Rossano Gospels

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New Testament manuscripts
papyri • uncials • minuscules
Uncial 042
Christ comes before Pilate
Name	Purpureus Rossanensis
Sign	Σ
Text	Matthew, Mark
Date	550
Script	Greek
Now at	Diocese Museum, Rossano Cathedral
Size	188 folios; 31 x 26 cm; 20 lines; 2 col.
Type	Byzantine
Category	V

The Rossano Gospels (Gregory-Aland no. 042 or Σ ), located at the Cathedral of Rossano in Italy, are a 6th century Gospel Book written during the occupation of the Italian peninsula by the Byzantine Empire. Also known as Codex purpureus Rossanensis due to the reddish (purpureus in Latin) appearance of its pages, the codex is one of the oldest surviving illuminated manuscripts of the New Testament. The now incomplete codex has the text of the Gospel of Matthew and the majority of the Gospel of Mark. A second volume is apparently missing. Like the Vienna Genesis and the Sinope Gospels, the Rossano Gospels are written in silver ink on purple dyed parchment. The large (300 mm by 250 mm) book has text written in a 215 mm square block with two columns of twenty lines each. There is a prefatory cycle of illustrations which are also on purple dyed parchment.

The text of the Codex is generally Byzantine text-type. Codex Beratinus, along with manuscripts N, O, and Σ, belongs to the group of the Purple Uncials. Aland placed all four manuscripts of the group (the Purple Uncials) in Category V.

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[edit] References

Walther, Ingo F. and Norbert Wolf. Codices Illustres: The world's most famous illuminated manuscripts, 400 to 1600. Köln, TASCHEN, 2005.
Kurt Weitzmann. Late Antique and Early Christian Book Illumination. New York: George Braziller, 1977.