Dated Greek Manuscripts from Cyprus to the Year 1570 (review)

158 Reviews respected (prince)' and is mistranslated by 'my fears'. One suspects also that the author may have misunderstood 'presentement', that 'entrepris' has been interpreted as a noun instead of the past participle that it is, and she has certainly omitted to render 'd'indigne memoire' in her text. Unfortunately, these sorts of mistakes occur from time to time. A reader who wishes to know what Christine really wrote must still have recourse to the original Medieval French text. Maxwell J. Walkley Department of French Studies University of Sydney Constantinides, Costas N. and Robert Browning, Dated Greek Manuscripts from Cyprus to the Year 1570 (Dumbarton Oaks Studies 30; Texts and Studies of the History of Cyprus 18) Nicosia, Cyprus Research Centre, 1993; cloth, pp. xxxvi, 449; 240 plates, 1 map; R.R.P. US$120.00. Of the nearly 900 surviving manuscripts connected with Cyprus, 114 are studied in this impressive volume, which breaks new ground in Greek manuscript studies in bringing together dated manuscripts from the same geographical area and the same cultural milieu. Constantinides and Browning have included dated or plausibly dated Greek manuscripts copied in Cyprus or by Cypriot copyists from 991-92 (Vat. Barber. Gr. 528) or 1062-63 (Paris. Gr. 1590) to c. 1570 (Oxford, Barocci 166) and in so doing have come across some manuscripts previously unknown or not recognised as having Cypriot connections. Relatively few manuscripts remain on Cyprus; some' 300 of the best manuscripts from the island were transferred to Paris in the seventeenth century, in particular to the collection of Jean Baptiste Colbert, minister of Louis XTV, and are now in the Bibliotheque Nationale. One, a lectionary of epistles and gospels, acquired in Florence from a book dealer by Professor J. R. B. Stewart, is held in the Rare Book Library of the University of Sydney (Stewart I, dated to 1544). The palaeographical and codicological descriptions given are as detailed as practicable, including a full description of the contents, the writing material and condition of preservation, the subscription of the manuscript, a brief description of script together with drawings of characteristic letters and ligatures, an indication of the illuminations and ornaments, a description of Reviews 159 the binding together with a note of any later restorations of the manuscript, the quire composition, a discussion of the most important later notes found in the manuscript, a brief history of the manuscript, and finally a full bibliography. Three introductory chapters provide background information relevant to the manuscripts described, including a useful summary of the history of the island. The volume also contains a map of the island and seven indexes. The material presented here throws light on the history of Cyprus under Byzantine, Lusignan and Venetian domination and in particular on the Greek culture of the island during the four centuries of Latin mle. The later notes, enthymeseis, preserved in the manuscripts are invaluable evidence for local social and economic history. In Paris. Gr. 1129 (copied in April 1353) the reader can follow the developments in the life of Michael, sponsor of the volume, and protopapas of Marthasa, for a period of some forty years. A family tree is appended by the authors on p. 216. Some of the individuals which emerge most clearly from these pages are the copyists. Vindobon. Phil. Gr. 155, dated to 1551-52, was the work of Mathousalas Macheir, a travelling scribe. A prosopographical note of his tells us that everywhere he went 'this strange and neurotic scribe . . . met with enemies and thieves who stole his money . . . surprisingly his enemies were both Latins and Orthodox, including the circle of the oecumenical patriarch of Constantinople' (p. 320). Both the contents and the calligraphy of the manuscripts shed valuable light on Cypriot literacy. The fact that a local scribe (Basil, taboullarios of Paphos) had developed a remarkably calligraphic script around 1200, as shown in Paris. Supp. Gr. 1317, is 'perhaps an indication of the flourishing of scribal activities on the island during the Comnenian period' (p. 98) and clearly scriptoria were operating as early as 1200. The contents of the volumes range from synaxaria, menaia, selections from the Old and N e w Testament, gospel lectionaries and works of the...