Ambrosiaster, Quaestiones Veteris et Novi Testamenti, two fragments from leaves from a decorated manuscript, in Latin, on parchment [France or Low Countries, tenth century or c. 1000] Two fragments, with remains of 36 lines in dark brown ink in a fine Carolingian minuscule with pronounced st-ligatures and some archaic capitals, chapter headings “XIII” and “XI” in terracotta red, second fragment with 42mm. of lower margin remaining, loss of only a few letters from edge of each column (thus original leaf double column, at least 355mm. high, and probably c.190mm. wide), folds and scuffs concomitant with reuse in binding (laid down on card with note in French recording their survival in the binding of a copy of Quintilian, Declamationes, printed in Paris in 1542 by Simon de Colines), overall good and legible condition, cuttings 310 by 65mm. and 335 by 65mm. Ambrosiaster lived in the second half of the fourth century, was one of the most important voices of early Christianity, and yet remains one of its least known figures. He is perhaps a victim of the success of his own designs. He lived in an age of strongly held and argued beliefs, but offered a moderate and calm interpretation of Christian teachings, often sparring directly with Jerome (when the latter wrote in a letter in 384 that certain “two-legged donkeys” were criticising his revision of the New Testament, it was in response to arguments in the present text). Arguing with figures such as Jerome was never going to make the author here popular, and so his works appeared either anonymously or under the name of the recently dead St. Ambrose. They also appear in manuscripts ascribed to Hilary and have been printed among the works of Augustine. In the sixteenth century Erasmus named him Ambrosiaster in order to distinguish him from Ambrose. The fragments here contain parts of an important early commentary on the Old and New Testament (here with parts of quaest. XI, XXIII and XXXV), and are among the very earliest copies of the text to survive. Copies of extracts of the text interspersed with that of Theodore of Mopsuestia were produced at Corbie in the eighth century (these probably descending from a North African copy from the library of Cassiodorus at Vivarium: see Ganz, Corbie in the Carolingian Renaissance, 1990, pp.40, 126-7, and lot 17 in the Schøyen sale in Sotheby’s, 10 July 2012), but no pure text is extant before the ninth century. Souter listed only 23 extant manuscripts (A Study of Ambrosiaster, 1905, pp.18-19), of which six date to the ninth century and three to the tenth or eleventh century. No copy is recorded outside of institutional ownership, and these are probably the only manuscript witnesses to be recorded in the open market.
Ambrosiaster, Quaestiones Veteris et Novi Testamenti, two fragments from leaves from a decorated manuscript, in Latin, on parchment [France or Low Countries, tenth century or c. 1000] Two fragments, with remains of 36 lines in dark brown ink in a fine Carolingian minuscule with pronounced st-ligatures and some archaic capitals, chapter headings “XIII” and “XI” in terracotta red, second fragment with 42mm. of lower margin remaining, loss of only a few letters from edge of each column (thus original leaf double column, at least 355mm. high, and probably c.190mm. wide), folds and scuffs concomitant with reuse in binding (laid down on card with note in French recording their survival in the binding of a copy of Quintilian, Declamationes, printed in Paris in 1542 by Simon de Colines), overall good and legible condition, cuttings 310 by 65mm. and 335 by 65mm. Ambrosiaster lived in the second half of the fourth century, was one of the most important voices of early Christianity, and yet remains one of its least known figures. He is perhaps a victim of the success of his own designs. He lived in an age of strongly held and argued beliefs, but offered a moderate and calm interpretation of Christian teachings, often sparring directly with Jerome (when the latter wrote in a letter in 384 that certain “two-legged donkeys” were criticising his revision of the New Testament, it was in response to arguments in the present text). Arguing with figures such as Jerome was never going to make the author here popular, and so his works appeared either anonymously or under the name of the recently dead St. Ambrose. They also appear in manuscripts ascribed to Hilary and have been printed among the works of Augustine. In the sixteenth century Erasmus named him Ambrosiaster in order to distinguish him from Ambrose. The fragments here contain parts of an important early commentary on the Old and New Testament (here with parts of quaest. XI, XXIII and XXXV), and are among the very earliest copies of the text to survive. Copies of extracts of the text interspersed with that of Theodore of Mopsuestia were produced at Corbie in the eighth century (these probably descending from a North African copy from the library of Cassiodorus at Vivarium: see Ganz, Corbie in the Carolingian Renaissance, 1990, pp.40, 126-7, and lot 17 in the Schøyen sale in Sotheby’s, 10 July 2012), but no pure text is extant before the ninth century. Souter listed only 23 extant manuscripts (A Study of Ambrosiaster, 1905, pp.18-19), of which six date to the ninth century and three to the tenth or eleventh century. No copy is recorded outside of institutional ownership, and these are probably the only manuscript witnesses to be recorded in the open market.
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.jpg "Source: Christie's")
.jpg "Source: Christie's")
