Beinecke MS 262               Italy, s. XV
Liturgy (in Greek)

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1. ff. 1r-3r Unidentified Italian text referring to Virgin Mary and the
Saints, written in Greek letters.

2. ff. 3r-5v Miscellaneous prayers.

3. ff. 6r-37r[Rubric in Italian, but written in red Greek letters:]
[Greek].
[Greek]//

     Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom; F. E. Brightman, ed., Liturgies Eastern
and Western (Oxford, 1896) v. 1, pp. 353-98.  The accents above have not
been regularized.  The many peculiarities of the text suggest that it was
copied by a scribe unfamiliar with Greek, perhaps from dictation.

4. ff. 37v-39r
[Greek]...
[Greek].

     Gospel of John, 1.1-14; E. Nestle and K. Aland, eds., Novum Testamentum
Graece^^26 (Stuttgart, 1979) pp. 247-48.  This text was the last Gospel of
the Latin Mass, and the first of the Sequences of the Gospels given in
Horae; it matches the preceding text in format and script.

5. ff. 39v-41r Short Hours of the Cross, in Latin.

6. ff. 41v-42r [Paschal Table, with mutilated heading,
ending:]...
[Greek].  f. 42v miscellaneous notes, mostly illegible

7. The lower text of palimpsest leaves appears to contain the Life of an
unidentified saint named Ioannes.

     Parchment (thick; most leaves palimpsest:  religious text of the 10th
century, in a small, regular Greek minuscule is faintly visible), ff. i
(paper) + 42 + i (paper), 178 x 132 (135 x 105) mm.  Written in 12-17
long lines, ruled with hard point; single bounding lines, prickings at edges.
     I^^6 (-6), II-IV^^6, V^^2, VI^^4, VII^^8 (-1), VIII^^6.  Catchwords in rectangles
in lower margin of last folio, on verso.
     Written by two scribes in clumsily formed Greek minuscule:  Scribe 1,
ff. 1r-5v, 41r-42v (he signs himself brother Jacobus on f. 42r);
Scribe 2, ff. 6r-39r (an unusually large and thick
script).  Latin added on ff. 39v-41r in gothic cursive of 15th or 16th century.
Marginal notes in Greek by various later hands.
     Initials very crudely done, in various styles and several shades of red.
Rubrics throughout.  Some scribblings in the margins, including a cow on
f. 25v.
     Folios 1, 2, 3, 41, and 42 are all torn, so that significant portions of the
text are missing.
     Binding:  s. xix.  Rigid vellum case; handwritten on spine:  "Codex
Memb Graec"; on front cover, "no. 2".

Written in Italy in the 15th century (see also comments on scribes above);
belonged to the Dominican convent of
San Marco in Florence (B. Ullman and F. Stadter, The Public Library of
Renaissance Florence [Padua, 1972] p. 317).  Unidentified signature, s. xv, on
f. 36r, "Ego frater laurenzino."  Sold by Payne (signature and date 1833
inside front cover) to Sir Thomas Phillipps (no. 6564).  Bought from
L. C. Witten with funds from the Jacob Ziskind Charitable Trust in 1957 (MS 48).

Bibliography:  Faye and Bond, p. 47, no. 262.
     Ziskind Catalogue, p. 52.

Barbara A. Shailor