Ambrosiaster. Quaestiones Veteris et novi testamenti, two fragments, [France or Low Countries], [Tenth century, or c.1000].

Ambrosiaster. Quaestiones Veteris et novi testamenti, two fragments from leaves from a decorated ms. in Latin, retrieved from a binding, 310 x 65mm. and 335 x 67mm., in a fine Carolingian miniscule, chapter headings in red, shorter fragment tipped on to paper, short tear to head of taller fragment, both with folds, creasing, some scuffing, with loss, [France or Low Countries], [Tenth century, or c.1000].

⁂ Rare and early copies of parts of an important early commentary on the Old and New Testament (here quaest . XI, XXIII and XXXV). Copies of extracts of the text interspersed with that of Theodore of Mopsuestia were produced at Corbie in the eighth century (these probably descending from a North African copy from the library of Cassiodorus at Vivarium: see Ganz, Corbie in the Carolingian Renaissance , 1990, pp.40, 126-7, and lot 17 in the Schøyen sale in Sotheby's, 10th July, 2012). No copy is recorded outside of institutional ownership.

Ambrosiaster lived in the second half of the 4th century, and is likely to have been a member of the Roman clergy, active during the reign of Pope Damasus (366-384).

Provenance: Note in French mounted on paper preserving fragment recording their use in the binding of a copy of Quintilian, Declamationes, Paris, Simon de Colines, 1542.