MS. Barocci 228

Collation difficult, due to the manuscript’s repeated rebindings and repairs. These suggest the following stages in its binding history: (1) a lost original binding for the parchment leaves when first written in the 11th(?) century, comprising regular quires of eight leaves each; (2) a major repair, perhaps a second binding also now lost, to accommodate the paper leaves inserted to replace lost parchment leaves (including one whole quire and more), towards the end of the middle ages (14th or 15th century?); (3) the present binding of speckled brown leather with simple blind-roll decoration over thick pasteboard, late 17th or earlier 18th century, made for the Bodleian Library some decades after the manuscript’s arrival at Oxford in 1629 (the blank paper flyleaves at fols. ii and 207 most likely belong to this date); (4) further heavy repairs and rebacking for the Bodleian, late 19th or 20th century, providing new spine-leather, new paper endleaves (pastedowns and fols. i and 208) and heavy repairs to the damaged edges of the paper leaves at fols. 1-3.

The replacement paper leaves of the later middle ages are the present fols. 1, 2, 3 and 17-24. However, whilst fols. 1, 3 and 17-24 are in the correct position for their textual contents, the present fol. 2 is misplaced: its text replaces that of the missing eighth parchment leaf of the first quire (cut out between the present fols. 8 and 9). Accordingly the present fol. 2 (paper) was misbound in its present position. It was already misplaced there by the time when the Bodleian’s ink foliation, perhaps 17th century, numbered it as ‘2’: accordingly, it probably came loose between stages (2) and (3) and was finally misbound at stage (3). This relatively early dating for fol. 2’s misplacement is further supported by a large matching (pre-Bodleian) stain at the foot of each of fols. 1, 2 and 3.

The added fols. 17-24 seem to replace the original third quire of eight leaves plus one further leaf (the missing first leaf of the fourth quire, before fol. 25): so the eight paper leaves are replacing nine original parchment leaves. Another parchment leaf later in the fourth quire is also missing between fols. 29 and 30, leaving a lacuna in the text for which there is no surviving paper replacement. The 17th-century ink foliation runs continuously from 29 to 30, to indicate that the loss had already occurred by then.

Collation of quires 1-9:

• Quire I (8-3 parchment + 3 paper leaves = fols. 1, 3, 4-8 and 2: the 1st, 2nd and 8th parchment leaves cut out and replaced by the paper fols. 1, 3 and 2, later misbound out of order)
• Quire II (8 parchment leaves = fols. 9-16). In this quire the second and seventh leaves (fols. 10 and 15) are each singletons (with conjoint stubs), not a bifolium, but this was an original discrepancy in the make-up of the quire at the time of writing, with no disturbances of text.
• Quire III (8 replacement leaves of paper = fols. 17-24, text replacing nine missing original parchment leaves, i.e. Quire III and the first leaf of Quire IV)
• Quire IV (8-2 parchment leaves = fols. 25-30, the 1st and 7th leaves roughly cut out before fol. 25 and before fol. 30; the text is continuous from the replacement fol. 24v to the original fol. 25r, but the missing leaf before fol. 30 has no surviving replacement, leaving a lacuna in the text between fols. 29v and 30r)
• Quire V (8 parchment leaves = fols. 31-38)
• Quire VI (8 parchment leaves = fols. 39-46)
• Quire VII (8 parchment leaves = fols. 47-54)
• Quire VIII (8 parchment leaves = fols. 55-62)
• Quire IX (8 parchment leaves = fols. 63-70)