Beinecke MS 253               Italy, s. XV^^med
Alcinous, Didaskalikos, etc. (in Greek)

1. ff. 1r-43r[Greek]. [sic]
[Greek].

     Alcinous, Didaskalikos; P. Louis, ed., Albinos Epitome
(Rennes, 1945) pp. 3-173.  According to J. Whittaker, the text in this
manuscript is a direct descendant of Paris, B. N. gr. 1309.

2. ff. 43v-172v
[Greek]
[Greek].

     Xenophon, Memorabilia; Knox has given selected points of difference
between Beinecke MS 253 and the Oxford text for chapters one and two of Bk. I
(Ziskind Catalogue, p. 54).

3. ff. 173r-177r
[Greek]
[Greek].

     Diogenes, Life of Xenophon; H. Long, ed., Diogenis Laertii vitae
philosophorum (Oxford, 1964) v. 1, pp. 77-82.

4. ff. 177r-186r
[Greek].
[Greek].

     Diogenes, Life of Socrates; Long, op. cit., v. 1, pp. 64-77.

5. ff. 186r-193r
[Greek]
[[Greek][Greek]
expunged by scribe] [Greek]...
[Greek].

     Prologue to Diogenes, Lives of the Philosophers; Long, op. cit.,
v. 1, pp. 1-8.

6. ff. 193r-199v
[Greek].  [in margin:] [Greek].  [text begins:]
[Greek].  f. 200r-v blank

     Gregory Nazianzen, On Virtue; this paraphrase of Gregory Nazianzen also
occurs with the Alcinous text in Paris, B. N. gr. 1309.

     Paper (thick; rough finish; no watermarks), ff. i (paper) + i
(contemporary paper) + 200 + i (paper), 172 x 116 (122 x 80) mm.  Written
in 18 long lines, ruled in hard point; single inner vertical bounding line
and double outer, full length.
     I-XXV^^8.  Remains of quire signatures (letters of the Greek alphabet)
in upper right corner, recto.
     Written by a single scribe in a tidy minuscule script.
     Simple headpieces, headings, and initials, 4- to 2-line, in red.
     Stains with loss of text on ff. 34v-35r, 36v-37r, 168v-169r, 174v-175r,
etc.
     Binding:  s. xviii-xix.  Rigid vellum case.

Written in Italy in the middle of the 15th century.  Formerly in the Vatican
Library (Urbin. gr. 65) from where it disappeared sometime before the
Napoleonic Wars.  See C. Stornajolo, Codices Urbinates Graeci Bibliothecae
Vaticanae (Rome, 1895) p. 69; J. Whittaker, "Lost and Found:  Some
Manuscripts of the Didaskalikos of Alcinous (Albinus)," Symbolae
osloenses 49 (1973) pp. 128-29.  Belonged to Frederick North, 5th Earl of
Guilford (1766-1827; bookplate on f. i with no. 21; handwritten table of
contents pasted inside front cover; no. 1 in his sale catalogue); sold to
Thorpe;
bought by Sir Thomas Phillipps (no. 7751; on spine and in pencil on Guilford
bookplate).  Purchased from L. C. Witten with funds from the Jacob Ziskind
Charitable Trust in 1957 (MS 60).

Bibliography:  Faye and Bond, p. 46, no. 253.
     Ziskind Catalogue, p. 54.

Barbara A. Shailor