Western Medieval Manuscripts : Vita et miracula Sancti Gregorii Agrigenti

Leontius Presbyter Romanus

Western Medieval Manuscripts

<p style='text-align: justify;'>This fragment consists of five folios from a manuscript which was probably copied in the 11th or first half of the 12th century. It contains the end of the Life of St Gregory of Agrigento (Greek Akragas), by the 8th or 9th-century author Leontius, presbyter of Rome. Much larger portions of this manuscript are now Sinai, Monastery of St Catherine, MS gr. 504 and St Petersburg, Rossijskaja Nacional'naja biblioteka, MS gr. 96. There are a number of different endings to this text, one of which is unique to this copy.</p><p style='text-align: justify;'>The original manuscript was a <i>menologion</i> for November, a book containing Lives of the saints whose feasts fell in that month, and associated homilies. The surviving foliation had evidently been added before the different parts of the manuscript were separated from each other, and the St Petersburg fragment, of 91 folios, follows directly on from this one without intervening losses. The Sinai fragment, of 161 folios, precedes this one, but a folio has evidently been lost between them.</p><p style='text-align: justify;'>Dr Christopher Wright</p>