Vaticanus graecus 2244 – H

Previous descriptions: Lilla (1985, 393‒5).

Reproductions: –

Family: d²

Siglum: H

Shelfmark: Vaticanus graecus 2244

Date: Late 13th or early 14th century

Format: oriental paper, 172×124 mm, II + 149 ff.

Material: paper of poor quality, text losses on ff. 1r‒2v and on some of the last folios (145‒149), which are partly torn. The inks used by hands B and F are fading and appear difficult to read on several folios without using Wood’s lamp.

Binding: not original, middle of 19th century.

Watermarks: none.

Scribes: Lilla (1985, 395) identifies nine scribes. A: ff. 1r‒70v; B: ff. 71r‒78v; C: ff. 79r‒80r; D: ff. 80v‒81v; E: ff. 82r‒97r, f. 124v, ll. 1‒8; F: ff. 97v‒149r with the exception of f. 124v, ll. 1‒8; G: f. 149v; H: several notes on f. 149v.

Annotations: the same hand, dating from the 15th century, wrote in a red ink δοῦλος θεοῦ Δημίτριος ‘Demetrius servant of God’ on f. 6v and ‘Dimitrij de Co(n)stantin(o)pli’ on f. 78v.

1 (ff. 1r‒149r) Pollux, Onomasticon. Incipit: θεὸς καὶ θεὸν καὶ δαίμονες (1.5). Explicit: κόρημα· κι[βωτόν· λύ]χνον (10.192). It covers Pollux’s text from beginning to end, but with several omissions: book 1 (ff. 1r‒19v; ends at 1.135 τὰ δὲ ὑπ’αὐτῷ ὀφρύες with no sign of a lacuna or material loss, the text simply continues with book 2; besides, owing to the loss of a folio between 6 and 7, as pointed out by Lilla, H also omits the text from φρικώδεις ὅρκους 1.39 to 1.45 πρὸς ἓν εἶδος), 2 (ff. 19v‒35v; it begins from 2.65 σῦκα τὰ ἐπὶ τῶν ὀφθαλμῶν and continues until the end), 3 (ff. 35v‒45r), 4 (ff. 45r‒59v), 5 (ff. 59v‒67r), 6 (ff. 67r‒80v), 7 (ff. 80v‒95r), 8 (ff. 95r‒115r), 9 (ff. 115v‒134r) and 10 (ff. 134r‒149r). At the end (f. 149r) it is possible to read only part of the Closing EpigramClosing epigram (Pollux), since the folio is torn.

2 (f. 149v) the later hand G wrote in dark ink some liturgical annotations (see Lilla 1985, 394).

H is one of the witnesses of the Onomasticon dating from the Palaeologan Age. It was written on oriental paper without watermarks, but on paleographic grounds it is possible to date it at the end of the 13th or the beginning of the 14th century. The notes on f. 6v and 78v, the first in Greek and the other in Latin, tell us that in the 15th century it belonged to one Demetrius of Constantinople, but nothing is known about this person. The manuscript was found in the library of Giovanni SalviatiGiovanni Salviati (1490–1553; see DBI 90.38–40; Cataldi Palau 1995, 71), a Renaissance scholar, cardinal, and political figure. Salviati’s manuscripts were later owned by the Colonna family in Rome from the 18th century (but the exact year is unknown) and have been included in the Vatican Library since 1902 (see Lilla 1985, XI–XVII).