LATIN PALIMPSESTS. The first fragment of Latin literature printed from a palimpsest origi nal is the portion of the ninety-first book of Liry already referred to, published at Hamburg and also at Rome in 1773. It was reedited in a more complete form by Niebuhr in 1820. Of the Latin palimpsests edited by Mai, the earliest were some fragments of lost orations of Cicero from two different palimpsests in the Ambrosian library at Milan, in the later of which the sec ond writing consisted of the acts of the Council of Chalcedon. These orations were published in two successive volumes in 1814. He also pub lished eight orations of Symmachus (1815) and the comedies of Plautus, including a frag ment of the lost play entitled Vidularia (1815). This is the celebrated Codex Ambrosianus in Milan, which has since been studied by Ritschl and other Plantine scholars, notably Studemund (Perlin, 1889). Mai likewise edited the works of M. Cornelius Front°, together with the epistles of Antnninus Pius, Lucius Verus, M. Aurelius, and others (1815), as well as the celebrated dia logue of Cicero, De Republica, from a palimpsest of the Vatican, the modern writing on which is the commentary of Saint Augustine on the P,alms (1821). Soon after the Lb: Republica lie published another volume from palimpsest sources, the most important of whose contents were some fragments of ancient Roman law, which prepared the way for the more distin guished success of Niebuhr, who, in a palimpsest of the library of Verona, recognized a portion of an ancient work on Roman law, afterward, iden tified as the Institutiones of Gaius. The text was deciphered by Gi5schen and others, and the first edition published at Berlin in 1820. A care ful new collation was published by Studemund in 1874, and a text edition carefully revised by Krfiger and Studemund (4th ed. Berlin, 1899). The latest considerable Latin publication in this department is Gai Grunii Liciniuni AnnaHunt Qua. ,`,+urcrsunt (Berlin, 1857), edited from a palimpsest of the British Museum by the younger Pertz. This palimpsest, as was already stated_ is a thrice-written codex, the earliest and original contents being the dangles of Granius a writer of the second century A.D. The second writing was also in Latin, and the work is a grammatical treatise, of which the chapter, Dc Verb() and De Adrerbio are still legible. The most modern writing is Syriac, written in the cursive character.
It will be gathered from the above that the ancient works recovered by means of palimpsest manuscripts are all fragmentary, and one might be led to rate at a low value the result thereby obtained. Yet such works: as the Republic of Cicero, the Institutes of Gains, and the very early text of Plautus in the Ambrosial' palimpsest are of priceless value. And it must be remembered
that in some of the departments to which these palimpsestic fragments belong every scrap, no matter how trifling, has an independent value. In bildieal remains, for example, a single text may present a valuable reading, the merest frag ment may throw light on all important critical question. In history. in like manner, a small fragment may disclose an interesting fact, or supply a significant commentary upon facts otherwise ascertained. And as regards critical uses especially, it must not be forgotten that the obliterated text of the palimpsest manuscripts for the most part far exceeds in antiquity the very oldest known eodiees which we possess. and is, probably, second only in age to the papyri of Herculaneum.
The method of treating palimpsest manu scripts, with a view to deciphering their contents, has been fully described by different editors. Mai. after having washed the palimpsest with an infusion of galls, exposed it to the light and air, and. generally speaking, found this sufficient for his purpose. Peyron washed the parchment in water, afterwards in dilute muriatie acid, and finally in prussiate of potash. A mixture com pounded on this principle is called from its in ventor. M. Gioherti, tinctura Giobertina. Some times the treatment does not succeed equally well on both sides of the parehment, the outer surface, from its softer texture and more thor mud' erosion, yielding poorer results. When the ink contained animal substances, as milk, or the blood of the cuttlefish. -)lone plunged the Pareh meat into a close vessel filled with oil, which he heated to a temperature of 400° II. But almost, if not quite. all of the earlier processes have re suited, after the Ionise of sonic years, in such darkening, and sometime, corrosi?m of the •m face of the manuscripts treated, a, to make them quite illegible and worthless. Von Sickei recom mended all apparently harmless, process, that of washing the page, of the manuscript disereetly with a potash,,oap, and then immersing them in water. from which treatment they take no injury if they are carefully dried aiterwardls. Pringsheim published the details of a prdol'`4 purely photographic, whereby. through sliecessive photographing-, the effect on the plate of the later writing is weakened, and that of the earlier and fainter hand is intensified. until the erased writing becomes legible in the negative.
Consult: Mope, Lateinisch, und arirehisebe Hessen I Frankfort, 1850) ; id., De Libris Palireen sestis tam Latinis gnaw Gra cis ( Ka rkrulle, 1855 ; Wattenbach, Dies im telalter (3d ed., Leipzig, Is90). See PALE OGRAPHY.