1. Hunting for rare books, collecting mania, true forgeries, falsified history, fictional elements in biographical writing – these are just some of the topics I talked about with author Rüdiger Schaper. He has dedicated a biography to the famous forger Constantine Simonides.1 After the publication of Codex Sinaiticus by Tischendorf, Simonides went public with the… Continue reading “Simonides Is Still Alive!”: An Interview with Author Rüdiger Schaper about His Biography of a Manuscript Forger
Tag: Constantin Tischendorf (1815-1874)
If You Have Some Millions to Spare …: The Sale of Codex Sinaiticus Zosimi Rescriptus
1. “If you have some millions to spare, the bidding starts in less than an hour!” In this and similar ways, many colleagues drew attention on social media to Christie’s Live Auction 23056 on 11 June, which was entitled: “Manuscript Masterpieces from the Schøyen Collection”. This auction comprised 62 lots. Among them were enormously important… Continue reading If You Have Some Millions to Spare …: The Sale of Codex Sinaiticus Zosimi Rescriptus
Collecting Clues: A Forged Colophon and the Trade in Sinaitic Manuscripts
1. Imagine an old manuscript falls into your hands. You realise it is valuable and you want to turn it into money. You may even know someone potentially interested in buying the manuscript. Its monetary value is directly related to its age. The only problem is you don’t know exactly how old the manuscript is.… Continue reading Collecting Clues: A Forged Colophon and the Trade in Sinaitic Manuscripts
Membra Dispersa Sinaitica: Looking Back on One Year
1. Today is the 6th International Provenance Research Day, which provides a good opportunity to look back on the first year of Membra Dispersa Sinaitica and give a kind of annual report of the project. I should emphasise here that it is (so far) not supported by any external funding and is run on my… Continue reading Membra Dispersa Sinaitica: Looking Back on One Year
An Arabic Medical Manuscript with Greek Maculatur
1. When I started studying the history of the fragmentary Sinai manuscripts kept at the Bavarian State Library in Munich, the digitized acquisition list of Oriental manuscripts (fig. 1) proofed very helpful. In 1921, the library bought six Christian Arabic fragments of Sinaitic provenance from the collector Friedrich Grote (1861-1922).1 Interestingly, the library’s acquisition list… Continue reading An Arabic Medical Manuscript with Greek Maculatur
A Blog Dedicated to the Dispersed Manuscript Heritage of Saint Catherine’s Monastery
1. “The history of the Sinai library till the second half of the nineteenth century is mostly a history of its despoiling”.1 The Byzantinist Vladimir Beneshevich (1874-1938) made this statement as early as 1911. At that point, scholars were only just beginning to get an idea of the extent of this “despoiling”. Moreover, the… Continue reading A Blog Dedicated to the Dispersed Manuscript Heritage of Saint Catherine’s Monastery