![TWO FRAGMENTS FROM A NINTH-CENTURY TOURS BIBLE, in Latin, manuscript on vellum [France, Tours, first decades 9th century]](https://www.christies.com/img/LotImages/2018/CKS/2018_CKS_16018_0002_000(two_fragments_from_a_ninth-century_tours_bible_in_latin_manuscript_on093727).jpg?w=1)
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TWO FRAGMENTS FROM A NINTH-CENTURY TOURS BIBLE, in Latin, manuscript on vellum [France, Tours, first decades 9th century]
A handsome, large and early 9th-century example of the finished form of the Carolingian minuscule, and an extremely rare survival from a Tours Bible.
Two fragments of c.45 x 335mm, cut horizontally. 10 lines of continuous text in two columns, containing Mark 4:40 to Mark 5:4, 'habetis fidem' to 'disrupisset catenas'; Mark 5:18-21, 'cepit illum deprecari' to 'et erat circa mare'; Mark 5:37-41, 'sequi se nisi Petrum et Iacobum [...]' to 'ubi erat puella iacens et tenens'; and Mark 6:8-13, 'in zona aes' to 'unguebant oleo multos aegrotos et san[abant]', initials in red (recovered from a binding, and consequently stained and creased).
The script is beautiful and precise, and displays the surviving influence of the half-uncial hand seen in such a detail as the sweeping head-stroke of the letter ‘r’. Interesting too is the careful inter-column cross-referencing. The enormous size and certain features of the script allow us to localise it to a scriptorium in Tours. Parallels can be drawn both with the Gedeon Gospels of Nevers at the British Library (Harley 2790), and the Moutier-Grandval Bible (Add. MS 10546), both of which have been localised to Tours and dated to the early decades of the 9th century.
A handsome, large and early 9th-century example of the finished form of the Carolingian minuscule, and an extremely rare survival from a Tours Bible.
Two fragments of c.45 x 335mm, cut horizontally. 10 lines of continuous text in two columns, containing Mark 4:40 to Mark 5:4, 'habetis fidem' to 'disrupisset catenas'; Mark 5:18-21, 'cepit illum deprecari' to 'et erat circa mare'; Mark 5:37-41, 'sequi se nisi Petrum et Iacobum [...]' to 'ubi erat puella iacens et tenens'; and Mark 6:8-13, 'in zona aes' to 'unguebant oleo multos aegrotos et san[abant]', initials in red (recovered from a binding, and consequently stained and creased).
The script is beautiful and precise, and displays the surviving influence of the half-uncial hand seen in such a detail as the sweeping head-stroke of the letter ‘r’. Interesting too is the careful inter-column cross-referencing. The enormous size and certain features of the script allow us to localise it to a scriptorium in Tours. Parallels can be drawn both with the Gedeon Gospels of Nevers at the British Library (Harley 2790), and the Moutier-Grandval Bible (Add. MS 10546), both of which have been localised to Tours and dated to the early decades of the 9th century.
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Robert Tyrwhitt