A Sixth-Century Fragment of the Letters of Pliny the Younger - A Study of Six Leaves of an Uncial Manuscript Preserved - in the Pierpont Morgan Library New York by E. A. (Elias Avery) Lowe;Edward Kennard Rand
page 8 of 131 (06%)
page 8 of 131 (06%)
![]() | ![]() |
|
written space measures 7-1/4 by 4-3/8 inches (175 x 114 millimeters);
outer margin, 1-7/8 inches (50 millimeters); inner, 3/4 inch (18 millimeters); upper margin, 1-3/4 inches (45 millimeters); lower, 2-1/4 inches (60 millimeters). The vellum is well prepared and of medium thickness. The leaves are bound in a modern pliable vellum binding with three blank vellum fly-leaves in front and seven in back, all modern. On the inside of the front cover is the book-plate of John Pierpont Morgan, showing the Morgan arms with the device: _Onward and Upward_. Under the book-plate is the press-mark M.462. [Sidenote: _Ruling_] There are twenty-seven horizontal lines to a page and two vertical bounding lines. The lines were ruled with a hard point on the flesh side, each opened sheet being ruled separately: 48v and 53r, 49r and 52v, 50v and 51r. The horizontal lines were guided by knife-slits made in the outside margins quite close to the text space; the two vertical lines were guided by two slits in the upper margin and two in the lower. The horizontal lines were drawn across the open sheets and extended occasionally beyond the slits, more often just beyond the perpendicular bounding lines. The written space was kept inside the vertical bounding lines except for the initial letter of each epistle; the first letter of the address and the first letter of the epistle proper projected into the left margin. Here and there the scribe transgressed beyond the bounding line. On the whole, however, he observed the limits and seemed to prefer to leave a blank before the bounding line rather than to crowd the syllable into the space or go beyond the vertical line. |
|