Page - 63 - in The Vienna Genesis - Material analysis and conservation of a Late Antique illuminated manuscript on purple parchment

Jiří Vnouček, Sarah Fiddyment, Abigail Quandt, Sophie Rabitsch, Matthew Collins, Christa Hofmann 63 tique style, by peeling away fine layers of tissue from the hair side of the skin, the presence of hair in many follicles indicates that the epidermis was not entirely removed from the surface. A very thin, oval-shaped area on folio 6v (the hair side) resembles the type of rup- ture that can develop in sheepskin while it is being dried under tension on the frame64. It is unclear, however, whether this is a naturally occurring area of delamination or evidence of the work of the parchmenter to produce such a thin product. When compared to the small size of the Vienna Genesis (originally only 96 folios), it may have been difficult for the craftsmen that produced the Codex Rossanensis and the Codex Sinopensis to obtain the required number of skins of sufficiently high quality for these large books of 400–500 folios each, and to prepare all of the parchment to the same standard. The parchment of the 6th century Vienna Dioscorides (Austrian National Library, Codex Medicus graecus 1) offers another interesting comparison with the Vienna Genesis. This compendium of six pharmacological and zoological works was produced in Constan- tinople around 512 for Princess Juliana Anikia65. 485 folios are preserved with 496 images of plants and animals. One quire consists of four bifolios that are organized in standard Late Antique order according to Gregory’s rule starting with the flesh side outermost. The dimensions of the folios vary a lot throughout the text block, going from about 370 to 391 mm in lenght and from 300 to 320 mm in width. The folios have uneven edges due to trimming. The Vienna Dioscorides was conserved by Otto Wächter in 196066, see chapter on history. The treatment included the application of parchment glue, the stretching and drying of folios and mending with gold beater’s skin. In 1985 the manuscript was newly bound into three volumes. The parchment of the Vienna Dioscorides was produced in the Late Antique style. According to visual (Vnouček) and biomolecular analysis by eZooMS (Fiddyment), the parchment was made from sheep skin. On seven folios, the thickness was measured and ranged from 0.104 to 0.181 mm67. The position of the flanks of the animals varies a lot, as large areas of bellies are included. These areas can be found either at the front margin, indicating a vertical position of the spine of the animal, or at the lower margins indicating a horizontal position of the animal spine. Quite unusually, flanks of the animals can be found at the top margins of some folios. This means that the skins of larger and smaller animals of different ages were combined in no special order. The outer dimen- sions of the folios and their edges are very uneven. The size of the manuscript was probably altered during repair and rebinding campaigns. The quality of the parchment throughout 64 Quandt, 2011, p. 139. 65 Mazal, 1998, pp. 3–11. 66 Wächter, 1962, pp. 22–26. 67 Given the presence of the glue on both sides of the folios these measurements are not those of the original parchment. Open-Access-Publikation im Sinne der CC-Lizenz BY 4.0