Page:EB1911 - Volume 20.djvu/623

assumed from the fact of that character being found so widely in favour when we come down to the period of the vellum MSS. Unfortunately no examples have survived to fill the gap between the first century and the oldest of the vellum codices written in rustic capitals of the 4th century. Of the three great MSS. of Virgil preserved in the Vatican Library, which are written in this character, the first in date is that known as the Schedae Vaticanae (Exempla, tab. 13; Pal. Soc. pl. 116, 117), a MS. famous for its series of well-finished illustrative paintings in classical style; it is ascribed to the 4th century. The other two MSS. are known as the Codex Romanus and the Codex Palatinus (Exempla, tab. 11, 12; Pal. Soc. pl. 113-115), and are now generally assigned to the 5th century. All three MSS. no doubt must always have been regarded as choice works; and the large scale of the writing employed, particularly in the case of the Romanus and the Palatinus, and the consequently magnificent size of the MSS. when complete, must indicate an unusual importance attaching to them. They were éditions de luxe of the great Roman poet. The writing of the Codex Palatinus (Fig. 30) especially is most exact, and is manifestly modelled on the best type of the rustic hand as seen in the inscriptions. In assigning dates to the earliest MSS. of capital-writing, one feels the greatest hesitation, none of them bearing any internal evidence to assist the process. It is not indeed until the close of the 5th century that we reach firm ground—the Medicean Virgil of Florence having in it sufficient proof of having been written before the year 494. The writing is in delicately formed letters, rather more spaced out than in the earlier examples (Exempla, tab. 10; Pal. Soc. pl. 86). Another ancient MS. in rustic capitals is the Codex Bembinus of Terence of the 4th or 5th century (Exempla, tab. 8, 9; Pal. Soc. pl. 135), a volume which is also of particular interest on account of its marginal annotations, written in an early form of small hand. Among palimpsests the most notable is that of the Cicero In Verrem of the Vatican (Exempla, tab. 4).

Fig. 29.—Poem on the Battle of Actium, early 1st century.

(praeberetque suae—

qualis ad instantis—

signa tubae classesq—

est facies ea visa loci—)

Fig. 30.—Virgil (Cod. Palatinus) 5th century.

(Testaturque deos iterum se ad proelia cogi

Bis iam Italos hostis haec altera foedera)

Of vellum MSS. in square capitals the examples are not so early as those in the rustic character. Portions of a MS. of Virgil in the square letter are preserved in the Vatican, and other leaves of the same are at Berlin (Exempla, tab. 14). Each page, however, begins with a large coloured initial, a style of ornamentation which is never found in the very earliest MSS. The date assigned to this MS. is therefore the end of the 4th century. In very similar writing, but not quite so exact, are some fragments of another MS. of Virgil in the library of St Gall, probably of a rather later time (Exempla, tab. 14a; Pal. Soc. p. 208).

In the 6th century capital-writing enters on its period of decadence, and the examples of it become imitative. Of this period is the Paris Prudentius (Exempla, tab. 15; Pal. Soc. pls. 29, 30) in rustic letters modelled on the old pattern of early inscriptions, but with a very different result from that obtained by the early scribes. A comparison of this volume with such MSS. as the Codex Romanus and the Codex Palatinus shows the later date of the Prudentius in its widespread writing and in certain inconsistencies in forms. Of the 7th century is (he Turin Sedulius (Exempla, tab. 16), a MS. in which uncial writing also appears—the rough and misshapen letters being evidences of the cessation of capital writing as a hand in common use. The latest imitative example of an entire MS. in rustic capitals is in the Utrecht Psalter, written in triple columns and copied, to all appearance, from an ancient example, and illustrated with pen drawings. This MS. may be assigned to the beginning of the 9th century. If there were no other internal evidence of late date in the MS. the mixture of uncial letters with the capitals would decide it. In the Psalter of St Augustine's Canterbury, in the Cottonian Library (Pal. Soc. pl. 19; Cat. Anc. MSS. ii. pls. 12, 13), some leaves at the beginning are written in this imitative style early in the 8th century; and again it is found in the Bencdictional of Bishop Aethelwold (Pal. Soc. pl. 143) of the 10th century. In the sumptuous MSS. of the Carlovingian school it was continually used; and it survived for such purposes as titles and colophons for some centuries, usually in a degenerate form of the rustic letters.

Uncial Writing.—There was also another majuscule form of writing, besides capitals, employed as a literary book-hand at an early date, but not coeval with the early period of capital writing. This second book-hand was the so-called Uncial hand, a modification of the capital form of writing, in which the square angles of the original letters were rounded off and certain new curved shapes were introduced, the characteristic letters of the uncial alphabet being , , , , . The origin of some of these rounded letters may be traced in certain forms of the Roman cursive letters of the graffiti and the tablets. But a considerable length of time elapsed before the fully developed uncial alphabet was evolved from these incipient forms. In fact it is only in the vellum MSS. that we first find the firmly written literary uncial hand in perfect form. No doubt the new material, vellum, with its smooth hard surface, immediately afforded the means for the calligraphic perfection with which we find the uncial writing inscribed in these codices.

From the occurrence of isolated uncial forms in inscriptions, the actual period of growth of the finished literary hand has been determined to lie between the later part of the 2nd century and the 4th century. Uncial letters are especially prevalent in Roman-African inscriptions of the 3rd century; but certain letters of the uncial alphabet are not as yet therein matured; minuscule forms of a few letters, particularly b and d, are employed. The discovery also, at Oxyrhynchus, of a fragmentary papyrus of the 3rd century, containing a portion of an epitome of Livy, presents us with an example of the uncial hand in progress of formation for literary purposes, the text being composed mainly of letters of the uncial type, but including a certain proportion of letters, as b, d, m, r, of the minuscule or small character. At length in the 4th century, as already stated, the perfected uncial literary alphabet is found in the vellum codices.

There are still extant a very large number of Latin uncial MSS., a proof of the wide use of this form of literary writing in the early middle ages.

The Exempla of Zangemeister and Wattenbach, so often quoted above, contains a series of facsimiles which illustrate its progress through its career. The letter has been adopted by the editors as a test letter, in the earlier forms of which the last limb is not curved or turned in. The letter also in its earlier and purer form has the cross stroke placed high. But, as in every style of writing, when once developed, the earliest examples are the best, being written with a free hand and natural stroke. The Gospels of Vercelli (Exempla, tab. 20), said to have been written by the hand of Eusebius himself, and which may indeed be of his time, is one of the most ancient uncial MSS. Its narrow columns and pure forms of letters have the stamp of antiquity. To the 4th century also is assigned the palimpsest Cicero De republica in the Vatican (Exempla, tab. 17; Pal. Soc.