| Description | Bifolium from a copy of Justinian's Pandects, or Digesta Justiniani Augusti, parchment. Containing part of the end of Book V (De Judiciis) and the beginning of Book VI (De Rei Vindicatione). Main body text in two columns in brown ink surrounded by a gloss, also in two columns. The text, gloss and titles are in a littera bononiensis script by the same hand. There is also some interlineal and marginal annotation. With red rubrics, alternating red and blue paragraph marks, and red and blue pen-flourished capitals of varying sizes.
On f.1r there are two 3-line initials decorated with a Bologna scroll and leaf motif worked in blue, orange, red and pink with three gold orbs each. Book VI begins on f.1v and there is an illustration to mark this. The illustration depicts a court case, with four figures surrounding two dogs or wolves and a seated figure wearing a crown beside them. It is worked in blue, orange, brown, black, white, pink and what would have been a peach-tone but is now green. The seated figure is illuminated in gold. There is a historiated and illuminated initial P directly beneath the illustration depicting a figure in profile inside the loop of the P.
The parchment has been trimmed down for re-use as a binding cover, some of the main body text and gloss text is missing from the top and gloss text is missing from the sides. There are several manicules, one on f.1r, two on f.1v and two on f.2v drawn by different readers. Folio 1r is annotated 22100 in pencil. |
| AdminHistory | Justinian I (Flavius Justinianus, originally called Petrus Sabbatius): born, 483; Byzantine emperor, 527-565; died at Constantinople, 565; noted for his reorganization of imperial government and for sponsoring a codification of laws by committees of jurists, known as the "Codex Justinianus", comprising collections of new and existing laws and legal interpretations, including extracts of the opinions of the great Roman jurists. The code of Justinian consists of four books: (1) Codex Constitutionum; (2) Digesta, or Pandectae; (3) Institutiones; (4) Novellae Constitutiones Post Codicem. For this text, cf Theodor Mommsen's edition, "Digesta Justiniani Augusti", volume i (Berlin, 1868). This manuscript was probably written in Italy. |
| CustodialHistory | Found in the binding of a book in northern Italy. |