Leaves from a Glossed Psalter
Two consecutive leaves of a Glossed Psalter in Latin, manuscript on vellum [Italy, second(?) quarter 12th century].
An example of the earliest page-layout for Glossed biblical books.

c. 260 × 175mm. Blind-ruled for 16 lines of main text, comprising Psalms 104:8–39 in a central column of fixed width, with interlinear gloss and flanked by two narrower columns of sporadic glosses in smaller script, initials in red (with natural flaws, otherwise in good condition)

Provenance:
Colker MS 68; acquired in 1964 from Dawson’s Book Shop, Los Angeles.

These leaves use the earliest form of page-layout, used for copies of Anselm’s Gloss, in which the columns are of fixed width, rather than varying according to the amount of Gloss that had to be accommodated for each passage of main text (for a discussion of the development of page layout during the 12th century, see C.R.F. de Hamel, Glossed Books of the Bible and the Origins of the Paris Booktrade (Woodbridge, 1984), chapter 2).

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