Tag: Manuscripts

Manuscripts online from Corpus Christi College, Cambridge

Posted on by Roger Pearse

One of the Cambridge colleges has put its manuscripts online; or rather, has allowed an American university to do it for them.  Thanks to the catalogue in the last item, I find that the Parker library at CCC is online here.

The website is a bit useless.  What you want is a list of manuscripts and a bunch of PDF’s to download.  What you get is one of these airy-fairy-force-the-user-to-do-a-junk-registration, and then badly categorised materials – no search by author, as far as I could see.  The most useful access seems to be the browse by title.  This gives a single page, from which the alert can pick out the stuff they want.  The actual stuff underneath that, for each manuscript, seems normal, if fussy. 

But I can’t avoid saying this: how these people love to obtrude themselves between the user and the actual page images!  You have to click repeatedly to get an image of  a page large enough to read; then the same for the next page, etc.  Come on, guys; think of the user for once!

Most of the collection is medieval, lots of it concerned with Old English, some of it stuff by Parker himself.  But there’s a copy of part of Orosius there, some stuff by Isidore of Seville, Augustine, Jerome on Ecclesiastes, a sermon by Chrysostom, some Bede, Nennius, Origen on Numbers, letters of Symmachus, and bits of Sulpicius Severus.

Great to have it online, anyway.

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Catalogue of digitised medieval manuscripts online

Posted on by Roger Pearse

A new catalogue of medieval mss online has appeared.  It’s here.

The man responsible, Matthew Fisher, in this article in Science Daily makes exactly the right points.

A member of a new generation of scholars who cut their teeth in the San Francisco Bay Area during the dot-com era, the Los Angeles native is motivated by a commitment to democratize access to some of the world’s most exclusive repositories.

“The price of admission shouldn’t be a plane ticket to a library in Europe or even Australia,” he said. “These documents are part of the world’s cultural patrimony. Everybody should have access.”

After all, we’re paying for them.  Most mss are owned by state-funded libraries, or are state-owned.

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Cicero at Oxyrhynchus

Posted on by Roger Pearse

I wonder how many people know that 10 papyrus fragments of Cicero exist from Oxyrhynchus, etc, the earliest dating from the start of the 1st century AD and the latest from the 6th? I certainly didn’t!

I owe this knowledge to CEDOPAL, the online database of 7,000 papyri.  A look at the drop-down list of authors is interesting by itself.  Julius Africanus is represented.  Three fragments of the lost works of the 2nd century jurist  Ulpian are there.  A few bits of Galen; surprisingly few, really, considering that his works amount of 10% of the now-surviving Greek literature before AD 300.  A fragment of Juvenal Satire 7 from ca. 500 AD from Arsinoe is a poignant relic, considering that he ended his days in exile in Egypt.

Only two snippets of Libanius were found, one from his Monody for Julian the Apostate.  A fragment of an epitome by Manetho exists from the 5th century.  Another 2nd century fragment is from the Chronicle of Phlegon of Tralles; and Hippolytus gives us a fragment of his own Chronicle, 6-7th century.  Polybius is present in a 1st century AD fragment.  And so the list goes on.

I was glad to see that links are starting in CEDOPAL to appear to online images of some of the papyri.  This must come, I think, and will put an end to the absurd concealment of these things behind barriers of money and privilege.  But much remains to be done.

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Galen and his works

Posted on by Roger Pearse

Who cares to read the works of an doctor of the 2nd century AD?  Well, it doesn’t matter anyway; you can’t!  Not unless you are fluent in Greek at least, anyway.  Do we care?

Those of us who have the “Indiana Jones” approach to lost texts and manuscripts cannot fail to find Galen interesting.  He’s almost a textbook case of how ancient Greek works reached us, via Arabic.  He also has much to say of interest about the way that ancient books were made and traded and forged.  Reynolds and Wilson, Scribes and Scholars,1 refer to him frequently, and I’ve summarised a few of the bits.  This should whet your appetite!

Ptolemy I sought to fill the library at Alexandria.  He borrowed the official copies of the Attic tragedies from Athens, giving a massive deposit, and then chose to forfeit the deposit and keep the books.  This is recounted by Galen, 17(1).607. 2  In their eagerness to buy all the books that existed, the librarians were frequently deceived into buying forgeries (Galen vol. 15, p. 105).

Galen attributes the confused state of one of the works of Hippocrates to marginal notes being incorporated into the main text by a copyist (vol. 15, p. 624); in vol. 17 (1) p. 634, he notes how a parallel from another writer had been written in a margin, and incorporated in the same manner.3

Galen also was very close to the text critical maxim that the more difficult reading is to be preferred (Corpus medicorum graecorum 5.10.2.2,p.178, 17-18) where he expresses a preference for old or antiquated words in the text and understands that they would have been changed into something easier if the text had been modified (ibid. 121.17-18).

The Arabic scholars investigated Galen closely, and recent research into Arabic versions has recovered a missing passage from one known text and, better still, proof that an incomprehensible passage in the Greek is because a leaf in an early copy was pulled out and reinserted backwards!  The Nestorian translator, Hunain ibn Ishaq, gives a long list of Galen’s works then extant and considers which had been translated into Syriac, which into Arabic, by whom, when, and where manuscripts of the Greek might be found.  His method of translation involves collating several manuscripts to deal with damage, a trick he learned in part from Galen himself.4

After the fall of Constantinople in 1204, William of Moerbecke became Latin archbishop of Corinth, and translated into Latin some works of Galen not now extant.

In the 19th century Minas Minoides discovered some lost essays of Galen on Mount Athos, which are today Mss. Paris. sup. gr. 634 and 635. 

Interested?  I admit that I am.  I’d like to see those passages of Galen in English.  Indeed I’d like to see that list by Hunain ibn Ishaq.

Sadly no-one has ever been interested in translating Galen.  Initially I could only find one work in translation.  Then John Wilkins of Exeter University in the UK kindly pointed out to me that some selected works were translated by Peter Singer for the Oxford World Classics series in 1997, but that’s it. 

Incidentally the little Oxford World Classics paperback is already out of print, and commanding prices from £31 upwards! This system of making minority-interest texts available in short print run book form with a fierce copyright of life+70 years seems pretty broken to me; the book may exist, but who can read it?  Luckily my local library bought it, so I should be able to get it on ILL, and will report back.

Let us hope that Galen will attract more attention, and more of it online. 

Notes:
1. 3rd edition, Clarendon Press (1991).    
2.  The reference given in S&S — generally bad on references — is 17(1).607., which tells us little; which work of Galen is this?  Luckily I have the French translation of S&S, D’Homere a Erasme, translated by Pierre Petitmengin who inserted a good few and elucidates.  He gives the reference to the Kühn edition of Galen, Claudii Galeni opera omnia, 1821-33, 20 vols; the ref. is to vol. 17, 1, p.607; I have followed his lead on references above.   There is a review of Kühn’s edition in English here.  The edition is Greek with a Latin translation, and runs to over 20,000 pages!  Vol. 20 is here.
3.  S&S describes Galen as the greatest text-critical scholar of his time, and that W.G.Rutherford, A chapter in the history of annotation, London 1905, pp.47-57 is still worth reading.
4. See J.S.Wilkie, JHS 101 (1981), 145-8; S&S has further bibliography.

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BBC4 programme on science and islam

Posted on by Roger Pearse

Quite by accident last night I found myself watching a BBC4 programme on Science and Islam.  Jim Khalili presented it, and did so extremely well and very clearly.  This was episode 2,  entitled “Empire of Reason”, and in it he discussed the interest in scientific and technical works in the Abbasid caliphate, and various innovations made during that period by people like al-Biruni. 

There was mention of the translation of Greek works in the time of al-Mamun (labelled the “Translation Movement”), although Hunain ibn Ishaq was not mentioned by name.   But in a one hour programme, detail will be omitted in favour of bright images, and this the programme did well.

Like all popular programmes, the narrative jumped around a bit.  I doubt that anyone without a clear idea of Islamic history would have been able to follow who did what when, but this is not a vice in such a programme, which is really intended to spark interest.  I did wonder who the intended audience was, tho.   But who cares?  Let’s be glad of the chance to learn.

The story was told without restraint or qualification.  Khalili was an unabashed apologist for how wonderful “Islamic science” was, and how it was the basis of all modern science (!).   Of course this is rather a half-truth, but, since he is an Iraqi, we may forgive his pardonable pride in his own racial and religious group.  Wouldn’t we all rather hear an enthusiast anyway?  The problem seemed to be in what was omitted, and how various elements were given a spin which calmer evaluation might disallow.  I would have liked to see more on how the scholars of the period made use of non-Greek sources.

Various experiments were conducted on-screen, and explained very well indeed.  He also did meetings with people looking at Arabic books,  including images of manuscripts.  This was very nice to see.  I think we could all do with a better knowledge of Islamic literature.  One question, tho — are any of these texts available online and in English?  I have my doubts.  Is there, indeed, any equivalent to Brockelmann’s massive lists of Arabic authors and texts?  I doubt it.

In fact scientific texts from antiquity seem conspicuous by the lack of English translations.  Many of these are only extant in Arabic; works by Galen, and Hero’s Mechanica spring to mind.  As for being online…!

One very reluctant comment: I do have to say that I think the programme was probably  intended by the BBC as anti-western propaganda.  But let us restrain our disgust,  at them, as far as possible.  No blame attaches to the presenter for supporting his own side; indeed his enthusiasm is a bonus – even if, in his enthusiasm, he seemed to forget that Cordoba cannot be used as an example of Abbasid splendour!  Let us freely acknowledge the debt we owe to the Islamic world for advances in various areas made during this period.  The subject matter is interesting, and it’s easy enough to watch.  If we can remember that this is not a balanced picture — that it is just one side of the coin –, then the series itself is full of interest.  Recommended.

PS: I see that Jim al-Khalili has started a blog.  Read the first post here.  I also discover an article that he wrote for the Guardian, in which he states that “I am on a mission to … present the positive face of Islam.”  Hmm.

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Manuscript digitisation gathers pace

Posted on by Roger Pearse

Jim Davila’s excellent PaleoJudaica blog highlights a number of interesting non-Jewish items this week.  I don’t seem to be able to link to his individual posts, so here are some excerpts.

The Cologne Manichaean codex is a tiny parchment codex from middle Egypt, containing an account of the youth of Mani.  Digitising it and placing it online is such an excellent idea.  This is where the internet scores.  Suddenly people can SEE the thing!  I wonder if an English translation of the text is around, tho?

Jim has posted on this before and links to other posts.  It seems that the mass of Syriac manuscripts in Kerala are to be photographed.  Let us hope they go online!  But the easy availability of digital cameras makes digitisation simple.  Well done, the Kerala clergymen who seem to be leading this one.  They’re also trying to encourage interest in Syriac.

  • PHILIP JENKINS’S BOOK, The Lost History of Christianity, is reviewed by Brother Jeffrey Gros, F.S.C. in the Catholic Review Online.

This is a book that discusses Oriental Christianity, and which has been criticised to me for being too Christian, and not Christian enough.  I’m going to have a read once the paperback comes out here.  Anything which will increase the number of people interested in the obscure Syriac and Arabic Christianity must be a good thing.

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Getting hold of manuscripts of the Arabic historian Al-Makin

Posted on by Roger Pearse

We all know that Shlomo Pines published an exotic version of the Testimonium Flavianum of Josephus, telling of the events of the life of Christ.  This he tells us he got from the 10th century Arabic Christian historian, Agapius.  But on closer reading, he says that he reconstructed the text of Agapius at this point using the 13th century Arabic Christian historian Girgis Al-Makin (George Elmacin).  This hasn’t ever been published, never mind translated. 

The text is in two halves, according to Georg Graf’s handbook, Geschichte der christlichen arabischen Literatur vol. 2, p.348-351.  The first half covers history to the reign of Heraclius, divided into 120 sections on ‘important people’.  The second half covers history from the Arab invasions to his own time.

I’d like to get a copy of a manuscript of this work, and see if I can get the portion on Jesus translated.   Graf tells us that there is a manuscript in the Vatican (Vat. ar. 169, 1686 AD, on ff. 1r-194r); another in the Bodleian Library in Oxford (Bodl. ar. christ. Nicoll. 47, 1 & 2 = Bodl. 316, 1646 AD), which also has a handwritten Latin translation of the end of part 1 and all of part 2; another in the British Library (or. 7564, AD 1280); another in Manchester (ar. 239, 18th century, but incomplete and breaking off at 1118/9 AD); another in Cairo (Coptic Museum Hist. 266, AD 1893); yet another in Cairo (Coptic Patriarchate Hist. 17, 18th century); one in the Sbath collection wherever that is now (Fihris 80 & 81); and finally one somewhere in the Orthodox Library in Aleppo between the wars, mentioned by L. Cheiko.

That sounds a lot – eight copies.  But the Vatican library is closed, and emails are being ignored.  The Bodleian is going through a greedy-nasty phase, and wants me to pay some enormous sum so they can make colour images for themselves but only supply low-grade monochrome images to me.  The microfilm of the British Library manuscript only covers part 2, and the leaves are said to be disarranged anyway.  The John Rylands Library in Manchester also demanded some huge and prohibitive sum for their partial manuscript.  Manuscripts in Cairo are inaccessible; a set of microfilms in the USA likewise, for practical purposes.  The location of the other two is really unknown.

Here we are in 2009; yet a researcher can’t get a copy of stuff held by state institutions.  This is a ridiculous situation, surely?

There are also manuscript copies of each half.  Perhaps the answer is to obtain some of these.  There are three of part 1 in Paris, for instance, and it should be possible to obtain copies, I would have thought. 

PS: The great thing about the Bibliotheque Nationale Francais is that they have scanned their catalogues and put them online.  A quick search, and I find that Mss. Arab. 294 and 295 should cover the whole text.  294 is 250+ folios in length, tho.  Less good is the prices demanded for colour digital images, which are basically free to make.  The prices are prohibitive, which is very silly.  I’ve been driven to ask for a duplicate of a microfilm in PDF form, for which they will charge 50 euros each (!).  Even that is a ridiculous price for what basically costs half an hour of staff time.  When will this ceaseless greed stop?

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The last person to see a complete Diodorus Siculus

Posted on by Roger Pearse

The splendid efforts by Bill Thayer to scan the still-massive  remains of the Universal History by Diodorus Siculus have reminded me that the complete text still existed in 1453.  N. G. Wilson in Scribes and Scholars p.72 tells us of a well-established fact, stated by Constantine Lascaris who says that he saw a complete copy of the work in the imperial palace in Constantinople, and that it was destroyed by the Turks. 

Scribes and Scholars is a masterwork, but one of its defects is the casual attitude to referencing.  But by chance a French correspondent asked me about this very event, and in order to give him a page reference, I pulled down the French translation by the excellent Pierre Petitmengin, D’Homère a Érasme.  I was surprised, but delighted, to find on page 48 a reference for this statement: Patrologia Graeca, t. 161, c. 918.  One of the reasons why the French edition is useful is that it does fill in some of the gaps like this.

It would be nice to have Constantine Lascaris’ words in English, but that must wait another day!

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Digitization of the Plutei collection in Florence

Posted on by Roger Pearse

I’ve had an email from the Biblioteca Mediceo-Laurenziana in Florence telling me that they are actively exploring digitising the Plutei collection. This includes massive numbers of the oldest manuscripts of any number of the classics, including both Tacitus manuscripts. They think it will take around 30 months, and they intend to put the results online.

Remarkably, they’re also looking at ways for people to contribute to the online material and so enhance the content.  This is very far-seeing of them, and will be most interesting to see.

All early days, but very, very interesting.

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