The Book of Splendours

The Manuscripts.

make it unlikely that he placed in his manuscript a date that had nothing to do with this manuscript. I therefore believe it is more probable that the date was actually found on the last original leaf of the manuscript. Manuscript B proves, as we have shown above, that this last leaf survived longer than the two preceding leaves. This is not to say, however, that this date actually applies to manuscript D. It could very well have been transcribed onto this manuscript from an older manuscript, of which it is a copy; cf. B. d. Str., p. xi and xxii.

I formerly, with the reservation that the variants borrowed by Martin from this manuscript were accurate, considered this manuscript to be significantly more recent than this date would suggest. I. Guidi, RSO II, p. 92, expressly confirmed the correctness of this opinion. Since I have had the opportunity to examine the manuscript personally, I no longer dare to formally deny the possibility or even the probability that this date applies to this manuscript. The original writing is heavily faded, so much so that it was likely already difficult to read by 1613. Also, in many places, often for several pages in a row, Abdallah traced over the old writing with fresh ink. Since he did not follow the contours of the ancient letters very rigorously, the writing appeared rejuvenated. I therefore think it is not unlikely that the manuscript could date from the year 1284, two years before the death of Barhebraeus. This is approximately the time when the first part of manuscript F was executed: both manuscripts have the same somewhat long and narrow format, which is not entirely customary, and even from other points of view, one finds similarities between them. Unfortunately, we have no indication of the place where manuscript F was written. Manuscript D should, if the date we discussed above applies to this manuscript, have been completed at the convent in Mosul, where Barhebraeus lived and where he was, moreover, buried.

3. — Cod. Assemanianus 159, at the Vatican Library (V), dated to Tešrī II November 1949 of the Greeks, i.e., November 1637 of our era¹.

1. A. Mai, Script. vet. nova collectio, t. V, Roma 1831, p. 64; J. S. Assemanus, Bibliotheca Orientalis II, p. 307; Martin, op. cit., Preface, p. 9.