brought quite munificently to Constantinople to Ludovico Sforza, once Ludovico had departed this life, Giovanni Battista, the parent of the cardinal Francesco Sfondrati and grandfather of the cardinal Niccolò Sfondrati, held it within his own discretion and power—just as he did other monuments and writings of the highest estimation belonging to that same Ludovico, with whom the authority of Battista carried the greatest weight, as we can gather from the various embassies which he, because of the gravest matters, conducted before almost all Christian princes: namely, Innocent VIII, Charles of France, Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain, Ferdinand king of Naples and Sicily, and finally the Venetian Republic, where he also met his death. Afterwards, having been received as a gift from the cardinal Paolo Sfondrati, Pope Paul V brought it into the Vatican Library, and signified it with a prefixed inscription: "Pope Paul V ordered this book, which had been brought from Constantinople to Ludovico Sforza, Duke of Milan, and later preserved within the Sfondrati family, having been given as a gift to him by the cardinal Paolo Sfondrati, Cardinal of St. Cecilia, to be brought into the Vatican Library in the year 1615, in the eleventh year of his pontificate."
The book contains only one part of the Menologium, since it is completed in only six months—September, October, November, December, January, and February. In what coffers the other part lies hidden is uncertain, and would that it has not suffered the common fate of books—perishing from light through fire or iron, through the hands of impious or idle men, or even through the injury of the elements. It is written on large parchment folios, skillfully smoothed, though already slightly dulled by being worn with age, in a shape almost square, with most elegant characters, which nowhere—due to the quality of its ink, which does not stain black—appear black. The so-called capital letters are fashioned in gold; the upper part of each page represents the names of the saints of that day, and the other half contains the deeds of the saints written in summary, with the other part presenting images and colors to the eyes, not carelessly, but quite elegantly for that time. More recent scholars call the painting "miniature," for the colors are tempered not with oil, but with water and gum. The images do not originate from a single hand, and therefore they are not all of the same quality, but one excels over another in elegance, accuracy, and suitability to the art; and so that they might not wander unassigned, each painter expressed his name in the margin of the book by the image he depicted. The names of the painters are: Pantaleo, Michael Blachernita, Georg, Simeon, Michael the younger, Menas, Nestor, Simeon Blachernita. The images are arranged in such a way that one does not correspond to the one opposite it, but rather to the letters and Lives of the saints: wherefore sometimes it refers to the upper part of the page, when the upper part of the other refers to the writing, and sometimes to the lower, when the lower part of the other is described.
As to when the book was written, we cannot divine; however, the iambics prefixed to the work seem to indicate that it was written 662 years ago. These are indeed:
Ἐνταῦθα νῦν σκόπησον ὀρθῶς ὁ βλέπων, etc. From the version of Joannes Argoli. Consider well with your eyes here, O you who gaze, Upon an excellent work, truly the best of things, The work of God, I say, most beautiful, striking the mind, Delighting all things created by sight, as is deserved, For as the King of the highest heaven, the Artificer, Adorning the sky with fiery choruses, Which like a skin He unfolded with the sound of a voice, Irradiates the world with wise providence; And below, as the Earth itself, shining with equal customs, [Irradiates] the regions of the whole, and the king of purple, Basilius, and his son, double in power, By fame, namely by triumphs, [and] by sermons, etc.
And this is the Menologium seen by Baronius, and I do not deny it; but that it was described and adorned with images by the study and order of the Emperor Basil, unless I am taught from elsewhere, I would not believe, just as I would not believe that this Basil was the Macedonian. For by these iambics this Basil is asserted to be Porphyrogennetos: ἄναξ ὅλης γῆς, ἥλιος τῆς πορφύρας Βασίλειος, τὸ θρέμμα τῆς ἀλουργίδος, "Emperor of the whole earth, sun of the purple, Basil, and nursling of the royal robe." This cannot be said of the Macedonian, since he was neither Porphyrogennetos, nor born of an emperor father, nor was he an adult. Zonaras, on Constantine Doukas: Τὴν μὲν βασιλείαν αὐτοῦ καταλέλοιπε τρισὶν υἱέσιν, etc. "He left his kingdom to three sons, of whom he had begotten two, Michael and Andronicus, while Eudoxia was still a private citizen, but Constantine while he was reigning, when she herself had already been called Augusta." Whence he alone was Porphyrogenitus and was immediately adorned above the rest with the insignia of the empire. From this, indeed, the name of the "Purple-born" emerged: those who were born while the father was reigning, whether in the chamber called the Porphyra or wrapped in purple, were called Porphyrogennetoi. Herodian, history lib. 1, regarding Commodus, the son of the Emperor Marcus: "Ἔδωκε δὲ μετ' ἐκεῖνον, etc. "And after that Marcus, fortune gave you a prince, not indeed an adoptive one such as those who were before me, nor one boasting in an acquired empire, for I am the only one born to you and raised in the palace, not wrapped in private swaddling clothes; immediately as I emerged from the womb, the imperial purple received me, and as soon as the sun saw me, it saw a man and a prince." And Themistius, oration 6, regarding Valentinian, the brother of the Emperor Gratian: Πρῶτος γὰρ δὴ τέως τῆς εὐδαίμονος οἰκίας ἐσπαργανώθης ἐν ἁλουργίδι, "For you were the first of that happy house to be swaddled in the purple." It is said, however, of Basil the Younger, who held the empire around the year of the Lord 977, together with Constantine Porphyrogennetos.
TESTIMONIES
Ferdinand Ughelli, *Italia Sacra*, Vol. VI, p. 1049 et seq. "The Menologion of the Greeks, written by order of Basil the Younger, Emperor of Constantinople, before the year of salvation 984, and translated into Latin from the faith of the parchment Vatican codex by Peter Arcudius of Corfu, V. C., was now edited for the first time by Ferdinand Ughelli (in the year 1659). This Greek book, of which we have here the Latin version, was written some 684 years ago by order of Basil Porphyrogennetos the Younger, Emperor; it is adorned with the images of the saints whose praises are celebrated within it, and is kept in the library of the Supreme Pontiff in the Vatican. Regarding it, the famous and most learned Leo Allatius writes in his first dissertation on the books of the Greek Church in these words: 'This Menologion, precious with gold and gems, was brought quite munificently to Constantinople to Ludovico Sforza.' The rest is as above in Allatius to the end." Ughelli continues: "So says Leo. But what more proves that this Menologion was written by order of Basil the Younger is that it contains a mention, on the 17th of the Kalends of January, of the holy Theophano, first wife of the Emperor Leo, son of Basil the Macedonian, and of other saints who lived long after Basil the Macedonian. Moreover, since I had possession of Arcudius's own original version, I have decided, for the sake of those who love ecclesiastical matters, to present it here. Meanwhile, kind reader, use it and be well."The Bollandist associates, in *Acta Sanctorum*, Vol. I of March, p. 861. "We have taken care to possess the two more illustrious Menologia in their entirety; one of which we received on loan from our Society's Clermont college in Paris; the other we ordered to be transcribed partly from the manuscripts of the monastery of Grottaferrata in Latium, and partly from the codex of the Vatican Library. And the latter is that of which the first part, most elegantly copied by Cardinal Sfondrati for Pope Paul V, given as a gift, and rendered into Latin by Peter Arcudius, was appended by Ferdinand Ughelli in *Italia Sacra*, Vol. IV, lamenting that the other part lay hidden, one knew not in what cellars, by the common lot of books perhaps lost to fire or sword, or to the injury of impious or idle men, or the elements. B But we found it, not lying hidden in cellars, but serving for the use of the divine office for as many months as it contains, from March to the beginning of September, in the aforementioned monastery of Basilian monks: not indeed adorned with equal elegance of characters and delights of pictures on every page (such as we have heard, read, and seen to be in the Vatican), but in its antiquity and fidelity not at all inferior, and bearing the same title of Emperor Basil. So that we did not hesitate to believe that this, if not the genuine counterpart of the Vatican part, was at least born from the same hand as if from the womb, and certainly generated from the same father and author, as much by other indicators as by the most perfect similarity of style. Therefore, we present here the first month, that is, March, as a specimen of all the other Menologia. For this collection is more illustrious than all others we have seen, and of greater authority, in that it was not compiled by the private whim of anyone, but seems to have been in public use in the churches of Constantinople: since it is known to have been written by order of the Emperor Basil Porphyrogennetos before the year of salvation 984. Is it the first of this kind? We do not dare to assert by conjecture, much less to define how much older the use of Menologia was in the Greek Church than the aforementioned century, etc." "A Synaxarion collected from the Menologion by order of Emperor Basil, the last six months of which exist in manuscript in the monastery of Grottaferrata in Latium, etc." Joannes Ciampinus, in the book titled *Il Giornale de' Letterati*, published in Rome in 1676, in the first Diary of April of that same year, when he had reported on the *Acta Sanctorum* of April collected and illustrated by Godefrido Henschenio and Daniele Papebrochio of the Society of Jesus, adds the following on page 8: "But above all, in this regard, it must not be left unsaid how in this work the original Greek of the month of April is reported in full from a most ancient Menologion found in the monastery of Grottaferrata. It contains the saints of only six months, starting from March to the end of August; but the lack of the other six does not diminish, but rather increases, the value of the manuscript, since those other six months, which are missing to make the full year, are kept precisely in the Vatican, written by order of the Emperor Basil Porphyrogennetos the Younger and translated from the Greek by Peter Arcudius. There had been no knowledge of this whole new part before: for which reason Monsignor Leone Allatius deemed it completely lost, and Ughelli, at the end of the sixth volume of *Italia Sacra*, where he reports the translation of the six months of the Vatican Menologion, also laments the loss of such a beautiful memorial. Much is therefore owed to the Canon Giovanni Francesco Albani, since he transmitted to the authors the Latin translation of this latter manuscript and attests that it is in all respects similar, in character, in form, and in phrasing, to the Vatican one."
Petri Possini, S.J., Letter written in Greek to Joannes Franciscus Albanus, written at Rome, 26 Dec 1661.