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.

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talents to copy one of the most useful works of the celebrated Roman orator. The two specimens of writing commence with the words:— Sepe & multu[m] hoc mecum cogitavi, boni ne an mali, etc. Et si in negotiis familiarib?is impediti, yix satis ocium studio sup- peditare possumws, etc. PLATES CLXXVII, OLXXVIII. CAPETIAN WRITING. XI™ CENTURY, LATIN BIBLE OF CARDINAL MAZARIN. The manuscript from which the subjects of these Plates are copied, may be considered as one of the most remarkable pro¬ ductions of the graphic art in the eleventh century, not only from the careful execution of the text, but also from its great size and extent. It contains the entire Bible, occupying 732 pages in double columns, with fifty-nine lines in each; each page being not less than 18 inches high and 13 wide. The vellum is of the finest quality, although not quite so white on one side as the other. Each gathering is composed of four leaves, so arranged as to bring together the white pages and the yellowish ones; so that on opening the volume, the same shade of color is preserved. A great number of gigantic letters containing figures, and ornamented with colored patterns or embroidered, serve as initials to the principal divisions of the Bible, and an endless number of black or red majuscules of various sizes, more or less ornamented, are placed at the commencement of the chapters or paragraphs. The tables of each book are written

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