Medieval Manuscripts in Cambridge Libraries

A catalogue of Western manuscripts and papyri at Cambridge University Library, the Fitzwilliam Museum and selected Cambridge colleges

Cambridge, Trinity College, MS O.8.8

Diktyon no.: Diktyon 12017

Contents

Introduction: This manuscript, produced in the years around 1550, contains a Treatise on the Eucharist by Cardinal Bessarion. A cleric born in Trebizond, Bessarion became a leading Orthodox proponent of unification between the Eastern and Western Churches, and a central figure in the intellectual life of the Greek-speaking world in the mid-15th century. As Metropolitan of Nicaea, he formed part of the delegation which agreed Church Union at the Council of Ferrara-Florence (1438-1439), and was appointed Cardinal shortly afterwards. Settling in Italy and becoming a major force in the papal Curia, Bessarion continued to campaign against Orthodox resistance to the Union, became the titular Catholic Patriarch of Jerusalem and Constantinople, and was twice seriously considered for election to the papacy. He also acted as the most important patron of Greek scholars settled in the West and worked vigorously to preserve and propagate the Greek cultural heritage in the face of Ottoman conquest, organising the acquisition, copying and translation of manuscripts on a grand scale, as well as producing his own translations and contributions to philosophical and theological disputes. The tract contained in this manuscript, composed in 1464, formed part of Bessarion's advocacy of the Catholic doctrines accepted in the Union of Florence. It focuses on the subject of transubstantiation, specifically on a dispute over which words of the liturgy constitute the essential act of consecration of the bread and wine. Though not a central bone of contention in the schism between East and West, this had been an area of dispute at the Council and remained a live issue. In the text Bessarion responds to arguments made by the leading Orthodox anti-unionists Markos Eugenikos and Nikolaos Kabasilas , and prompted the former to write a tract of his own refuting it. The manuscript was written in an informal hand and in a rather disorganised fashion, with abrupt changes in the size of script. This haphazard production suggests that it was the work of a scholar rather than a professional scribe, and more likely to have been produced for personal use than for pay. Not many years after its creation, it was in the possession of the Hungarian humanist scholar Johannes Sambucus / János Zsámboky, who became official physician to the Hapsburg Emperor Maximilian II (1527-1576, r. 1564-1576) , and was an exceptionally prolific collector of books. However, the presence of multiple annotating hands using only Greek suggests that the manuscript circulated initially in a Greek-speaking environment. Among the additions made to the manuscript were two brief excerpts copied onto blank folios at the end, including one from the main text. In 1568, in Vienna, Sambucus gave the manuscript to his friend, the German Protestant scholar Joachim Camerarius the Elder, as recorded by a note on f. 1r. Camerarius, a professor at the University of Leipzig, was a leading Lutheran intellectual who had participated in the drafting of the Augsburg Confession of 1530, the defining Lutheran confession of faith. As an advocate of reconciliation with the Catholic Church, in 1568 he was invited by Maximilian II for discussions in Vienna, and it was during this visit that Camerarius must have received this manuscript. He is known to have visited Sambucus and perused his library on this occasion, and Sambucus lent him a number of Greek manuscripts in the years that followed, including a collection of Bessarion's letters (Gábor Álmasi, The Uses of Humanism: Johannes Sambucus (1531-1584), Andreas Dudith (1553-1589), and the republic of letters in east-central Europe (Leiden, 2009), p. 219). Dr Christopher Wright

Language(s): Greek

1. ff. 1r-34r
Cardinal Bessarion (1403-1472), De sacramento Eucharistiae
Rubric: f. 1r Βησσαρίωνος καρδηνάλεως τοῦ τῶν Τούσκλων, περὶ τοῦ τῆς ἱερᾶς εὐχαριστίας μυστηρίου καὶ ὡς τοῖς τοῦ Κυρίου ῥήμασι μάλιστα τελειοῦται τὲ καὶ ἱερουργεῖται
Incipit: f. 1r Τοῦ ἱεροῦ τῆς συνάξεως καὶ εὐχαριστίας μυστηρίου
Explicit: f. 34v ὅτι ἂν τύχοι ἀφειδῶς ἀπορρίπτουσιν
Final rubric: f. 34v Τέλος

TLG 3229.008

ff. 34v-40v are blank.

2. ff. 34v-40v
Blank folios
3. f. 41r
Hermeias of Alexandria, In Platonis Phaedrum scholia

Excerpt (ed. C.M. Lucarini and C. Moreschini, Hermias Alexandrinus: In Platonis Phadrum scholia (Berlin, 2012), pp. 74-75)

Rubric: f. 41r Ἑρμείας ἐκ τοῦ διαλόγου τοῦ Φαίδρου
Incipit: f. 41r Εἰς τέσσαρα διηρημεμένης [sic for διηρημένης] τῆς πολιτείας τέλη
Explicit: f. 41r οὐδὲ μίαν ἀρχὴν εἶχεν· οὐδὲ ἀνήλισκον

TLG 2317.002

4. f. 42r-42v
Cardinal Bessarion (1403-1472), De sacramento Eucharistiae

Excerpt (ed. L. Mohler, Aus Bessarions Gelehrtenkreis: Abhandlungen, Reden, Briefe von Bessarion, Theodoros Gazes, Michael Apostolios, Andronikos Kallistos, Georgios Trapezuntinos, Niccolò Perotti, Niccolò Capranica (Paderborn 1942), p. 32 (10.3))

Incipit: f. 42r Συνεργεῖν γάρ φησιν ὁ Ἐφέσου τοῖς κυριακοῖς λόγοις
Explicit: f. 42v εἰ καὶ μηδ'ἐκεῖνος οὐδὲν εἴρηται ἄξιον λόγου

TLG 3229.008

Physical Description

Form: codex
Support: Western paper, folded in quarto. Watermark: Bull's head ( c. 60 × 35 mm. ) in the gutter, similar to Briquet 523. This example is dated to 1551.
Extent: Codex: 2 + 42 + 1 leaves. 211 × 155 mm.
Foliation: The manuscript is foliated with the numbers i-ii + 1-42 + [iii], in pencil, in Roman and Arabic numerals, recto, upper right.

Collation

The manuscript consists of 3 quires, of which two are of twenty folios and the other is a binion.

  • Quires 1-210 ff. [i]-38
  • Quire 34 ff. 39-42

Condition

There are small tears to the edges of ff. 1 and 42, and some water staining.

Layout

A single column of 16-38 lines. 172-182 × 120-140 mm. On f. 6r, the text breaks off after six lines and part of the seventh, and continues on the next page. Part of the space left blank is filled with a passage of the text originally omitted from f. 5v, linked to the appropriate point by a reference mark. It would appear that the copyist realised while copying f. 6r that this text had been left out and gave over the remainder of the page to inserting it. On f. 24r the text breaks off after five lines and part of the sixth, but then after a blank space of a few lines it resumes in much smaller script and more densely packed lines than appear elsewhere.

Hand(s)

ff. 1r-7v, line 10 and ff. 8r-34r were copied by Hand A in an informal, scholarly mixed minuscule script, slanting to the right, in brown ink, with modest variation in letter size. There are deletions by strikethrough. (Deletion by expunctuation also appears, but this seems to be the work of a later hand.) This text written by this hand becomes considerably smaller from f. 19r onwards, with an associated increase in the number of lines.

Syllabic abbreviations and superscript word endings appear throughout the line. Breathings are round and mute iota is subscript. There is decorative use of the double dot and accentuation of all lengths of nomina sacra . Accents are sometimes joined to breathings, letters, abbreviations and nomina sacra strokes. Marginal quotation marks are used.

The modern eta, modern nu and sigma telikon are present.

Punctuation used includes the lower, middle and upper points, lower and middle commas, question mark and full stop.

The heading on f. 1r was copied by Hand B in upright mixed minuscule script, in red ink, with minimal variation in letter size.

Syllabic abbreviations appear throughout the line. Breathings are round. There is decorative use of the double dot and accentuation of all lengths of nomina sacra . Accents are sometimes joined to letters.

The modern eta, sigma telikon and loop epsilon are present.

Punctuation used includes the lower comma and full stop.

f. 7v, lines 10-19 was copied by Hand C in mixed minuscule script, slanting to the right, in brown ink, with modest variation in letter size.

Syllabic abbreviations and superscript word endings appear throughout the line. Breathings are round and mute iota is subscript. Accents are sometimes joined to letters.

The modern eta, modern nu, sigma telikon and loop epsilon are present.

Punctuation used includes the upper point and the lower and middle commas.

f. 41r was copied by Hand D in undisciplined mixed minuscule script, slanting to the right, in brown ink, with modest variation in letter size.

Syllabic abbreviations appear throughout the line. Breathings are round. There is decorative use of the double dot.

The modern eta, modern nu and sigma telikon are present.

Punctuation used includes the lower, middle and upper points and middle comma.

f. 42r-42v was copied by Hand E in a very undisciplined mixed minuscule script, slanting to the right, in brown ink, with modest variation in letter size.

Syllabic abbreviations and superscript word endings appear throughout the line. Breathings are round and mute iota is absent. There is accentuation of all lengths of nomina sacra .

The modern eta, modern nu and sigma telikon are present.

Punctuation used includes the middle point, lower comma and full stop.

Decoration

The text begins with a small ornamented initial in red ink (f. 1r). On ff. 1r-3v, Hand B has overwritten normal letters with red ink to make them into minor initials.

The beginning of the text is preceded by a simple vignette in red ink (f. 1r).

Additions

Hand A has made numerous marginal corrections, and added marginal numbers for subsections of arguments to ff. 9v-11r. Hand B has done likewise on (ff. 1r-3v). Other corrections have been made by another hand (e.g. f. 14r). This hand has also copied the heading to the text on the facing page, f. ii verso.

Two Greek quotations have been written twice each on f. i recto: Libanius , Progymnasmata 12.1.1 (TLG 2200.006); Agapetus , Capitula admonitoria 7 (TLG 2817.001). Another quotation has been added to f. 42v: Basil of Caesarea , Adversus Eunomium, vol. 29, p. 704 (TLG 2040.019). This is followed by a note regarding the text of Hermeias: ‘Ὁ Ἑρμείας μέμνηται ἐν Φαίδρω περὶ τῆς Ἀριστοτέλους ποιητικῆς’. Both were added earlier than the copying of the excerpt occupying most of this page.

Latin notes in various hands have been added to f. i recto, regarding another manuscript containing the same text (Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Barocci 90) and bibliographical references.

A Latin note of donation by Johannes Sambucus to Joachim Camerarius has been added to f. 1r: ‘Domino Ioachimo Camerario dedit Ioannes Sambucus Viennae V kalendis Octobriis 1568’.

The former classmarks 180 and C.49 have been marked on f. i recto.

Binding

18th-century binding with grey paper covering over couched-laminate boards, with a white parchment spine and plain pastedowns. The classmark appears on the spine on patches.

219 × 162 × 12 mm.

History

Origin: The manuscript was produced around 1550, as indicated by the watermarks. This is consistent with the style of script.

Provenance and Acquisition

Owned by the humanist scholar János Zsámboky (Johannes Sambucus) (1531-1584) .

Given by him to Joachim Camerarius the Elder (1500-1574) in Vienna on 5 October 1568.

Donated to Trinity College by the antiquary Roger Gale (1672-1744) in 1738.

Additional Information

Availability

Visitors to Trinity College who wish to consult Special Collections material are required to apply to the Library in advance of their visit. For information on eligibility and admission procedures see: Trinity College: Information for Readers.

Bibliography

    The western manuscripts in the library of Trinity College: a descriptive catalogue, James, M.R. (Cambridge, 3, Cambridge University Press, 1902)

Funding of Cataloguing

The Polonsky Foundation

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Cambridge Digital Library

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