Digitised manuscripts at Verdun – Augustine, Ambrose, Jerome, liturgical

J.B.Piggin drew my attention to a new site full of digitised Latin manuscripts, at Verdun.  The manuscripts are those of the abbey of St. Vanne, the cathedral, and others, doubtless seized at the French Revolution.

Annoyingly you cannot download the things in PDF form, but are obliged to peer at them, squintily, through a keyhole flash viewer.  It works well enough, but is deeply frustrating to use for more than a minute or two.

It looks to me as if the collection was looted of nearly all its content at some time.  Most of the mss. are breviaries and graduals — service books, essentially.  But a few items of interest to us do remain.

Somewhat annoyingly, there seems to be no easy way to link directly to individual manuscripts (if I am wrong, do let me know).

• Ms. 24 – Boethius, De institutione arithmetica (11th c.), originally from Lobbes.  Includes diagrams.
• Ms. 26 – Isidore of Seville, De natura rerum (9th c.); astronomical stuff.
• Ms. 30 – Florilegium, saints’ lives, letter of ps.Alexander the Great to Aristotle (11-12th c.).
• Ms. 45 – Eusebius of Caesarea, Church history (11th c.) as translated by Rufinus.  Has a list of books and numbered chapters at the front.
• Ms. 47 – Gregory Nazianzen, 8 works translated by Rufinus: Apologeticus, De epiphaniis, De communibus sive secundis epiphaniis, De pentecoste, De semetipso de agro regressus, De reconciliatione monachorum, De grandinis vastatione; Chrysostom, De compunctione cordis libri duo., Quod nemo laeditur nisi a seipso, De reparatione lapsi. Ps. Chrysostom, Sermo de poenitentia. Augustine, letters 166 and 167 to Jerome, Jerome, Letter 134, 141, 142 to Augustine, Augustine letter 190, Jerome letter 126. (11th c.)
• Ms. 48 – Ambrose, Isidore, Augustine (11-12th c.)
• Ms. 50 – Ambrose, De fide, De spiritu sanctu, De incarnatione, De mysteriis, De sacramentis, De Nabuthae – Phoebadius Aginensis, De fide orthodoxa. (11th c.)
• Ms. 51 – Jerome’s Commentary on Isaiah (11-12th c.)
• Ms. 52 – An evangelary of the 4 gospels (11th c.)
• Ms. 57 – Augustine, various works; Fulgentius of Ruspe, De fide ad Petrum seu de regula fidei. Rescriptum Aurelii Augustini ad Petrum diaconum de fide sancte trinitatis sic incipit, Gregory the Great. (11th c.)
• Ms. 75 – ps.Clementine Recognitions in 10 books, letter of ps.Clement to Peter (11th c.)
• Ms. 77 – Venantius Fortunatus, Poems (11th c.) Also has other medieval items.

I was quite unable to locate an “overview” page, or get any idea about this project.  There must be more mss. to be digitised.  But all the same that gives us quite a bit that we didn’t have before!