UCLA Library Special Collections, A1713 Charles E. Young Research Library, Box 951575, Los Angeles, CA 90095-1575. Email: spec-coll@library.ucla.edu. Phone: (310) 825-4970
Description
Rebound, 19th century half-calf, with brown calfskin and yellow marbled paper sides over pasteboards. Squares only at fore-edge. Spine has four false bands, blind-tooled with a simple leaf design and outlined with a gold-tooled fillet. “CYRIL” gold-tooled on spine. Faded red edges.This is not the original binding of the textblock, but is a remboitage. Text of blue paper appears to be stab-sewn; a piece of paper was glued onto the spine, and the entire textblock was then glued into this previously used case binding. The MS is in a good state of preservation. Folios are missing at the beginning and end of the book. The scribe has paginated the codex, totaling 464 pages. Because several sets of numbers have been inadvertently repeated, we have renumbered the leaves, now totaling 243 folios. The codex is illustrated with two headpieces, one full-page illustration, five marginal ornaments, and seven decorative initials. The illumination in this MS is an amalgam of Armenian traditions and European conventions. The headpieces (fols. 10 and 42) are laid out according to Armenian tradition: |e| lines, with square knots filling the boxes formed by the intersection of the framing lines. At the top are leafy finials flanking a central plamette. The influence of European book illustration is most pronounced in the drawing of the vegetal motifs which fill the frame – fol. 10, a band of floral buds, and fol. 42, a fleshy vine. The handling of inks in these drawings is foreign to the medieval tradition. The lines are feathery, and free pink and gray washes produce a smoky, atmospheric effect. The leaves and vines have a convoluted, almost fleshy vitality. On fol. 42, the vine thrusts up out of the frame to join the leaf palmette above in an expression of independent life which is out of character with the decorative role of these motifs in the Armenian tradition.The Baptism scene (fol. 10v) is an ink drawing. The extensive use of hatching suggests that it is modeled on a European engraving. Christ stands in the river, blessing John, who half kneels on the bank, supporting himself on his staff and extending a cup (?) toward Christ. On the far bank a very somber angel holds drapery, probably Christ’s robes. The figure stops rather abruptly at the knees, without quite conveying the impression that he is kneeling. A dove descends from a bright opening in the cloudy sky. This is all set in a landscape including distant hills a building, and a tree. The artist had considerable difficulty n controlling the source of light, and in modeling the bodies.The two headpieces are accompanied by marginal ornaments with floral designs. Of the remaining three marginalia, one is formed of tulips (fol. 46v), one is a cross surmounted by a crown (fol. 53), and one is heraldic type of cross with four equal petal-shaped arms radiating from a small central circle. The seven decorative initials are bird-form letters drawn in black ink and dray shading. Text in exquisite notragir, written in one column of 18 lines. Subtitles and opening lines of text in bolorgir, and large erkat’agir initials throughout the codex. Twenty-nine quires of 8 leaves each, numbered with the letters of the Armenian alphabet written in bolorgir in the lower margin of the page. Fols. 8v-9. In notragir.Fol. 99. In minuscule notragir.Fol. 172v. In minuscule notragir.
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