Previous Lot Next Lot

Auction: 18038 - Autographs, Historical Documents, Ephemera and Postal History
Lot: 3115

Autographs
Greece
Symeon the Metaphrast
End 11th century, a vellum page (382 x 264 mm) with text in two colums, the sheet is written in a very small Greek script justified (270 x 192 mm) the capitals are in red and out in the margins. A contempory fault in the parchment has a contemporary repair (on both sides) before the text was written.

The sheet contains part of the second phase of the life of Saint Melania written by Simeon Metafraste and reported by the Monastery of Studion of Constantinople. There is some staining around the patch repair and at the edges of the page. Photo

Symeon the Metaphrast lived at the end of the 10th century. The sheet in question, datable to the following century, and written by the monks Giovanni and Sergio of Constantinople (Byzantine cultural center of the time)

Symeon the Metaphrast (also referred to as Simon or Symeon the Logothete, in classicizing usage Symeon Metaphrastes) was the author of the ten volume medieval Greek menologion, or collection of Saint's lives.


The Life of Saint Melania the Younger, granddaughter of another Melania (known as the Elder) was born in 383 from the son of the elder Publicola and Albina, of the people Ceionia. Following the example of the avatars and other maidens of the aristocracy, she wished to devote herself to ascetic life; but met the opposition of the parents and at the age of fourteen, her husband Valerio Piniano.
They had a daughter and a son, who died at a young age. Melanie also fell ill in a miserable manner, in order to induce her husband to issue the vow of perpetual continence, and obtain healing from God. After the opposition of relatives and the Senate, they distributed a large part of their huge wealth to the poor and the Chinese, freeing over 8000 slaves.
In January 405 they had a guest in Rome Palladio, bishop of Elenopoli, and at the beginning of the following year, in Noia, they visited Paulinus. In 408 together with his mother Albina and Rufinod'Aquileia, they retired to their villa on the Western wing of the Strait of Messina. Died Rufinus and approaching the danger of the barbarians, passed in Africa and stopped in Tagaste, near the Bishop Alipio, where he reached them a very affectionate letter from Augustine. In 417 they went to Jerusalem: after visiting the Holy Places and the monasteries of Egypt, Melania retired to the Mount of Olives, and built a monastery for ninety virgins, which she herself formed for the ascetic life. Morti Albina and Piniano had a second monastery built for the ascension sanctuary. Melania died on December 31, 439, the day commemorated in the Roman Martyrology

Subject to 20% VAT on Buyer’s Premium. For more information please view Terms and Conditions for Buyers.

Sold for
£600