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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$the Plate. A crowd of people run before the Saviour, and strew palm-branches and garments in the way. The architec¬ ture of the houses, the costumes, head-dresses, and the form of the cross which surmounts the edifice, would lead us to infer that this drawing was copied from a Greek or Byzantine model. The first line of the text, written in Roman rustic capitals, indicates that it is part of the preface to the fourth book. This preface is in rhyming hemistichs: the large initial letters of each distich, in vermilion, are also Roman capitals, mingled with uncials: one of the T’s is forked at the base. The body of the text is written in ordinary Caroline minuscules, with most of the words divided; the top-strokes clavate and ob¬ liquely truncated, the tails short and pointed ; the bases of m, n, and r, inclined sometimes to the left, and sometimes to the right, and & introduced into the middle of words. The reading of the text is not difficult*:— Nil thie euuarton binoti . machont thaz girati . ioh xpec \Kristes~] todesf tliurub not . ther hut sih liab& gienot. Biglnnent frammort uuisen . uuio sie inan firliesen . ioh thaz 16 thenkit iro miiat . uuio sie firthuesben thaz guat. Nu uillih scriban frammort. er selbo rihte mir thaz uuort . uuio druhtin selbo thaz biuuarb. er sines thankes bi unsih starb. These venerable relics of the literary antiquities of Ger¬ many have been sought after, and regarded with the utmost veneration by the learned in that country. * In Schilter, tom. i., p, 234.—Ed. f Originally written dodes.—Ed.$

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