Cataloguing Carlo Morbio’s Fragments Collection

Every library or archive has its own collection of fragments, collections which – in my personal experience – very often have not yet been studied in depth and catalogued in detail. In the case of the fragments in Carlo Morbio’s collection, they had undergone an initial cataloguing process in which a certain order by theme can be discerned: Latin classics, biblical, legal texts, medical and vernacular texts, and so on. I became aware of this collection of fragments last year when I was accepted the Summer School in Digital Palaeography at the University of Göttingen, organised by the Department of Digital Humanities in collaboration with the Göttingen State and University Library. It was during one of my visits to the library that I was shown the two collections of fragments preserved at the library’s historic headquarters: the Müller Collection, on which we worked, and the Morbio Collection.

Enthusiastic and very grateful for this valuable experience, I decided to spend my study and research period abroad here, scheduled for the second year of the National PhD in Heritage Science at La Sapienza University of Rome, to which I belong, for a total of three months. Three months is a long time, but also not long enough to tackle such a rich collection: upon my arrival, I was welcomed by Dr Kirsch, who gave me a tour of the library and the collections, and in the end we agreed on the project to be carried out – cataloguing part of the 617 fragments on the Fragmentarium platform.

This was followed by further interesting visits to the MSI (multispectral imaging) laboratory, where Dr. Zawacki explained how it works, and then to the conservation unit, where Ms. Ripplinger showed me the organisation and the restoration projects currently underway. We also briefly discussed the recovery and cleaning work carried out on the fragments of the Morbio collection, which proved useful later on. Finally, I had the opportunity to take a guided tour of the modern library building thanks to Ms Sonnenberg and Ms Rokosz, who showed me the organisation and services offered to users. That allowed me to gain new insights and compare it with the Italian organisation. In particular, I was struck by the classification method, which is customised for the university’s collection, compared to the Dewey Decimal Classification I am used to.

The practice of reusing pieces of parchment or paper removed from manuscripts, was common between the 15th and 17th centuries; those were reused as bookbinding material such as covers, pastedowns, hinge reinforcements etc.

Morbio claimed to have built up his collection during his long career and travels¹.¹ He often came across fragments of codices or parchments that had been reused as book covers or, in some cases, even reduced to humble domestic uses. Believing them to be worthy of interest and preservation, he decided to collect them. The ones I catalogued date from the 12th to the 17th century. Some examples are the excerpts of Seneca’s works bound together in the same booklet with excerpts of Bernard of Clairvaux, Epistola beati Bernardi de re familiari and De duodecim abusivis claustri (Cod. Ms. Morbio 1 a); excerpts of Ricardius de San Victore, De mistico sonio regis Nabuchodonosor, De heruditione hominis interioris (Cod. Ms. Morbio 1 c); Plautus, Captivi; Cicero, Pro Flacco; Tacitus, Historie; Priscianus, Institutiones Gramaticae (Cod. Ms. Morbio 2 a–d)  and excerpts of juridical texts such as Corpus Iuris Civilis, Libri Feudorum, Liber extra etc. (Cod. Ms. Morbio 3, 3:1–15). Many of these feature decorations and illuminated initials:

Details of Cod. Ms. Morbio. 1c, 6,5 and 1 b

Those are followed by others: a chivalric poem in Old French (Cod. Ms. Morbio 17,1), vernacular merchants’ and medical notes from the Florentine area (Cod. Ms. Morbio 17, 2:5–7). There is also a treatise from 15th-century Italy by Philippus Ariminensis (Filippo Da Rimini in Italian), Symposium de paupertate, which has not yet been examined by philologists specialising in the subject; unfortunately the illumination on the frontispiece, decorated with white vine-stem, was almost entirely removed (Cod. Ms. Morbio 1 b).

Among the vernacular fragments, one in particular stands out, written in red ink and entitled ‘Sonetto del libro’ (Sonnet of the book, Cod. Ms. Morbio 17,2:1). The “speaker” is the book itself, in which this sheet was found, addressing the reader who borrowed it from its owner’s library; the reader is advised to treat it with care and, after enjoying it, to return it to its owner. At the end, there is a coat of arms, clearly belonging to the library’s owner. Although the coat of arms may resemble that of the Strozzi family due to the three crescents, the upside-down rocco at the bottom prevents a certain identification. By contrast, the coat of arms on fragment Cod. Ms. Morbio 17,2:8 clearly belongs to the Medici family, surmounted by the Grand Ducal crown. This latter fragment was originally the cover of an archival record, from which it was removed. Other archival documents in the Morbio Collection include the copies of diplomas relating to the confirmation of the Ilicetan and Lombard Congregations of the Fratres Heremitanum S. Agustini (Cod. Ms. Morbio 1 d). In his volume Opere storico-numismatiche, Morbio, also states that if all these fragments were collected and bound, they could form eight large in-folio volumes.

A case study of particular interest concerns a series of fragments that originally belonged to the same manuscript, a Biblia vulgata; in particular, they all derive from the Book of Genesis. The series of 17 fragments, now catalogued under Cod. Ms. Morbio 6, 6,9:1–17, originally formed ten bifolia belonging to four different quires. It was possible, in particular, to trace the fragments back to their hypothetical sections as illustrated below:

Fragments 6,9:10 and 4, together with fragments 6,9:15 and 5, form two bifolia, which were originally part of the first quire of the manuscript. The first fragment (Cod. Ms. Morbio 6, 6,9:10) features an illuminated initial decorated with geometric and vegetal motifs.

Below is an attempt to reconstruct how the fragments must have looked before being dismantled and trimmed for reuse as supports for other volumes. The reconstruction was carried out using the open source software GIMP, as illustrated in William Duba’s lecture, to which I was kindly invited to attend during this year’s edition of the Summer School in Digital Palaeography.

Fragments 6,9:14 and 17, together with fragments 6,9:13 and 3, form two bifolia, which were probably part of the same quire. The same applies to fragments 6,9:16 and  8, 6,9:12 and 6, and 6,9:9 and 11, which form three bifolia belonging to the same quire. Finally, there are fragments 6.9:1–2, which belonged to the same quire, of which 6.9:1 forming the inner bifolio, as the text continues uninterrupted across both pages, while 6.9:2 constitutes the lower part of the outer bifolio of the same quire.

The peculiarity of fragment 6,9:1 is that, in addition to having been reused like the others, it bears a trace of the host volume on which it was used as a cover. The inscription reads: “Cons. Socin. Senior.”. The volume to which it was attached probably was an exemplar of the consilia of the jurist Mariano Socini the elder.

However, not all fragments in Carlo Morbio’s collection fall within the definition of pages extracted from medieval manuscripts. One example is a pamphlet, written in Italian, containing the birth chart (or genitura, or horoscope) of a person born on 20 June 1599. It is a parchment booklet, contained within a paper bifolio, consisting of six folia, not including those of the outer bifolio (Cod. Ms. Morbio 1 g).

The horoscope opens with a square-shaped birth chart, which represents the oldest form; modern charts are circular. Inside the central square are the details necessary for the calculation: year, month, day, and hour of the birth – in this case, of the individual for whom the horoscope was drawn up. Indeed, people were not the only subjects for whom horoscopes were created: they were also prepared for cities and kingdoms, and it was even considered advisable for architects to have a horoscope compiled when designing and laying the foundation stone of important buildings.

The illustrated birth chart outlines the stages of life of the person to whom it refers – a person whose identity cannot be traced – anticipating the crucial phases of their life, with particular attention to character, career, and health.

The chart begins with childhood, comparing the first four years of life to a fruit that, at the beginning of spring, has just sprouted from its flower. As such, it is fragile, and an unfortunate revolution of the Moon could prove fatal, which is why it must be carefully monitored. However, as the Sun is the dominant luminary, together with Venus and Jupiter, the child is predicted to be raised without major difficulties, except at the end of the first year, when the conjunction of the Moon and the Sun may cause minor ailments; these are interpreted as strengthening the body. In fact, although the nature of the ascendant is damp and cold, this is balanced by the Sun, which is in the temperate sign of Gemini, and, combined with the warm season, produces an overall temperate result.

He then refers to Abraham ibn Meir Ibn Ezra, known as Abenezra, who, drawing on Indian astrology authored works inspired by Neoplatonic philosophy, exegetical commentaries on the Hebrew Bible, as well as treatises on astronomy, mathematics, grammar and poetry. According to him, the position of Mercury in relation to Saturn determines a person’s character. In this instance, the horoscope predicts the future of an individual who is deep-thinking, judicious, and talkative. Moreover, since Mercury is stronger than the Moon, reason is expected to control the appetites, although this may occasionally result in instability.

Saturn and Jupiter are both in exaltation and, as Ptolemy writes, this indicates that the individual will enjoy great honours and dignity, both through his father and his ecclesiastical career, from which further distinctions will arise. His numerous travels are predicted to bring him honours and considerable profit, and his dreams are said to be so accurate that they can almost be considered prophetic. In general, his life is expected to be fairly healthy, although special caution is advised regarding women, who described as harbingers of “harm and shame”. The horoscope concludes by indicating favourable and unfavourable days for the newborn: Monday is particularly hostile, Saturday is not very fortunate, whereas Tuesday is especially auspicious, with the remaining days being moderately favourable.

Bibliography

• Gemma Avenoza, Un fragmento de las Epistulae morales de Séneca en castellano (Göttingen: Niedersächsische Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek, Morbio 17, Fragmento 3), in Elisa Borsari (ed.), En lengua vulgar castellana traduzido. Ensayos sobre la actividad traductora durante la Edad Media, Cilengua, Logroño 2015, p. 45–65.
• Valerio Camarotto, Carlo Morbio, in Dizionario biografico degli Italiani, vol. 76, Roma, Istituto dell’Enciclopedia Italiana, 2012, ad vocem.
• William Duba, Finding the Prior Leaf: Manuscript Fragments and Original Codices, in “Fragmentology”, n. 6, december 2023.
• Margaret Gibson, Priscian, Institutiones grammaticae: a handlist of manuscripts, in “Scriptorium”, n. 26, 1972.
• Achille Lodovisi (ed.), Organizzare il tempo. “Lunari e calendari in Europa, secoli XII-XXI”. Guida ragionata alla mostra dell’Archivio di Stato di Modena, testi di Mario Bertoni et alii, Modena, Archivio di Stato di Modena, 2008.
• Carlo Morbio, Opere storico-numismatiche, Bologna, Gaetano Romagnoli, 1870.

1. Carlo Morbio, Opere storico-numismatiche, Bologna, Gaetano Romagnoli, 1870, p. 318.[↩]

---

---