Anno Mundi MMMMMMMDXXXIV · xxiii non. Oct. Brother Photios a patristic florilegium, in preparation

On the Devout Hand: A Brief Codicological Note

"Vespers are near; the folio will not be finished today."

Vesperae propinquae sunt; folium hodie non finietur.

Abstract

A small but persistent marginalium at f. cxcvi r of a patristic florilegium, in preparation prompts these notes. The annotation, in cinnabar, has been variously read; we present here the lectio of the desk, with such hesitations as the corrector has permitted us to keep.

Context

Such notes are easily dismissed as ephemera; we are not in the business of dismissing things. The smallest marginalium tells us, often, what the principal text declines to.

Paleographic Note

The hand here is upright minuscule of the tenth-century convention, with the characteristic narrow abbreviation stroke and the slightly hooked ligated st. The ink, examined under low magnification, shows the characteristic feathering of a hurried calamus; we infer either a draught from the cloister door or a second hand returning to the line, with the corrector preferring the latter.

Notes

We have, on advice, not pursued the matter of the dropped line further.
An anonymous reader has questioned this attribution; we remain confident.

The hand of the desk has done what it could. Where it has failed, charge that failure to Br. Damianus, who suggested otherwise and was overruled. Calamus laetatur explicit habendo.

Other Hands

Annotations by other scribes, in the order in which they were entered into the margins.

Br. Nikephoros ad f. cxcvi r, lin. xvi

The lectio is correct as it stands; further interpretation is not warranted.
Br. Cyril ad f. cxcvi v, lin. xxv

On reflection: the cat may have been at the desk during the original copying.