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TURYN, A., Dated Greek Manuscripts of the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries in the Libraries of Italy. Volume one: Text. Volume two: Plates. University of Illinois Press, Urbana (...), 1972. 2 vols. LIV,294;XXXI,265p. ills. (b/w photographs). Cloth. Lower part front cover vol.1 with small damage (rubbing). Small personal library mark and name on free endpaper. 'These splendid volumes are the counterpart to the author's 'Codices Graeci Vaticani saeculis xiii et xiv scripti annorumque notis instructi', Vatican City, 1964, which they follow with commendable rapidity. They deal with 141 manuscripts in nineteen different libraries of Italy (...). Each hand described is illustrated by a facsimile in the original size (with three exceptions ....). the quality of the plates is admirable. (...) Turyn aims 'to illustrate the origins of a manuscript, its character as a document of Byzantine culture, and its rôle in the transmission of ancient and medieval Greek literature'. Hence we are offered not only information on the manuscript as a physical object, but also upon its content, its history, and the use that scholars have made of it. (...) Turyn has missed very little relevant bibliography.(...) The facsimiles are the core of the book. Along with those in Turyn's collection of Vatican facsimiles they provide a corpus which will help to determine the authorship, date, place, and milieu of many thousands of late Byzantine manuscripts. (...) All concerned with the Byzantine world and with the tradition of Greek letters will welcome this valuable - and eminently readable - work. Let us hope that it will stimulate scholars in other countries to produce similarly detailed studies of the dated late Byzantine manuscripts in their collections.' (ROBERT BROWNING in The Classical Review (New Series), 1975, pp.390-392). From the library of the late Sir Kenneth James Dover. € 195.00 (Antiquarian)