Justinian I (482-565)
Leaf from the Digest, with Gloss, in Latin, illuminated manuscript on vellum [Italy, 14th century].
A handsome illuminated leaf from the great compendium of juristic writings compiled by the Byzantine Emperor Justinian I.

c. 335 × 220mm. 2 columns of 44 lines, surrounded on all four sides by the Gloss in smaller script, the main text comprising part of Digest 13.1–4 (‘et pretium eius consecutus bouem condicet […] et apud Iulianum notat posse’), the three tituli introduced by rubrics (‘De condicione ex lege’, ‘De condicione triticaria’, and ‘De eo que certo loco dari oportet’) and illuminated with foliate initials incorporating dragons, human heads, fish, etc., including a human-bird hybrid with a bear on a rope (somewhat cropped and ragged at the edges, with losses of small parts of the Gloss, but the main text and illumination in good condition).

Provenance:
Colker MS 186; acquired in 1971 from Quaritch.

Unlike most Italian and French manuscripts, whose flourished initials are usually alternately red and blue with penwork of the other colour, the initials here are all blue with red penwork. This is a system of decoration typical of Italian (usually Bolognese) lawbooks, and it was probably from 13th-century Bologna that the aesthetic spread to 14th-century England. It was probably not simply a matter of taste, however: it is probable that blue pigments were harder to form into delicate penwork designs, and thus red ink was preferred for this purpose.

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