Beinecke MS 300               Byzantium, 1643, ca. 1720-1730
Andrew of Crete, The Great Canon, etc. (in Greek)

1. f. ii recto [Greek].
[Greek].

     Passage referring to Akakios, Monk of Sabba, who is said to have written the
interpretation of the Great Canon and who lived at the time of Basil the
Bulgar-slayer and the patriarch Photius.

2. f. ii verso
[Greek]...
[Greek].

     Passages referring to Andrew of Crete.

3. ff. 1r-282v [Heading:]
[Greek].  [passage from the
Great Canon:]
[Greek].  [interpretation:]
[Greek]...[text of the Great Canon ends:]
[Greek].  [text of interpretation ends:]
[Greek].  [colophon:]
[Greek]...[followed by the complaint of the scribe that he is
tired, sick and going to die; colophon ends:]
[Greek].

     Andrew of Crete, Great Canon, with commentary; text for the Great
Canon, PG 97.1329-85.

4. f. 283r[Two prayers] [Greek] [text
of first prayer:]
[Greek]...[text of second:]
[Greek]....  f. 283v blank

     Paper (sturdy; watermarks similar to Heawood Crescent 866), ff. i (paper)
+ 283 + iii (paper), 200 x 146 (140 x 95) mm.  Written in 22 long lines; double
vertical bounding lines, full length.  Ruled in hard point, on verso.
     I-XXXV^^8 (+ 1 leaf added at end, f. 281), XXXVI^^2.  Catchwords for every
leaf appear directly under the
written space near gutter; signatures, in red, are letters of the alphabet in
the lower margin, on recto.
     Written in two hands.  Scribe 1 (ff. ii, 283) is the same scribe,
Constantine Raphael Byzantinus, designated as Scribe 1 in Beinecke MSS 294,
295, and 297, etc.  Scribe 2, Nicolaus of Rhodes, copied the main body of the
text,
ff. 1r-282v; he signed and dated the codex June 1643 on f. 282v (see art. 3
for colophon).
     Some initials, poorly executed, in gold, silver, and blue; rubricated
throughout.
     Bottom of f. 1 and top of f. 283 cut off.
     Binding:  s. xvi-xvii.  Dark brown (almost black) sheepskin [?],
badly gold-tooled. Orange edges. Badly rebacked.

Written in Byzantium by Nicolaus of Rhodes in 1643, with later additions by
Constantine Raphael Byzantinus (see Beinecke MSS 294, 295, 297, etc.;
Nichipor, pp.
186-87).  Belonged to Panagiotes, grammarian of Constantinople (note of s. xvii
on f. 1r).  From the collection of Frederick North, 5th Earl of Guilford
(1766-1827; bookplate; handwritten description of contents pasted inside front
cover; the letters chi and gamma stamped on spine in gold; no. 324 in
catalogue); sold to Thorpe.  Sir Thomas Phillipps (no. 5534, tag on spine).
William H. Robinson, Ltd., Pall Mall (sticker inside front cover).  Purchased
from L. C. Witten with funds from the Jacob Ziskind Charitable Trust in 1957
(MS 2).

Bibliography:  Ziskind Catalogue, p. 44.

Barbara A. Shailor