Manuscripta

This article examines the palimpsest manuscript Rome, Biblioteca Vallicelliana, MS F 44 (gr.94), which contains a fifteenth-century copy of the Protoschedia (Περὶ σχεδῶν) by Manuel Moschopulus written over an eleventh-century collection of homilies by Gregory of Nazianzus. This manuscript was created by Georgios Baiophoros (floruit 1402-34), a Constantinopolitan scribe, bookbinder, and bookseller This paper explores codicological, binding, and provenance evidence in this manuscript to show how it came to reside in the Biblioteca Vallicelliana, focusing also on a previously unnoticed and unidentified fifteenth-century Latin ownership mark on one of its flyleaves-Io manoli sofiano de chostandinopolei-to offer possibilities of this owner’s identity.

The John Rylands Library holds a collection of almost 1,000 Persian manuscripts in various collections. The great majority of these manuscripts (approximately 912) originated from the collection of James Lindsay, earl of Crawford (1847-1913). Other smaller collections that have contributed to the Persian holdings of the Rylands Library include that of Samuel Robinson of Wilmslow (1794-1884), which was donated in 1884 to The Owens College. These manuscripts have not been described previously and remain poorly known to researchers. This article provides background to the collection (and the collector) and detailed description of the twentyfive Persian manuscripts it contains (Persian MSS 967–991).