Month: June 2019

Oldest Fragments

Some very early scraps from the Letters (end of book 1, beginning of book 2) are offered for sale at Christies.

SIDONIUS APOLLINARIS (c.430/33-c.479), Epistolae, in Latin, manuscript on vellum [?France, late 10th century]

Among the earliest witnesses from the Epistolae of the great 5th-century Gallo-Roman aristocrat, high official, poet and letter writer, Sidonius Apollinaris.

Two fragments, 95 x 149mm and 95 x 142mm, forming part of one column, 11-12 visible lines written in brown ink in a Caroline minuscule, one four-line title supplied in red Rustic Capitals (stained, with part of the title obscured). Bound in grey buckram at the Quaritch bindery.

Provenance:
(1) Bernard Rosenthal.
(2) Schøyen Collection, MS 1650/2.