Saturday, 23 July 2011

Membra disiecta


I bought this vellum-bound Concilium Tridentinum/Index Librorum Prohibitorum more than 20 years ago on a book fair in Amsterdam.
There were scraps of parchment from an earlier manuscript on the inside, which had been used to sow the sections on, thus producing a book block. In addition, it contains pieces of a text printed in italics on vellum. These Membra disiecta can be quite difficult to identify, but these were easy to google.

Codex I




















Vellum scraps app 48 mm wide



Partial transcription: [...]iti sunt. Qni ego i[...] meus in co[...]
matches with:

Vulg. Ps 37:17-18
...et dum commoventur pedes mei,
super me magna locuti sunt.
18 Quoniam ego in flagella paratus sum,
et dolor meus in conspectu meo semper.

KJV 38:16-17 For I said, Hear me, lest otherwise they should rejoice over me:
when my foot slippeth, they magnify themselves against me.
For I am ready to halt, and my sorrow is continually before me.




Partial transcription: [...]magna ecce labia[...]
matches with:

Vulg. Ps 39:9
...adnuntiavi iustitiam in ecclesia
magna ecce labia mea non prohibebo Domine tu scisti

KJV 40:9 I have preached righteousness in the great congregation:
lo, I have not refrained my lips, O LORD, thou knowest.


About Membra disiecta


Codex II
Pieces of printed vellum, which would suggest an incunabulum or post-incunabulum.

Below: Loose vellum slip [no longer interlaced]
transcription: *ten*



















Top headband
transcription: ?le-/nis /in [or de-]



















tail headband
transcription: ** pr/quám / Le





















The type used is clearly Italic, not unlike early Garamond as it appears to me.

The book proper, opened on title page with membra disjecta visible.

Published Cologne, Germany 1664.
Hand-written Ex-libris on title page, name struck through:
Ex libris B. S**ellmayr
Hand-written Ex-libris on left endpaper:
Ex libris Ioannis Fransisci/Wagner IV[=JU] Doctoris
Bookblock dim. app. 177x109x44 mm
Laced vellum binding.

Printed contents of the book.
Note Martin Luther [as Martinus Lutherus] banned.


Literature:
JMM Hermans, Het Middeleeuwse boek in Groningen, verkenningen rond fragmenten van handschrift en druk
Groningen : Universiteitsbibliotheek Groningen, 1980.

No comments: