704 



PALEOGRAPHY 



when tlie city wa destroyed. These curly Greek 

 mi-Mull lioing written on papyrus, a fragile mate- 

 rial, are slender anil delicate, wit limit Utld cun. ~, 

 thick iluwnotrokeii, or fine luiirlimi>, which only 

 bceanie pmniiltle when the use of vellum introduced 

 a firmer ami Udder style. In these unrial papyri' 

 tin- introduction of ligatures pradOMd a tendency 

 t<> rursive forms, which aw exhibited in tin- .' 

 of which great number* have IKH-II found in Kgypt. 

 Tlie are usually receijiU for taxes, scratched with 

 a point or written with ink on p.it. herds. Our 

 chief knowledge of the early deck .-ui-ivc is 

 <Ierivel from the private papers and rorre-pondence 

 of Ptolemy, son of lilaucio*, a Macedonian (ireek, 

 who lireo a* a recluse at the Sera|>euin alHiut 

 170 B.C. Cursive scripts were, however, used by 

 ,the Greeks at a much earlier period : Greek in 

 Bcription* in the Cypriote syllnliary exhibiting forms 

 of a distinctively enrsive character as early as the 

 7th century B.c. Compared with the papyri the 

 uncial vellum codices, of which alxmt 300 are 

 known, exhibit a firmer and more set uncial style, 

 which was rendered possible liy the material. The 

 oldest to which a definite date can lie assigned is 

 the Dioscorideg now at Vienna, which from inter- 

 nal evidence must have lieen written altout 606 

 A.n. Ivirlier, but undated, are the three great 

 ltihlii-al rodiee, the Codex \'(itirann* at Home, 

 which is assigned to the 4th century ; the Codex 

 SiHaitifia at St Petersburg, assigned to the end 

 of the 4th or the beginning of tlie 5th century ; 

 and the Codex Alrxtindrinut, now in the llnti-h 

 Mu-i'iini. which prolwihly lielongs to the middle 

 of the 5th. The style of the writing in these 

 unrial codices U seen in the subjoined specimen, 

 which is taken from the Septuaginl version of 

 Esther, L 22, as it appears in the Codex Sitiaiticut. 



nACANJTHN 

 AeiXN 

 KXTXTH 

 TCJD N CJJ> CTe \ N XI 



c|>o KON XYTOI cen 



TAICOI K| 



This in ordinary Greek type would read : 

 fat aTifn\ir tit 

 waaar njr ftaai 

 \ria irara \vpar 

 itaro np \ttr au 

 ruf uert tartu 

 <fK>,1or OITOIT tr 

 rcut oucuut avru[ r ]. 



To tho 5th century an amiKned the palimpoent 

 Codex Kphnirmi at ' Parin, to the tith the Codex 

 Bttt at CmnbriilBf anil the Cn-lrr ('luriimnnlnnii* 

 at I'.-iri-. After the 7th n-ntuiy the Creek uncial 

 - iU early style ; the letter* lieoome oval, 

 narrow, elongated, and crnmpnl, sloping to the 

 rik'lit ; accent* make their apjiearaticc. and the pure 

 early uncial degenerate* into cuniivc forms difficult 

 to read. 



> end of the 6th century we find the firxt 

 beginning" 1 "f the new minuncule, the l>ook-hand 

 of UM future, which was destined to replace both 



the deformed uncial and the earlier cursive, from 

 each of which it Uirrowed certain elements. The 

 earliest trace of these minuscule forms as yet <lis- 

 covered are seen in a collection of papyri, ranging 

 in date from 692 to 6 10 A.I >., which wen- the luisi- 

 IICKS and family pajH-rs of Aurelius I'achyinin-. a 

 dealer in purple dyes. The transition from the ,,1,1 

 to the new style ut exemplified in amost interesting 

 sheet of papyrus from Ravenna, now at Vienna, 

 which contains the signatures of certain bishops to 

 the Act* of the Council of Constantinople, held in 

 680. The older bishops sign in slanting uncials 

 and the younger men in early forms of the new 

 minuscule. In the 9th eentufv, with the revival 

 of learning, this new minuscule developed into a 

 calligraphic book-hand, which was used in vellum 

 codices. The oldest liooks in which it appears are 

 etisky Gospels, written in K.'W, and the 

 Itodlcian Hut-lid of 8XS A.D. The chief transfor- 

 mations are due to the use of ligatures, as U 

 plainly seen in the forms of the letters S, 9, and 

 <r. Hence in the fully-formed minuscule of the 

 llth century we find the letters a, t, K, X, (f>, a, 

 which follow the old uncial forms, while S, i), /. * 

 are taken from the cursive. In the cose of several 

 letters the double source of this script is shown by 

 the retention of duplicate forms, ft, 0, w, and t, 

 for instance, being uncials, while S, S, 13, and <r are 

 of cursive origin. 



From the end of the 12th century to the inven- 

 tion of printing the minuscule continually degen- 

 erates, losing its purity and beauty, and breaking 

 up into a rough cursive script. The writing In-eomes 

 intricate and involved, ligatures and accents being 

 combined into a single character rapidly executed 

 without taking the pen from the paper, thus making 

 the writing very difficult to read. In the earliest 

 printed Ixioks thecontracted 

 and ligatured forms of con- 

 temporary minuscule MSS. 

 were faithfully imitated. 

 These, however, were gradu- 

 ally discarded, t hough a few, 

 such ns r for <rr, 8 for oi>, 

 and " for ot, survived till 

 quite recent times. 



Latin Ptilceoyraphy fol- 

 lowed much the same course 

 as the Greek. There were 

 four set book - hands 

 capitals, uncials, scmiun- 

 cials, and minuscules, of 

 which the two last were 

 influenced by the old lionian 

 cursive. The capitals are 

 of two kinds, Square and 

 Rustic. Square capitals 

 differ little from the lapidary characters used in in- 

 scriptions, and may lie defined as bavin,' their verti- 

 cal and horizontal strokes at right angles. (If tin- 

 few examples we possess of this script the best is 

 the St (Jail Virgil, assigned to the 4th century. 

 Rustic capitals, which were more usual, are char- 

 acterised by ei i en indexed fmialsand by the crossbars 

 being curved and slightly oblique. This stvle, 

 which ran be traced in a Herculaneum papv ins 

 of the 1st century A.I)., was greatly in bunion 

 from the 3d century to the 7th. Good examples 

 are four famous Virgils : the Codex Vatii-miii.i 

 assigned to the 4th century, the Codes 1'ntntinmi 

 to the 5th, the Coder llnmantis to the Gth, all of 

 which are in the Vatican, ami the 5th century 

 Mi-dicean Virgil at Florence. The Rustic died out 

 aliout the 9th century, and left no successor. 



The uncials arose out of the square capitals, and 

 exhibit roundi-d forms of certain letters. The 

 earliest uncial codices extant are not earlier than 

 the 4th century A.H., but it is plain that uncial 



