1701.a.14

Imprint: London: Published by order of the Trustees of the British Museum. MDCCCLVI.

Quarto volume, measuring 365 x 315 mm, pp. 2 of introductory text, followed by 22 leaves of salted paper print copies of the Clementine Epistles contained in the Codex Alexandrinus (now part of the collection of the British Library's Department of Manuscripts at shelfmark Royal I D V-I D VIII). In his introduction, Madden describes the reasons for producing the facsimile as follows: 'The fragile state of the vellum leaves containing these Epistles, the damage done to them by the injudicious use of galls, and the unavoidable effects of time, which since the edition of Junius has left its traces on the manuscript, have all combined to render it very desirable to secure so interesting a relic of the earliest Christian antiquity from the risk of further injury or of future accident. With this view, therefore, the Trustees of the British Museum, in compliance with the Memorial presented to them by Professors of Divinity and others of the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, have caused a limited number of photographic copies to be executed of these Epistles, by Mr. Roger Fenton; and have thus, it is hoped, given effect to the opinion of the Memorialists, that by so doing, ' a very great boon would be conferred on Scholars and Divines.'' Anthony Hamber, in his 'A higher branch of the art. Photographing the fine arts in England, 1839-1880' (Gorson and Breach, Amsterdam, 1996), notes that the photography took place on the roof of the Museum, 'with the fragile manuscript placed at the mercy of the elements in direct sunlight' (p. 382).