Volume 2

Universal palaeography, or, Fac-similes of writings of all nations and periods, copied from the most celebrated and authentic manuscripts in the libraries and archives of France, Italy, Germany, and England / by M.J.B. Silvestre ; accompanied by an historical and descriptive text and introduction by Champollion-Figeac and Aimé Champollion, fils ; translated from the French and edited, with corrections and notes, by Sir Frederic Maddan ... in two volumes.

Joseph-Balthazar Silvestre

Date:: 1849-1850

Credit: Universal palaeography, or, Fac-similes of writings of all nations and periods, copied from the most celebrated and authentic manuscripts in the libraries and archives of France, Italy, Germany, and England / by M.J.B. Silvestre ; accompanied by an historical and descriptive text and introduction by Champollion-Figeac and Aimé Champollion, fils ; translated from the French and edited, with corrections and notes, by Sir Frederic Maddan ... in two volumes. Source: Wellcome Collection.

10/458 page 368

$it was engraved on seven copper-plates, which were not, however, used. These plates having been discovered in the Museum of the Louvre by M. Champollion Figeac, he obtained an impression from them, which was immediately transferred to lithographic stones, and he was enabled by that means to publish, for the first time, a fac-simile of the whole in 1837, in the Collection de Charted Ratines sur papyrus appartenant a la Bibliotheque Roy ale. The entire text contains five official records of the opening of so many testaments, at the request of the executors, before the magistrate of Ravenna, in the presence of the protectors of the Church of that city, who were interested in these pro¬ ceedings. The most ancient of these testaments is of the year 474 ; that of Flavius Constantius, a dyer, is dated A.D. 521 # ; and the most recent, made by George, a silk-merchant, the son of Julian of Antioch, is of the year 552. This being the latest date in any portion of the roll, it is certain that we have before us an invaluable specimen of the cursive or diplomatic Roman writing of the middle of the sixth century. The following is the reading of the first two lines in the Plate, which are incomplete on the left-hand side, and somewhat mutilated on the right. (line 1.) \_Ex\ num. in l. p. o. sanus, sana mente integroque .. , c\onsi\l\io\. (line 2.) \ppui suscribtujri vet signaturi sunt in h[ac] cartula test amentum. The resemblance of this writing to that of the Imperial Rescript figured in Plate XCVI1L, which is certainly of the third or fourth century, will furnish some useful observations founded on the similarity or disagreement of the characters in these two documents. Four of the letters, in fact, are alike in both, namely, the i, l, g, o, but all the rest are totally dis- 1 he MM, Chanipoflion state this date erroneously a.d. 480.—Ed.$

Licence and re-use

Contents

Volumes