Book reviews

SVATOSCHUTZNER, Medieval and Renaissance manuscript books in the Library of Congress. A Descriptive Catalogue. Vol. 1: Bibles, Liturgy, Books of Hours, Washington, Library of Congress, 1989, 26 x 19.5 cm., 422 + xl pp., illus., ISBN 0-8444-0516-7.

The Library of Congress has undertaken to produce a three-part catalogue of its medieval manuscripts. A considerable number of such manuscripts was acquired in the last fifty years, by far the most notable among which are those coming from the Lessing Rosenwald collection. The first part of this interesting catalogue com- prises no fewer than sixty-four manuscripts, i.e. Bibles, liturgical and para- liturgical codexes. The second part will be devoted to theology and canon law, while secular texts will be dealt with in the third part. Apart from music manu- scripts (items 9, 10, 11, 16, 19, 36, 38-41 ), they all form part of the Rare Book and Special Collections Division. In 1980 William Matheson, head of this division, pro- posed to the theologian Svato Schutzner to compile a catalogue of the liturgical and theological texts, in view of the fact that because of his special expertise in liturgy and theology he was exactly the right man for such a job. Let me add that at the beginning of the catalogue, following the acknowledgements, there is a list of works quoted by means of abbreviations, together with twenty-six colour plates from some of the manuscripts described in the catalogue. The black-and-white photographs, however, occur in the text. The author describes first the Bibles (Nos. 1-8), then the liturgical books (Nos. 9-49) and lastly the Books of Hours (Nos. 44-64). For most of the manuscripts reference is made to the catalogue by Faye and Bond. Most numerous are the Hours-there are no fewer than twenty-one of them-then come nine Breviaries, eight Bibles, four Psalters, three Missals, and three Graduals. The remaining liturgies are represented by only one copy each. The following manuscripts are of Southern or Northern Netherlandish origin: MS 12: Gospels of c. 1200, presumably from the south of modern Belgium or Northern France; MS 22: a fifteenth-century Breviary probably intended for Bruges; MS 24: a Psalter intended for Cistercian nuns, 15th century; MS 26: an Utrecht Missal, dated 1541, once the property of the Minster of St. Livinus at Zierikzee; MS 27: a Dutch Breviary of about 1455; MS 30: a Breviary for Brigittine nuns from the abbey of Marienwater near 's-Hertogenbosch, c. 1450; MS 34: a Psalter from a convent of Brigittine sisters in the diocese of Utrecht, c. 1500; MS 45: a Book of Hours with a Bruges calendar of around 1340-60, but according to the author copied and illuminated at Paris?; MS 46: a Book of Hours, Flanders, c. 1500 (the plate belonging to this points to the manuscript being decorated in the Ghent-Bruges style); MS 49: a Book of Hours with a Bruges calendar, first half of the 16th century; MS 51: a Book of Hours with a Bruges calendar, 15th century; MS 60: a Book of Hours from the Northern Netherlands, c. 1470; MS 62: a Book 224 of Hours from the Northern Netherlands, c. 1477; MS 63: a Book of Hours from the Northern Netherlands, 15th century.

GEORGESDOGAER

PAOLA SUPINO MARTINI, Roma e l'area grafica romanesca (secoli X-XII). Alessandria, Edizioni dell'Orso, 1987, 438 pp., 80 PI., Lit. 80.000 [ = Biblioteca di Scrittura e Civiltà 1].

This book is explicitly set into the perspective of the classical but lonely biographic einer Schriftart', Lowe's Beneventan Script; and it concerns a script for which such a monograph had been requested as early as 1924: the characteristic script type- 'tipizzazione' -of Carolingian minuscule used in and around Rome from the late tenth to the mid-twelfth century, which used to be known as the 'Farfa type', but for which the name romanesca is to be preferred. As explicitly, however, this book waives all claims to be itself such a comprehensive monograph; it is (it would be inappropriate to say that it is 'merely') the necessary prerequisite for such a monograph: a critical census of the available material. The essence of the book are descriptions, grouped by region and centre, of some 160 MSS in romanesca. Apart from notes on contents, palaeographical details, decoration, some very brief codicological data (sometimes lacking) and a full bibliography, the main concern of these descriptions is a discussion of the evidence for ascribing a MS, confidently or tentatively, to a centre or region (the result is sometimes quite different from the current opinion). Few firm localisations are possible; for many centres there is a single 'possible' ascription, or none at all. South of Rome the script type is found until, at a hundred kilometres' distance, it overlaps the Beneventan zone; in the North it peters out at a similar distance. Subiaco, S. Eutizio and Farfa are the only centres for which a substantial group of safe products survives. And within this region the type has no exclusive rights (Gregorio da Catino, the famous Farfa archivist and historian, did not write it; and none of the giant Bibles of the region is in romanesca-a fact which the author has treated more fully at the CIPL Colloque of Madrid 1987). No doubt the book is open to some objections. Apart from detailed criticism-for which I am not competent-I would have preferred (notwithstanding the argument on p. 23) a somewhat less discursive, more catalogue-like treatment, with a fuller and more consistent treatment of fragments (on p. 184 a very interesting one is banished into a footnote) and of codicological data. But it is also certain that it is critical groundwork of great importance. For its limited field-the production of a small, but important region during more than a century-it is a capital book. Is it enough? The author herself believes (pp. 18-19) that a further stage, a real 'Biographie' of the type, is not possible, precisely because it is not a script which came to be, flourished and decayed in the course of several centuries (like Lowe's Beneventana), but merely a type within the normal Carolingian minuscule (which even actually coexisted with `carolina non tipizzata'). The excellent second chapter (pp. 21-42) summarizes and discusses those cultural and historical conclusions she