Excerpt from Universal Palæography, Vol. 2 of 2: Or, Fac-Similes of Writings of All Nations and Periods, Copied From the Most Celebrated and Authentic Manuscripts in the Libraries and Archives of France, Italy, German, and England

These plates having been discovered in the Museum of the Louvre by M. Champollion Figeac, he obtained an impression from them, which was immediately transferred to lithographic stones, and he was enabled by that means to publish, for the first time, a fac-simile of the whole in 1837, in the Collection de Chartes Latines sur papyrus appartenant à la Bibliothèque Royale.

The entire text contains five official records of the opening of so many testaments, at the request of the executors, before the magistrate of Ravenna, in the presence of the protectors of the Church of that city, who were interested in these proceedings. The most ancient of these testaments is of the year 474, that of Flavius Constantius, a dyer, is dated A.D. 521, and the most recent, made by George, a silk-merchant, the son of Julian of Antioch, is of the year 552. This being the latest date in any portion of the roll, it is certain that we have before us an invaluable specimen of the cursive or diplomatic Roman writing of the middle of the sixth century. The following is the reading of the first two lines in the Plate, which are incomplete on the left-hand side, and somewhat mutilated on the right.

The resemblance of this writing to that of the Imperial Rescript figured in Plate XCVIII., which is certainly of the third or fourth century, will furnish some useful observations founded on the similarity or disagreement of the characters in these two documents.

About the Publisher

Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com

This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully, any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.