Dubrovnik Manuscripts and Fragments Written In

Rozana Vojvoda

DALMATIAN ILLUMINATED MANUSCRIPTS WRITTEN IN BENEVENTAN SCRIPT AND
BENEDICTINE SCRIPTORIA IN ZADAR, DUBROVNIK AND TROGIR

PhD Dissertation in Medieval Studies
(Supervisor: Béla Zsolt Szakács)

Department of Medieval Studies Central European University

BUDAPEST April 2011

TABLE OF CONTENTS

2.2. Eleventh Century Manuscripts Written in Beneventan Script “Čika‟s and Vekenega‟s „Book of Hours‟”, “Vekenega‟s Evangelistary,” “Berlin Evangelistary”- Historiography and Arguments for

Their Zadar Origin ......................................................................................................................... 30

2.3. Čika and Vekenega‟s “Book of Hours” (Ms. Canon. Liturg. 277 and K.394)-Types and the

2.4.1. The classification of decorated initials in Vekenega‟s evangelistary and their art historical

context ....................................................................................................................................... 68

2.4.2. Vekenega‟s evangelistary, (MS. Canon. Bibl. Lat. 61), the “Berlin evangelistary” (MS.

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Acknowledgments

I would like to thank my supervisor Béla Zsolt Szakács and other professors from the Medieval Department of the Central European University in Budapest for the many things I learned from them and for their constant support.

I would like to thank Neven Budak of the Department of History, Faculty of Philosophy at the University of Zagreb for his continuous help with my research.

I would also like to thank my parents babysat my little daughter Vita when I was working on the thesis. My deepest gratitude, however, goes to the late Virginia Brown (1940-2009), the great mistress of Beneventan script who helped me in every possible way with my work and whose brilliant scholarship was matched only by her exceptional goodness as a human being. It is to her that I dedicate these pages inspite of any possible errors that are entirely my own responsibility.

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1. INTRODUCTION 1.1. Studies of Beneventan script and accompanying illuminations: examples from North America, Canada, Italy, former Yugoslavia and Croatia

Beneventan script is a minuscule handwriting that developed towards the middle of the eighth century in the Duchy of Benevento and was used exclusively in Southern Italy and Dalmatia. My research will be focused on the Dalmatian towns of Zadar, Trogir and Dubrovnik and, apart from manuscripts and fragments written in Beneventan script that have already been discussed, I will also take into consideration newly discovered items. The purpose of my dissertation is to see whether the development of Dalmatian Beneventana and accompanying illuminations can be placed within a wider picture. This research was preceeded by my MA thesis and some published preliminary research on Dalmatian material written in Beneventan Script.¹. The studying of this medieval script as well as its accompanying illuminations has had a long history. Here I will mention the greatest achievements in North American, Canadian and Italian scholarship in order to provide a scholarly context for the evaluation of Beneventan studies in Croatia and justification of the specific research topics undertaken in this study. North American, Canadian and Italian scholarship is deeply involved in Beneventan topics and therefore in this brief survey I will include only the most relevant books; those that mark a significant scientific contribution to the topic and those that concern Dalmatian material. As for former Yugoslavian and Croatian scholarship, I will mention almost all the books and articles that I am aware of because it is extremely relevant to the dissertation topic. I will, however, exclude the catalogues of the exhibitions and catalogues containing a few entries on Beneventan items as well as scientific articles and books that only mention Beneventan items, but do not treat them as the main topic of the work.
The breakthrough in the study of Beneventan script took place in North American scholarship in the first decades of twentieth century. Elias Avery Loew (1879-1969), the premier Latin paleographer of his generation, published a monograph on Beneventan script in which he has meticulously analyzed the

¹Rozana Vojvoda. “Većenega‟s :”Book of Hours”: A manuscript study with special stress on decorated initials.” Annual of Mediaeval studies at CEU 8 (2002): 9-37. Rozana Vojvoda. “Iluminacija Trogirskog EvanĎelistara- raskoš i konzervativnost dalmatinskog sitnoslikarstva benediktinske tradicije” (The illumination of the Trogir Evangelistary-luxury

and the conservative tradition of Dalmatian illumination related to the Benedictine tradition). In Raukarov zbornik. Zagreb: FF Press, 2005: 187-208. Rozana Vojvoda. “Sanktorali beneventanskih rukopisa dalmatinske provenijencije-veza teksta i

slike” (Sanctorals of Dalmatian manuscripts written in Beneventan script-text and image relationships). in Hagiologija /

Kultovi u kontekstu (Hagiology / Cults in context). Zagreb: Leykam international, 2008: 89-105

7origins, the development and the features of the script. The work contains a hand list of all the Beneventan manuscripts and fragments known during his time. The book is still indispensable for any serious approach to this subject as is also the case with a second book by Loew published fifteen years later that contains facsimiles and descriptions of a large number of Beneventan manuscripts.²In 1936, Myrtilla Avery, a professor of art history at Wellesley College in Massachusetts, published a book on richly illustrated Italian parchment rolls written in Beneventan script especially designed for the blessing of the candle on Easter and called Exultet. ³It remained a basic book of reference for all later studies related to this material.
Although Elias Avery Lowe himself prepared a supplement to his hand list of Beneventan manuscripts and fragments in the early sixties, their number has continuously increased.⁴In 1978, Virginia Brown, Lowe‟s former assistant, prepared a second New List of Beneventan Manuscripts and

in 1980 she edited, revised and enlarged Lowe‟s book and supplanted it with a new hand list of

Beneventan manuscripts and fragments.⁵Virginia Brown, Roger Reynolds and Richard Francis Gyug are principle investigators in the project called Monumenta Liturgica Beneventana at the Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval studies in Toronto, Canada. The principal aim of the project is to discover, study and edit Beneventan manuscripts and fragments.⁶The collection of microfilm and photographic holdings at the Pontifical Institute is now the most extensive in the world. Virginia Brown who has been compiling and continuously publishing new lists of Beneventan manuscripts / fragments in Mediaeval Studies is also the author of numerous publications on Beneventan-script topics.⁷She has identified a number of South Italian and Dalmatian scriptoria, shown that the use of Beneventan script continued into the sixteenth century and expanded

²Elias Avery Loew. The Beneventan script. A history of the south Italian minuscule. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1914. Elias

Avery Loew. Scriptura Beneventana. Facsimiles of South Italian and Dalmatian

Manuscripts from the Sixth to the

Fourteenth Century. 2 vols. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1929. See entry on the life and work by Elias Avery Loew (also referred to as Lowe, changed from Loew in 1918) in Biographical Dictionary of North American Classicists. Portsmouth RH: Greenwood Publishing Group, 1994: 376-378. ³Myrtilla Avery. The Exultet Rolls of South Italy. Vol. II Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1936. Volume I with the text contributions was never published.