Manuscripts

Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)

literally, writings of any kind, whether on paper or any other material, in contradistinction to printed matter. All the existing ancient manuscripts are written on parchment or on paper. The paper is sometimes Egyptian (prepared from the real papyrus shrub), sometimes cotton or silk paper (charta bombycina). Black and colored inks were used, but the latter chiefly for ornamentation. On rare occasions gold and silver were the mediums, though from their cost they are oftenest confined to initial letters. With respect to external form, manuscripts are divided into rolls (volumina), and into stitched books or volumes (properly codices). Among the ancients the writers of manuscripts were mainly freedmen or slaves (scribæ librarii). At a later period the monks were largely engaged in the production of manuscripts. In all the principal monasteries was a scriptorium, in which the scriptor or scribe could pursue his work in quiet. The most ancient manuscripts still preserved are those written on papyrus which have been found in Egyptian tombs. Several of these are of date considerably before the Christian era. Next to them in point of age are the Latin manuscripts found at Herculaneum. Then there are the manuscripts of the imperial era of Rome, among which are the Vatican Terence and Septuagint, and the Alexandrine codex of the British Museum. Numerous manuscripts of the Old and New Testaments of the 2d and 3d centuries exist; and among those of profane authors may be noted that of Vergil (4th century), in the Laurentian Library at Florence; a Livy (5th century), in the Imperial Library of Vienna; the Jewish Antiquities of Josephus, in the Ambrosian Library, Milan, etc. It was a common custom in the Middle Ages to obliterate and erase writings on parchment, tends to exhaust the soil of its air food for the purpose of writing on the maand ash constituents. It becomes, there- terials anew, n manuscripts thus treated being called "palimpsests." The art of illuminating manuscripts dates from the remotest antiquity. The Egyptian papyri were ornamented with vignettes or miniatures attached to the chapters, either designed in black outlines or painted in primary colors in distemper. From the 8th to the 11th century the initial letters in use were composed of figures of men, quadrupeds, fishes, birds, etc. In the 16th century the art of illumination became extinct. Some attempts have been made to revive it by adorning paper, parchment, and vellum with designs in color or metals.