Eugippius, Excerpta ex operibus Sancti Augustini, extracts from the works of St. Augustine, in Latin, manuscript on vellum [Germany (most probably Fulda), second quarter of the ninth century]

a single leaf, 315mm. by 234mm., single column, 35 lines in brown ink in a professional rounded Carolingian minuscule, titles in ornamental majuscules, three large simple initials, some folds and small stains, trimmed down outer edge clipping only edges of some letters, hessian binding

provenance

(1) Most probably from the imperial abbey of Fulda (founded 751), one of the preeminent centres of scholarship and book production in Western Europe: both Bernhard Bischoff and Klaus Gugel have attributed the hand to a scribe working in that house. The leaf probably dates to the abbacy of Hrabanus Maurus (c.780-856; held office 822-42), perhaps the greatest intellectual of Carolingian Europe second only to his teacher, Alcuin (c.730-804). It doubtless was written as part of his enrichment of the library there, which is recorded as producing so many volumes that they defied attempts to count them. He may well have overseen the production of this vital text, and perhaps scrutinised its pages.

(2) Ludwig Rosenthal, Hilversum, Netherlands, acquired from Hertzberger & Co., Amsterdam, 22 June 1966, lot 1120 (as 'Tractatus de virtutibus'); passing to his nephew Bernard Rosenthal; Quaritch, Bookhands III, cat.1088 (1988), no.10; Schøyen MS 78.

text

Eugippius' Excerpta is an important text. It was compiled in the last years of the fifth century in southern Italy at the request of Proba, Boethius' sister, and contains an anthology of quotations from the works of St. Augustine. The extracts were made earlier than the extant manuscripts of Augustine, and thus are often the earliest witnesses. Eugippius was an active figure in Ostrogothic-ruled Italy, composing a number of works (including a now-lost monastic rule), and was praised for his learning by Cassiodorus. After the death of his patron, St. Severinus of Noricum in 492, he left northern Europe and founded a monastery in Naples.

Only five manuscripts of the present text are known from before the ninth century. By the early eighth century the text was known in France (BnF. ms lat.2110), and a copy was in the monastery of St-Amand in Flanders during the abbacy of Arno of Freising (d.821; it survives in two fragments: New York, Columbia University, Plimpton MS 48, and that sold in our rooms, 17 June 1997, lot 8, now Beinecke MS 912). Arno later held office as the archbishop of Salzburg, and he may have been directly responsible for the appearance of the text in the German monastic libraries of Freising (Munich, Staatsbibl. Clm.6247) and with the present leaf, Fulda. This leaf includes chs.2-4, published in Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum, 1885, p.49.

Despite Bischoff's assertion that "es scheint kein anderes Fragment dieser Hs. bekannt zu sein", another is in the Lilly Library, Indiana (Ricketts frag.157; acquired from Joseph Baer, Frankfurt, in 1925: see de Hamel, 'Life of Saint Martin', p.117, and Gilding the Lilly, pp.16-17, no.5).

Exhibited in the Hessische Landesbibliothek in 1994 (see below).

literature

K. Gugel, 'Aus fuldischen Handschriften. Ein bisher unbekanntes Fragment aus einer Fuldaer Handschrift des früher 9. Jahrhunderts', Fuldaer Geschichtsblätter 67, 1991, pp.65-79; H. Broszinski and S. Heyne, Fuldische Handschriften aus Hessen, mit weiteren Leihgaben aus Basel, Oslo, dem Vatikan und Wolfenbüttel, 1994, no. 20, p.60;  C. de Hamel, 'The Life of Saint Martin', in Papyri Graecae Schøyen, 2010, p.117; C. de Hamel, Gilding the Lilly: A Hundred Medieval and Illuminated Manuscripts in the Lilly Library, 2010, pp.16-17, no.5