSQuiremarkDisposition object (18)
Catchwords:
Catchword disposition:MSCatchwordDisposition object (9)

Physical description

No. of illustrations:67
General illustration:The illustrations are drawings that have been coloured in sometimes rather crudely. Almost all are in the Italian style in the bas de page, with some extending across the full page, but some centred underneath a single column. The exceptions are: f. 1, where the opening historiated initial shows God creating Adam; f. 4ra and 39rb where illustrations are integrated into the column of writing; 66v, which has a half-page illustration of Theseus before Thebes; 75v-76r, where the opening shows the Greek ships arriving in Troy; 85r which is a whole-page illustration of Troy in flames. The illustrations are clearly an integral part of the MS design because of their relation to the text’s content, which is always very close, and because of the way the text wraps around them when they extend upwards into the text columns, as they frequently do. On the last folio with text (130r) space the last 9 lines of the text block in the second column have not been used. This may simply be that this is where the scribe's source ended, but it may also mean that an illustration was originally intended here. On the other hand, the lack of any marker of the beginning of the Alexander sections probably suggests that the source was faulty.
General decoration:There are larger decorated initials at the following locations, which almost but not quite always mark a change of narrative subject matter : 4 va top; 12vb bottom; 51ra (beginning of the story of Thebes); 67ra (beginning of the section known in modern scholarship as 'Greeks and Amazons'); 70rb (beginning of the story of Troy); 102 rb (beginning of the history of Rome ('Rome 1')); 115va bottom (beginning of the section known in modern scholarship as 'Orient II'). There are no decorated initials at the beginning of three passages considered important units in modern scholarship: Orient 1 on 48rv, Eneas on 87r, and Alexander on 130v (where only part of the first paragraph has been copied). On 87r there is a large maniculum at the point where the section begins; it is significantly better executed than others in the MS. Where as the end of the manuscript is clearly defective, it seems likely the scribe (or his source) thought what is considered the Orient 1 segment in modern scholarship to be part of the Genesis story, whereas some one realised after the relevant portion of the text had been copied, that a more significant break ought to have been marked at the beginning of the Eneas story. Generally the text has undecorated initials in red and blue 2 lines high at the beginning of each chapter. The MS opens with an historiated initial underneath the initial rubric with a simple decorated border that extends the length of the left-hand margin into a simply decorated flourish in the bas de page, where to the left one can also see the traces of a creature. To the right of the historiated initial, the rest of the text block is taken up with coloured lettering in the Byzantine style, spelling out the first few words of the text.
Evidence of readership:The MS has a range of manicula, notas and marginal annotations. Whoever marked up the MS in this way seems to have been particularly interested in genealogy, but has also marked passages relating to the origin of the French monarchy and to Lombardy. The annotations are in a 14th-c. cursive hand, and are in Italian.
Foliations description:Modern foliation. There is a 41bis.

Mise en page

Description 1
Page sampled3r
LayoutMSLayout object (3)
Page dimensions320x215 (mm)
Justification225x150 (mm)
Columns2
15mm between columns
Lines47
RubricationChapters are rubricated throughout. Occasionally not enough space has been left so rubrics extend into margins. E.g. 12rb; 15rb, 27r; 41 bis r. In the Eneas section it would seem that too much space has been left for the rubrics and there are blank spaces.
Writing above top line?False
Sample page layout:

Hand(s)

Level of Execution:Execution object (4)
ScriptScript object (6)
Folio rangeFrom 1 to 130
Date?1280 to 1320
Scribe description:The hand is extremely clear and regular. Letters are rounded and usually clearly separated. The scribe uses abbreviations rather sparingly. 'S' is long regardless of position.
Notes