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.

48/458 page 406

$The author of this treatise on the Seven Seals may be classed with those writers who have wasted their real talents in these fruitless lucubrations. But little is known of him. He names himself in his work Benedictus Barensis, from being a native of Bari, a city of Apulia, and Mabillon supposed that he was living in the year 1227. His treatise is divided into 361 chapters, and has never been printed, although, according to the Abbate de Rozan'*, it is not destitute of merit. He even judges it superior to many of the compositions of the thirteenth century, when the neglect of letters led to the production of little else than trivial works, barbarous in their language, and trifling in their object. The same writer discovered in the necrology of the abbey that its author died in 1220; thus correcting the opinion of Mabillon, who relied upon a note much more recent than the manuscript itself. M. de Rozan also ascertained, that this was the iden¬ tical manuscript presented by the author to the abbot of La Cava, named Balsamon, about the year 1213. This circum¬ stance, in fact, is the subject of the painting represented in the lower part of the Plate, and which occurs towards the end of the manuscript, as proved by the two legends inscribed on it. An abbot, mitred and holding his crosier, is seated on a chair of antique form, with his feet on a foot-stool, and near his head is written Dominus Abbas Balsamus. An elderly monk kneeling, accompanied by another much younger, pre¬ sents to the abbot a book with three clasps, and beneath him is his name, D. Benedictus Barensis, Auctor libri. There can be no doubt, that this painting is contemporary with the manu¬ script itself, and it may be considered as a valuable illustration of the habit of the Benedictine order in the thirteenth century. The upper part of the Plate is occupied by a fac-simile of the text of the work. The first line in red, full of abbrevi¬ ations, is to be read, Incip\it] p\ro\logus in libro de Septe\m\ * Lettera, etc., p. 64.$

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