Dear Dimitrios Zaganas
Thank you for all these interesting references.
I was often asked to support librarians and to help them out with useful classifications. Despite the fact that I am an autodidact who learnt over the years just by doing, I admit that I could also learn a lot by studying the mistakes of eminent scholars which they did as human beings. It is true that not everybody has the specialised knowledge of Christian Hannick, Gregorios Stathis, or Enrica Follieri. Donatella Bucca created a catalogue of the Messina Collection (SS. Salvatore) which I recommend as a model, how a good catalogue should look like, if it is supposed to be of use even for non-experts (with useful facsimiles to explain her classification of notation). Of course, such a detailed description she offered would be exaggerated as an annotation of a digitised manuscript. But here are many who have the requested knowledge.
I have no doubts that also Robert Devréesse is an eminent scholar, unfortunately his catalogues of the huge Greek collections at the Vatican library are useless for those scholars who just would like to find the manuscripts of Greek liturgical music within its huge collections, since he does usually not even mention, whether a manuscript has musical notation (however you might define it). He might be very reliable to recognise certain liturgical book types, but the musical ones were tricky for him. You have to look for the famous needle in a haystack. If you will ever find yourself in such a situation, never hesitate to ask me. I also instructed the librarians there, because from time to time they have those sophisticated users who are confronted with the very problem and completely lost (at least for days, Rome is very expensive, and your time there is always limited!).
1) Like most of the databases also Gallica has a "description" (usually taken from a catalogue), if you click on the "info" symbol, and I am in a personal exchange with the National Library to improve the information given there (he is one of the authors of the more recent catalogue you liked to quote). The number of published Latin manuscripts is incredibly large, obscene large if you compare it with the number of reproductions made of the Greek collection. I can only guess what are the motives behind this "priority" (and quite frankly, I do not even want to know the real ones). Concerning the kontakarion you have now mine, even the most important bibliographical reference you will need to study the exact repertoire of this manuscript and to understand its composition.
2) Even if they were eminent scholars, none of us will hardly offend them by making up your own mind. The fact that neither Gastoué nor Omont were always very precise concerning the correct classification of the manuscript put pretty obstacles, if you even try to search among the few digitised Greek sources (I am curious who does really know, that only "sticherarium", "triodium", "menæum" are those passwords, rather than keywords, to get any reasonable search results at Gallica, but please do not draw any further conclusion until you have studied its content on your own!!!).
Another clear sign that these competences are missing in Paris, is the way certain damaged manuscripts had been bound together (see my description of ms. grec 262). I think you in Greece have no imagination, what is going on in other European libraries, sometimes Greek music manuscripts are interpreted as Greek treatises with interlinear Arabic translation!
I am here for an exchange, but if you simply leave the work to me, it might be hardly called a such, and I will no longer bother you.
Just from your quotation it becomes evident, that Henry Omont did not much care about the content and codicological evidence given by the manuscript. He had probably other interests than yours. Now before we look at the date on folio 140v, I just dare to ask why does everybody like Raasted (1966, 216) or MMB (
inventory) rely so much on Omont's datation? What about other studies, the
new book by Nina-Maria Wanek about the old sticheraria?
Ioan Petrescu suggested a provenance from Cyprus because there are sticheraria for the local feasts Epiphanios (May 12) and Triphyllios (June 13), but I learnt by Wanek's comparatistic study (during that period still limited to the originals she could consult in Vienna, Munich, and Athens), that the Menaion between the late 13th and 14th century is not so different and quite close to Troelsgård's
SAV list, while the organisation of the Oktoechos has changed considerably between the 13th and 14th century, that you might find some hints there... Why is it so close to ms. 260 which was dated to the 14th century?
Now if you have any other relevant observations concerning scripture, notation, notated variants, and repertoire of this sticherarion which might help to support or to contradict Omont's assumed datation, I can assure you it will be most appreciated.
I just said, we are at the beginning concerning Paris, nothing more and nothing less... I hope this might encourage you to do some observations and to do something in response to the generous offer that you can download each of these manuscripts as a whole pdf. Now these are only the black-and-white microfilms, but as far as I know Gallica, a coloured reproduction will follow soon.
