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New Research #4

The Italian publishing group RCS MediaGroup (Milan) has just issued a small booklet by Giulia Rossetto (Austrian Academy of the Sciences) entitled La biblioteca/βιβλιοθήκη. It appeared as no. 33 in a series called “Il Greco“, which is published weekly together with the newspaper Corriere della Sera. The text, which is aimed at a wider readership, deals with the history of Greek/Byznatine books and libraries and has a section on St Catherine’s Monastery, its library and palimpsests, with a summary of the results of the Sinai Palimpsest Project.1

Giulia Rossetto’s name made it into the international press two years ago because of her discovery of fragments of an Orphic Poem (possibly the Hieroi Logoi in 24 Rhapsodies) in the lower layer of a palimpsest with Arabic text in the upper layer from Sinai’s New Finds (MS Sinai, St Catherine’s Monastery, Ar. NF 66 – membra disjecta of this manuscript are kept at Leipzig, St Petersburg, and Cambridge; see below).2 Rossetto focused on Sinaitic palimpsests already in her PhD Dissertation, entitled “Three Euchologia Written on Reused Parchment (Sin. gr. 960, Sin. gr. 962, Sin. gr. 966 and their Membra Disiecta): A Contribution to the History of the Library of Saint Catherine’s Monastery in the Sinai“, submitted at the University of Vienna in 2019. The title already indicates its importance for the topic of this blog: not only because it deals with dispersed Sinaitic manuscripts, but also because it offers in Chapter 1 one of the most up-to-date discussions of the history of St Catherine’s manuscript collection.

Rossetto published most of this research earlier this year in her monograph Greek Palimpsests at Saint Catherine’s Monastery (Sinai): Three Euchologia as Case Studies. The book appeard in open access and can be downloaded here. Importantly, it contains an appendix (pp. 93-94) that lists 22 reconstituted Sinaitic codices. Not all of these fragmented books have left the Sinai. Hence, I will extract here only those that have:

  • MS Kristiansand, Schøyen Collection, 579 + MS Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Cod.arab. 1066 (membra disjecta of MS Sinai, St Catherine’s Monastery, Ar. 514 = “Codex Arabicus”);
  • MS Leipzig, Universitätsbibliothek, Cod. Gr. 2 + MS St Petersburg, Rossijskaja Nacional’naja Biblioteka, Gr. 26 + MS Cambridge, University Library, Add. 1879.5 (membra disjecta of MS Sinai, St Catherine’s Monastery, Ar. NF Parch. 66);
  • MS Leipzig, Universitätsbibliothek, V 1096, ff. 4-7 + MS St Petersburg, Rossijskaja Nacional’naja Biblioteka, Syr. 16 + MS St Petersburg, Rossijskaja Nacional’naja Biblioteka, Gr. 6, ff. 1-3 + MS St Petersburg, Rossijskaja Nacional’naja Biblioteka, Gr. 7, ff. 1-8 + MS St Petersburg, Rossijskaja Nacional’naja Biblioteka, Gr. 41, ff. 1, 3 (membra disjecta of MS Sinai, St Catherine’s Monastery, Georg. 34);
  • MS Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, Géorg. 30 + MS Vatican, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Vat. Iber. 4 + MS Collegeville, MN, Saint John’s Universty, Frag. 32 (membra disjecta of MS Sinai, St Catherine’s Monastery, Georg. 49 + MS Sinai, St Catherine’s Monastery, Georg. NF 73a + MS Sinai, St Catherine’s Monastery, Georg. NF 97);
  • MS St Petersburg, Rossijskaja Nacional’naja Biblioteka, Gr. 372 (membrum disjectum of MS Sinai, St Catherine’s Monastery, Gr. 929);
  • MS Bryn Mawr, Bryn Mawr College, Special Collections 2012.11.98 (membrum disjectum of MS Sinai, St Catherine’s Monastery, Gr. 966 + MS Sinai, St Catherine’s Monastery, Gr. NF M 21 + MS Sinai, St Catherine’s Monastery, Gr. NF M 68, ff. 1-8);
  • MS St Petersburg, Rossijskaja Nacional’naja Biblioteka, Gr. 114 (membrum disjectum of MS Sinai, St Catherine’s Monastery, Gr. 1201 + MS Sinai, St Catherine’s Monastery, Gr. NF M 186);
  • MS St Petersburg, Rossijskaja Nacional’naja Biblioteka, Gr. 376 (membrum disjectum of MS Sinai, St Catherine’s Monastery, Gr. 1220);
  • MS Milan, Veneranda Biblioteca Ambrosiana, A 296 inf., f. 13 + olim MS Kristiansand, Schøyen Collection, 2530 (membra disjecta of MS Sinai, St Catherine’s Monastery, Syr. 3A + MS Sinai, St Catherine’s Monastery, Syr. NF Frg. 20);
  • MS London, British Library, Or. 8609/II + MS Milan, Veneranda Biblioteca Ambrosiana, A 296 inf., ff. 267-272, 276 + MS Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, Syr. 382/I + MS Cambridge, MA, Harvard University, Houghton Library Syr. 171 + olim MS Hiersemann 500/10 (lost) (membra disjecta of MS Sinai, St Catherine’s Monastery, Syr. 7 + MS Sinai, St Catherine’s Monastery, Syr. NF Frg. 55 + MS Sinai, St Catherine’s Monastery, Syr. NF Frg. 56 + MS Sinai, St Catherine’s Monastery, Syr. NF Frg. 57);
  • MS London, British Library, Or. 8610/II + MS Birmingham, Cadbury Research Library, Mingana Collection Syr. 659 + olim MS Hiersemann 500/48 (membra disjecta of MS Sinai, St Catherine’s Monastery, Syr. 27);
  • MS Vatican, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Vat. Sir. 647, ff. 27-28 (membrum disjectum of MS Sinai, St Catherine’s Monastery, Syr. 64);
  • MS Kiev, Nacional’na Biblioteka Ukraïny imeni V. I. Vernads’koho, Φ 301, 17 + MS St Petersburg, Rossijskaja Nacional’naja Biblioteka, Gr. 276 (membra disjecta of MS Harris. App. 103);
  • MS London, British Library, Or. 5020 + MS Vatican, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Vat. Sir. 647, ff. 3, 5-6 (membra disjecta of MS Sinai, St Catherine’s Monastery, Syr. NF Parch. 4 + MS Sinai, St Catherine’s Monastery, Syr. NF Parch. 31).

Suggested Citation: Peter Tarras, “New Research #4”, Membra Dispersa Sinaitica, 08/05/2023, https://medisi.hypotheses.org/2265. License: CC BY-ND.

  1. I am grateful to Giulia Rossetto for providing me with this information. []
  2. See Rossetto 2021 and Rossetto/Pontani/Agosti/Bernabé/De Stefani/Edmonds/Herrero de Jáuregui/Jourdan/Lefteratou/Magnelli/Santamará/Thomas 2022. []
  3. Harris 1894, p. 106-109. []

OpenEdition suggests that you cite this post as follows:
Peter Tarras (May 8, 2023). New Research #4. Membra Dispersa Sinaitica. Retrieved February 13, 2026 from https://doi.org/10.58079/vkve


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