DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.15918#0055
The Farfa type
49
THE FARFA TYPE.
BY W. M. LINDSAY.
After Giorgi's paper (on some MSS. of the Liber Ponti-
ficalis) in 1897 (Archivio Societa Romana di Storia Patria,
vol. XX, p. 247) the name of ' the Farfa type ' has been given
to an Italian minuscule which reached its full developement
in the eleventh century. Giorgi cites as examples of this
type some MSS. from the scriptorium of Farfa, a Benedictine
monastery about 20 miles N. (or N. N. E.) of Rome. The
three plates (xiii-xv) which illustrate this article of mine will
shew, better than any laborious description, what the type
is; and I hope that every librarian who has MSS. of this sort
in his library will let me know. For a full knowledge of
this important variety of Italian minuscule a list of all the
extant specimens is the first thing required. Do not let us
waste time in disputing about the name. 1 The Farfa type'
will do very well for a label. It is the name associated with
this type since 1897 and does not imply that the script was
current only at Farfa and at no other scriptorium, nor even that
it was invented there. So far as is known at present, it was
the script of Rome and all the Roman region.
Here let me digress and appeal to palaeographers to use
the same names for the same things. Some years ago I
brought to notice (in the Revue des Bibliotheques XXIV 15)
an eighth century script of which five specimens were then
known. Two of the five came from the Laon Cathedral-
library, and the best name I could devise was ' the Laon
az-type ', since one prominent feature was an angular a and
another a unicornhorned z. Two photographs accompanied
my article, so that everyone might understand exactly what
the script was; and the z-form has been exhibited in Palae.
Lat. 1, pi. I, n°. 81. Yet, in the last twelve months three pa-
laeographers have written about this script and have not
given it its baptismal name. One has written ' the a-type ',
4
49
THE FARFA TYPE.
BY W. M. LINDSAY.
After Giorgi's paper (on some MSS. of the Liber Ponti-
ficalis) in 1897 (Archivio Societa Romana di Storia Patria,
vol. XX, p. 247) the name of ' the Farfa type ' has been given
to an Italian minuscule which reached its full developement
in the eleventh century. Giorgi cites as examples of this
type some MSS. from the scriptorium of Farfa, a Benedictine
monastery about 20 miles N. (or N. N. E.) of Rome. The
three plates (xiii-xv) which illustrate this article of mine will
shew, better than any laborious description, what the type
is; and I hope that every librarian who has MSS. of this sort
in his library will let me know. For a full knowledge of
this important variety of Italian minuscule a list of all the
extant specimens is the first thing required. Do not let us
waste time in disputing about the name. 1 The Farfa type'
will do very well for a label. It is the name associated with
this type since 1897 and does not imply that the script was
current only at Farfa and at no other scriptorium, nor even that
it was invented there. So far as is known at present, it was
the script of Rome and all the Roman region.
Here let me digress and appeal to palaeographers to use
the same names for the same things. Some years ago I
brought to notice (in the Revue des Bibliotheques XXIV 15)
an eighth century script of which five specimens were then
known. Two of the five came from the Laon Cathedral-
library, and the best name I could devise was ' the Laon
az-type ', since one prominent feature was an angular a and
another a unicornhorned z. Two photographs accompanied
my article, so that everyone might understand exactly what
the script was; and the z-form has been exhibited in Palae.
Lat. 1, pi. I, n°. 81. Yet, in the last twelve months three pa-
laeographers have written about this script and have not
given it its baptismal name. One has written ' the a-type ',
4