Monolithic 12th Century Illustrated Italian Manuscript: The Commentaries of Saint Augustine

With a beautiful decorated initial letter and formerly part of great collections; ex-Ravenna, ex-Ferrini, ex-Schoyen, all acquired privately

Nine lines of text from Psalm 76 and 77 inspired just over 1,700 words of explanation from St. Augustine, who compiled commentary on the Psalms over the course of thirty years of his life. Between 392 and 418 AD the saint turned his thoughts towards the Psalms, and as he preached, his ideas were copied down forming the text that Erasmus would later title “Enarrationes in Psalmos.” The title for this compilation of commentary became the standard and it became known as Saint Augustine’s most prolific text.

The influence of Augustine’s commentaries spanned from the late 4th century, through the sack of mighty Rome by the Vandals in 455, as the late Classical period stretches into the early Medieval period and from the early Medieval period into the Twelfth Century Renaissance— a period of learning and relative prosperity for Western Europe. Through this change, the importance of Saint Augustine’s exegesis remained and the text was left intact from Late Antiquity into the Middle Ages.

The Manuscript

At the very end of the eleventh century and throughout the first half of the twelfth century, book production in Italy became rapidly grander. Picking up the models of the Carolingian ‘Tours Bibles’ and reworking them two centuries later, grand and beautiful  Biblical books were produced – setting the new format for scripture and its associate texts. Books got bigger, following the development of the vast ‘Atlantic Bible’ – so called after its huge size after the titan Atlas. Similarly important works, such as those of the patristic fathers, began to be produced in this new large and decorated format ,often with  numerous finely colored and designed initials opening each important book (as here). These gargantuan Biblical codices would dominate the history of the Bible for the next century, setting the model by which most of the population of Europe would see scripture and the works of early Christian fathers such as Saint Augustine.

The script of this leaf represents one of the many moments of transition Augustine’s text withstood. The Romanesque period is the brief moment when the earlier reforms put into place by Charlemagne began to take on a regional flare that would, in the next century, develop into the varied Gothic styles of France, England, Germany, and Italy. We see the uniformity of the handwriting selected by Charlemagne to be the standard for his Holy Roman Empire slipping away. This leaf represents that moment in history from the Italian perspective. We can see the signature roundness of the Italian script in these strokes— compared to the blockiness of a German script or the tallness of a French script. And yet, the text remains perfectly preserved in comparison to the material we have from the sixth century, which is the most ancient, extant version.

Augustine explains in his exegesis of Ps. 76.16, “Nam ut etiam transiliret, et ad ista perveniret, miraculum Dei fuit,”— “that it was a miracle of God that he should jump over and reach these things”— referring to the Holy Trinity (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit).

Though the text follows to the Psalms, nearly line-by-line, the complex and often rhetorical nature of Saint Augustine’s commentary did not lend itself well towards becoming a “handbook” for medieval monks and scholars. What the text was intended to do, however, was bring the community together as part of the performative aspect of medieval liturgy. The exegesis acted to solidify the communion brought by singing of the psalms in worship.

We see Augustine’s community building in his explanation for Ps. 76:18. The Psalm reads “Great was the noise of the waters: the clouds sent out a sound” (Multitudo sonitus aquarum); Augustine explains that the sounds of the waters are the praises of God in the confessions of sins, in hymns and songs, in prayers” ( In laudibus Dei, in confessionibus peccatorum, in hymnis et canticis, in orationibus) and that the clouds are “preachers of the word of truth” (Praedicatores verbi veritatis). For Augustine, it is the act of praising God through words that brings the community together.

The folds in the margin and the stain running across the centre of the text betray this leaf’s post-medieval life as a book cover, a dust jacket for an item housed in the archives of Ravenna, likely from the later Middle Ages into the 19th or 20th century.

More details

St. Augustinus: Commentary on Psalms 76:16-76:22; 77:1-2. Italy, mid 12th c., single leaf, 470 x 380 mm, 2 columns (41 x 24 cm), 58 lines in brown ink, Romanesque script, no intentional fusion of convex curves, retention of e-caudata, rubricated incipits & explicits with extended ascenders and descenders, one 3-line P, ornamented red initial with negative space decoration and 9-line descender terminating in fish-tail ornamentation, one 10-line A initial with white, red, and green vine work on blue background, with red knot work top on pink and blue background.

Later medieval handwriting giving Ravenna provenance perpendicular to medieval text and later item’s date (1541), modern (19th/20th c.) handwriting repeating Ravenna provenance above; both surrounding the foliated initial. Another 18th c. (?) hand has written the title of the work this leaf wrapped. Modern manuscript number added by Schoyen.

Provenance:

1. 12th century, Italy

2. Archive of Ravenna (“Ravennatensis Vallium et Terrarum”) used for year 1541

3. Bruce Ferrini, Akron, OH, June 1989, with Ferrini MS number 266 in bottom righthand corner of the verso.