Leaf from a large manuscript Lectionary in Beneventan minuscule, in Latin, on vellum [southern Italy (duchy of Benevento), twelfth century]

single leaf, 420mm. by 303mm., double column, 31 lines in black ink in angular Beneventan bookhand, rubrics in red, capitals touched in yellow and iridescent red, three 2-line simple red initials, one 2-line initial in red, yellow and green (some damage to upper part), recovered from a binding with some small smudges, stains and holes, and verso more seriously soiled with scribbled seventeenth-century notes indicating that this was reused for an account book of 1636

Beneventan script is the strange and enigmatic living fossil of the paleographical family-tree. Alongside Merovingian scripts and Visigothic minuscule, it descended from Roman cursive models, evolving the cacophony of ligatures and connecting strokes which give it its distinctive broken and visually impenetrable appearance. Examples survive from the eighth century, but unlike the vast majority of late antique and early Dark Age scripts it was not swept away by the Carolingian reforms of the ninth century, and continued in use in Benevento throughout much of the Middle Ages. Most surviving examples to come to the market are small scraps only, and it is rare to find a leaf of this size and quality.