Let’s learn how to read a script that can be particularly difficult because it is so different from today’s Roman alphabet letterforms. Let’s learn to read Beneventan!
Many of the pre-Caroline minuscule scripts were quite local in use. Beneventan is one of them. Developed and primarily used in southern Italy (in particular Benevento and Bari), Beneventan is unusual because it “survived” the Caroline-minuscule takeover of the ninth century.
First named by the great E. A. Lowe, Beneventan was thoroughly studied and its exemplars tracked and catalogued, by the equally-great Virginia “Ginny” Brown, who regularly published handlists of known examples.
(N.b. she gave me this key to Harvard's Widener Library Medieval Studies room 25ish years ago, and I still keep it on my keychain for inspiration even though it doesn’t open anything anymore.)
The earliest examples of the script date from the 8th century. Rather than being supplanted by Caroline minuscule as were most other contemporary scripts, Beneventan survived well into the 13th century and even spread across the Adriatic into Dalmatia. This script is both defiant and resilient!
So now let’s learn how to read it. We’ll take a closer look at this s. XI 2/2 fragment of the Life of St. Anthony from the Archivio di Stato in Frosinone, online @fragmentarium.bsky.social. https://fragmentarium.ms/view/page/F-tmy5/3432/35992
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