Beinecke MS 382               Central Italy, s. XII^^med
Psalter (bifolium)

1.  f. 1r  //dicant gentes ubi est deus eorum...adiutor eorum et protector
eorum est//

     Psalms 113.2-10.

2.  f. 1v  //dominus memor fuit nostri. et benedixit nobis...quia inclinauit
aurem//

     Psalms 113.12 - 114.2.

3.  f. 2r  //circumdederunt me dolores mortis...omnis homo mendax//

     Psalms 114.3 - 115.11.

4.  f. 2v  //retribuit michi.  Calicem salutaris accipiam...Confitemini domino
quoniam bonus//

     Psalms 115.12 - 117.1.

     Parchment, ff. 2 (bifolium), 152 x 117 (140 x 72) mm., trimmed, with loss of
one line of text and lower margin; 8 mm. between lines.  Ruled in hard point.
Written in fine Italian minuscule.  Historiated initial containing an imploring
figure for Psalm 114, 4-line, on f. 1v, with the hand of God descending from
heaven forming the ascender of the uncial d; partly mutilated historiated
initial containing a naked [?] figure on f. 2v.  Decorative initials, gold on
maroon or blue ground, ff. 2r and 2v, with white vine-stem ornamentation.
Headings for each Psalm in red; red initial letters for each verse, set to the
left of text bounding line.

Produced in Central Italy in the middle of the 12th century according to W.
Cahn, who has suggested a similarity between the historiated initial on f. 1v
and one in an Umbro-Roman Bible (Rome, Biblioteca Casanatense MS 721; see E. B.
Garrison, Studies in the History of Medieval Italian Painting [Florence,
1955] v. 2.2, p. 163, fig. 178 of f. 43).  The fact that Psalm 114 has been
signalled by an initial of some ambition is unusual and probably indicates
Benedictine usage for the manuscript.  Removed from a binding.  Presented to the
Beinecke Library in 1968 by Thomas E. Marston.

Barbara A. Shailor