Palimpsest
(from
πάλιν+
ψέω). The name
given to a manuscript from which the original writing has been rubbed off, in order that the
leaves may be used again for fresh writing. This process is occasionally repeated, so that the
leaves receive a third text. The MS. is then called a double palimpsest. The word
palimpsestus is found in Catullus (
22.5) and
Cicero (
Ad Fam.
 |
|
Palimpsest with St. Augustine's Commentary on the Psalms, written over Cicero's
Treatise De Republica. (Codex in the Vatican.)
|
vii. 18, 2), and the Greek form
παλίμψηστος in
Plutarch (
Cum Princip. Philosoph. ad fin.). From vellum and strong substances
the writing was removed by scraping or rubbing, but from the delicate papyrus leaves by
washing, usually with a sponge (
Mart.iv. 10;
Suet. Aug. 85). These erasures were often so
carelessly done that the original text can usually be restored and read, at least in part,
especially when chemicals are used to intensify the traces that remain. Of these chemicals,
the one oftenest employed is the hydrosulphuret of ammonia. Many important texts, both
classical and biblical, have been recovered from palimpsests when they have been erased for
the purpose of writing less valuable matter. Among these are portions of the
De
Republica of Cicero of the fourth century, hidden under a work of St. Augustine on
the Psalms (Vatican); the
Commentarii of the jurist Gaius under St. Jerome
(Verona); fragments of Plautus, written in rustic capitals in the fourth (?) century (Milan);
and part of the first decade of Livy (from bks. iii.-vi.), under the
Moralia of
Gregory the Great (Verona). No work as a whole, however, has ever been recovered from a
palimpsest. Many fac-similes of these palimpsest MSS. are given by Zangemeister in his
Exempla Codicum Latinorum (Heidelberg, 1876, 1879 foll.) and by Wattenbach.
See also Thompson,
Handbook of Greek and Latin Palaeography, pp. 75-77
(1893); and the article
Palaeography.
