Acts of Archelaus (Acta Archelai)

(C) Montecassino 371 was written in the eleventh or twelfth century in Beneventan script, contains on fol. 1v/65v the commentary of the presbyter Philippus on Job (printed in Spicilegium Casinense III, 1897, 335—417, with illustration plate IV) and on fol. 66/113v the Acta Archelai. Zacagni had seen this manuscript during a visit to Montecassino and had a transcript of it made, which he used for the first edition of the Acta in his Collectanea monumentorum veterum Collection of ancient monuments, Vol. I, pp. 1—105 (Rome 1698). I collated it in Montecassino in the spring of last year.

The leaves (24.5 x 16.8 cm) have 28 (in the first part 30) long lines, except for leaf 98—105, which has only 27 lines. Vertical lines separate the writing area from the margin.

The ink is usually black but often appears yellowish, especially when applied thinly; some pages are written entirely with yellow ink, which is very often faded or flaked off, as is common in Cassinese manuscripts of this period.

Ornamentation is almost completely absent. In the first part, two initials (1v, 2) and signatures are written in red; in the second part, the first letter stands out due to its size and is decorated with red and green.

The margins of the mostly fine parchment were trimmed during binding, whereby some marginal notes were lost. Quire signatures are not found; considering the wide lower margin, one can assume they were likely never present.

Except for the last quires of both parts, all were originally quaternions. The first quire has been repaired multiple times; the leaf (flyleaf) that corresponds to leaf 7 is missing; in the sixth quire, another leaf (corresponding to leaf 43) has been lost; the ninth quire (63—73) is in its current state a septenio seven-sheet quire, the last three leaves of which (corresponding to 63, 64, 65) have been cut out. The 28-line ruling begins with fol. 66. Therefore, we should not assume a gap between the two parts of the codex, but the first part was already mutilated at the end by the time of binding; the last quire is in its current state a quaternio four-sheet quire, but, as Traube points out, it is clear from Reifferscheid's description (p. 422, work cited) that there is an external damage to the codex. How many leaves have been lost is questionable. Between 105 and 106, the remainder of a parchment strip, which once served to fasten the lost leaf 114, is still preserved; whether a second leaf is also missing depends on the original size of the codex. If the manuscript closed with the subscription "Ego Egemonius" I, Hegemonius etc., which we...