Illuminated manuscripts in classical and mediaeval times, their art and their technique

by J. H. Middleton

Herculaneum library.

Herculaneum library.Unfortunately the large library of manuscripts, consisting of nearly 1800 papyrus rolls, which was discovered about the middle of the last century in the lava-buried town of Herculaneum, has not as yet been found to contain any works of much value or interest. These rolls are all charred by the heat of the lava, which overwhelmed the town, and the work of unrolling and deciphering the brittle carbonized paper necessarily goes on very slowly. The owner of this library appears to have been an enthusiastic student of the Epicurean philosophy in its later development, and his books are mainly dull, pedantic treatises on the various sciences such as mathematics, music and the like, treated from the Epicurean point of view, or rather from that of the Graeco-Roman followers of Epicurus.

Papyrus rolls.

Papyrus rolls.All these manuscripts appear to be of about the same date, not many years older, that is, than the year 79 A.D., when the eruption of Vesuvius overwhelmed Herculaneum and Pompeii in the same catastrophe. They are written in fine bold uncial characters without illumination or ornament of any kind on rolls of papyrus nine or ten inches in breadth. In their present burnt and shrunken condition the rolls average about two inches in diameter, but they were probably larger than that in their original state; see Palaeo. Soc. Pl. 151, 152; the other published 'facsimiles' of the Herculaneum manuscripts are not perfectly trustworthy.

Herodotus on MSS.

Herodotus on MSS.In the time of Herodotus (c. 460 B.C.) papyrus paper (βιβλία or χάρται)[^[12]] appears to have been used by the Greeks almost to the exclusion of parchment or other kinds of skin. In his interesting section on the introduction of the art of writing into Greece by the Phoenicians, Herodotus (v. 58) remarks that the Ionians in old times used to call papyrus rolls διφθέραι or "parchment," because they had once been in the habit of using skins of sheep or goats for manuscripts, at a time when papyrus paper was not to be had; and, Herodotus goes on to say, "Barbarians even now are accustomed to write their manuscripts on parchment."

Use of parchment.

Use of parchment.Manuscripts on parchment; this old use of parchment for manuscripts was again introduced among the Greeks by Eumenes II., king of Pergamus from 197 to 159 B.C. At this time men had forgotten that parchment had ever been used for books, and so Varro, quoted by Pliny (Hist. Nat. XIII. 70), tells us that Eumenes invented this use of parchment; the real fact being that he re-introduced an old custom, and stimulated the careful preparation of parchment for the sake of the great library which he was anxious to make the most important collection of manuscripts in the world.

Pergamena.

Pergamena.Varro tells us that he was driven to this use of parchment by the jealousy of the Egyptian King Ptolemy Epiphanes, whose enormous library at Alexandria was the only existing rival to the Pergamene collection. One of the Greek names for parchment, Pergamena, was derived from the fact of its being so largely made for the Pergamene Kings Eumenes and Attalus, both of whom were not only great patrons of literature and collectors of ancient manuscripts, but were also enthusiastic buyers of pictures, statues, rich textiles and works of art of every class. The other word for parchment used for manuscripts is membrana.