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The Vatican Leaves of the Skeireins in High-Contrast Reproduction

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

William H. Bennett
William H. Bennett*
Affiliation:
The Mediaeval Institute, Notre Dame, Ind.
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Extract

Three leaves of the Skeireins (III, IV, VIII) are in the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, where they have been incorporated into Cod. 5750. Like the Ambrosian fragments of the Skeireins document, they have been badly damaged in the course of the last fourteen centuries, all extant leaves having been torn from the codex binding, erased with pumice, written over with Latin, and stained with tincture of nut-gall. The remaining edges of some inner margins are badly tattered, and the Gothic text is frequently obscured by heavy smudges as well as by the superscribed Latin. On the whole, however, the leaves have suffered more from bleaching than from any other single factor. The effects of bleaching are most noticeable along page margins, where a steady penetration of light has nearly obliterated some parts of the text; the torn, extremely narrow inner margins have been especially vulnerable. Some marginal additions are no longer visible under ordinary lighting, and although interlinear corrections have been less subject to bleaching, they are often hidden by smudges or by superscribed Latin characters. Outlines of letters showing through the parchment, holes, blots, and flaking along inner margins also offer some difficulty but are generally less troublesome than bleaching and smudging. In the prefecture of Msgr. Achille Ratti (later Pius XI) the Vatican leaves were coated with gelatin in order to prevent their further deterioration, but the marks of age and prior damage are of course ineradicable.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 69 , Issue 3 , June 1954 , pp. 655 - 676
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1954

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References

1 The present study has been made possible through the cooperation of Msgr. A. M. Albareda, Prefect of the Vaticana, who has provided photographs of iii, iv, and viii and has aided greatly in determining the most effective method of photographing the leaves; Publications in Mediaeval Studies, which has supported the project by a grant extended through the general editor, Dr. Philip S. Moore, C.S.C.; and Dr. Alberto Pescetto, who has helped in negotiations with the Vatican authorities.

2 Editors and commentators will hereafter be designated by their last names: Ernst Bernhardt, Vulfila oder die gotische Bibel (Halle, 1875); E. H. A. Cromhout, Skeireins aivaggeljons þairh Iohannen (Delft, 1900); Ernst Dietrich, “Die Bruchstücke der Skeireins,” Texte und Untersuchungen zur altgermanischen Religionsgeschichte, ed. Fr. Kauffmann, ii (Strassburg, 1903); H. C. von der Gabelentz, rev. of Massmann's 1st ed., Jenaische allgemeine Literatur-Zeitung, No. 61 (1835), and with J. Lobe, Ulfilas, ii (Leipzig, 1843-46); Moritz Heyne, Friedrich Ludwig Stamm's Ulfilas, 8th and 9th eds. (Paderborn and Münster, 1885, 1896); H. Jantzen, Gotische Sprachdenkmäler, 3rd ed. (Leipzig, 1905), containing iii-iv only; M. H. Jellinek, rev. of van der Waals ed., AfdA, xx (1894), 148-162; Ernst A. Kock, Die Skeireins (Lund, 1913); Jakob Lundgren, Skeireins aivaggeljons þairh Iohannen (Upsala, 1860); H. F. Massmann, Skeireins aiwaggeljons þairh Iohannen (Munich, 1834), and Ulfilas: Die gotischen Sprachdenkmäler (Stuttgart, 1857); Erich Mayr, Die Skeireins (Munich, 1913); Heinrich Rückert, “Die gotischen absoluten Nominativ- und Accusativ-Constructionen,” Germania, xi (1866), 415-423; W. Streitberg, Die gotische Bibel, i, 2nd ed. (Heidelberg, 1919), with the Skeireins text of the 1908 ed.; Alexander Vollmer, Die Bruchstücke der Skeireins (Munich, 1862); H. G. van der Waals, Skeireins aiwaggeljons þairh Iohannen (Leyden, 1892); Wilhelm Wackernagel, Gotische und altsächsische Lesestücke (Basel, 1871), containing iii-v only; F. Wrede, Stamm-Heyne's Ulfilas, 13th-14th ed. (Paderborn, 1920), with the Skeireins text of the 1908 ed.

3 Scriptorum veterum nova collectio, viii (Rome, 1833), Appendix. The first volume of the Nova collectio (Rome, 1825), p. xxxvi, had already reproduced 3 lines of Leaf viii in facsimile.

4 Codex readings will be indicated by abbreviations: K = Fr. Kauffmann, according to the Dietrich ed. (see n. 2, above), pp. 4-15; M = facsimile in Massmann's 1st ed. (see n. 2), pp. 3-34; U=A. Uppström, Fragmenta gothica selecta (Upsala, 1861), pp. 15-45.

5 At my request the Vatican made test photographs under monochromatic lighting in 1948 and again with new equipment in 1951. With ultraviolet radiation, the gelatin produced a general darkening of the background with an 85-90% loss of contrast. For helpful advice on the “gelatin problem” I am indebted to Dr. L. Bendikson of the Huntington Library.

6 Line negatives and contact prints have been made in this country with the following equipment: a large commercial copying camera using a Zeiss Apo-Tessar lens 1:9 (f=45 cm.) at f 22 and a scale of approximately 3:2 with exposure from 20 to 35 seconds; two arc lamps using 220 V at 25 amp.; Eastman Kodalith Film, Type 2, and Fine Line Developer; No. 5 AZO single weight paper (for prints ranging from 5 to 120 seconds) or Eastman Kodalith A paper (for prints up to 180 seconds) with lighting of 100-160 W; and Kodak D 72 (or Kodalith Fine Line) Developer. Vacuum printing has been used for Plates xxxv, xxxiv, and lxvi, below, but is not generally necessary for photographs of this size. The line negatives have been made by William Cashman, the prints (except xxxi, xxxiv, and lxvi) by Mrs. Leo F. Kuntz.

7 For this date I am indebted to Professor E. A. Lowe of the Institute for Advanced Study. In PMLA, lxv (1950), 1263, I suggested the 8th century. Early estimates (e.g., M, p. 55) describe the superscribed Latin as belonging to the 9th century.

8 The final i's of 11. 23-25 are now barely discernible except in high-contrast reproduction, but all readings (including the present) agree on their occurrence.

9 Cf. Sydney Fairbanks and F. P. Magoun, Jr., “On Writing and Printing Gothic,” Speculum, xv (1940), 317-319.

10 The d of andrunnun, which has an unusually tall left stroke, has parallels elsewhere in the MS. In the same column, e.g., a similar d occurs in the first (though not in the last) syllable of daupidai, iiia 3,

11 See Fairbanks and Magoun, 320,

12 Dietrich, p. xix, n. 25.

13 “Die Mailänder Blätter der Skeireins,” ZfdPh., xxxi (1899), 449.

14 Bernhardt, whose attitude toward the scribe is typical of editors influenced by U's reading of the codex, remarks (p. 618), “Leider jedoch sind dieselben [the Skeireins leaves] durch den gedankenlosen abschreiber in sehr verwahrlostem zustande auf uns gekommen.” And similarly, on p. 619: “Alles dies [a number of inferred errors] war nur einem rein mechanisch verfahrenden abschreiber möglich, der für den sinn dessen, was er schrieb, kein verständnis hatte.”