Title

Liber dialogorum

Anonimous

Generic classification

Object

Date

Century

Cultural context / style

Dimensions

Material

Technique

Iconography / Theme

Provenance

Current location

Inventory Number in Current Collection

Object history

The origin of the library of the monastery of San Sebastián de Silos, later called Santo Domingo de Silos, can be found in the reconstruction carried out by the Castilian Count Fernán González in the middle of the 10th century. In 954 the count donated numerous lands and possessions to the monastery, as well as some books relevant to the cult (Senra, 2002). However, the peak of the monastery took place with the abbot Domingo Manso, who had been a monk of San Millán de la Cogolla. In 1041 Fernando I put him in charge of San Sebastián de Silos and under his mandate the monastic complex grew considerably. The library increased thanks to the donations received and the productions of the scriptorium itself (Castro, 2020), reaching its peak at the end of the 11th and beginning of the 12th century (Sánchez Mariana, 1984; Boylan, 1992).

Precisely, this Liber dialogorum was one of the volumes produced in the 10th century (Férotin, 1912; Vivancos, 2007). The Silense library suffered great losses throughout its history, such as this copy. Rodrigo Echevarría, the last abbot of the monastery before the exclaustration of 1835, was in charge of jealously preserving the manuscripts that were still treasured in Silos. According to Besse (1897), he was a man of "uncommon prudence and firmness, combined with an extensive knowledge, a great knowledge of the world and noble and distinguished manners". There is no doubt that his decision to protect the manuscripts helped to keep them from being dispersed at first. However, their fate changed when he was appointed bishop of Segovia in 1857. Echevarría had to leave the monastery, and from then on the codices fell into disrepair.

Anastasio Rodrigo y Yusto, archbishop of Burgos, was impressed when he visited the Monastery of Santo Domingo de Silos. Its dilapidated state led him to appeal to the former monks of the abbey. It was at that moment that Sebastián Fernández, one of the exclaustrated monks and vicar of the church of San Martín (Madrid), intervened. Although he was responsible for protecting the manuscripts in the capital, he failed to appreciate their true value, which led him to contact a marquis in Madrid "plus ou moins authentique" who worked with Aunt Jesusa, a woman well known for selling antiquities (Besse, 1897; Ruiz and Gonzalez de Linares, 1978). Thus it was that in 1877 she sold 69 manuscripts for 16,000 pesetas, a figure that undoubtedly pleased the parish priest.

The Liber dialogorum was among these codices sold in Madrid. A year later, it appeared in number 34 of the Catalogue de libres rares parmi lesquels on remarque la Bible Mazarine premier livre imprimé par Gutenberg et des manuscrits du XIe au XVIIIe siècle rédigé par M. Bachelin-Deflorenne cited as follows:

Dialogues de St Grégoire. Manuscrit Latin, on vélin. In-4, rel. à ais de bois recouv. de peau de v. (Incomplet du commencement et de la fin.)

Manuscrit du Xe au XIe siècle, à longues lignes; 183 feuillets de texte.

It is not surprising that the volume ended up in the hands of Antoine Bachelin-Deflorenne, since he was an antiquarian specializing in the sale of antique and rare books. Although his main store was located in Paris, at 10 Boulevard des Capucines, he had branches in London and Madrid. That was how he learned that Sebastian Fernandez was selling the Silensian manuscripts. The Liber dialogorum was offered for sale in Paris on June 1, 1878 at the Hotel des Commissaires-Priseurs (Paris) and was bought on the 15th by Bernard Quaritch (Fernández de la Cuesta, 1985), a German bookseller who had settled in London. He acquired the manuscripts for 1750 francs (Whitehill, 1976) for the British Museum. In the Catalogue of Additions to the Manuscripts in the British Museum in the Years 1876-1881 it is mentioned as follows:

Liber dialogorum beati Gregorii Romensis episcopi, quem Petro diacono interrogante disseruit." Imperfect, ending in Bk. iv. ch. 24 Vellum; ff. 182. In Visigothic characters, with coloured initials, Xth cent. Small Quarto.

Finally, in 1973 the Liber dialogorum became part of the British Library (London), where it is still preserved today.

Description

The Liber dialogorum consists of 182 folios and has been dated to the middle of the 10th century (Boylan, 1992). It recounts the life and miracles that were performed by some saints, such as St. Benedict.

Locations

• X^th c. - ca. 1857

  monastery

  Monastery of Santo Domingo de Silos, Santo Domingo de Silos (Spain)

• Mid XIX^th c. - 1877

  parish priest

  Sebastián Fernández, Madrid (Spain)

• ca. 1877 - ca. 1878

  dealer/antiquarian

  "Aunt Jesusa", Madrid (Spain) *

• ca. 1878

  dealer/antiquarian

  Antoine Bachelin-Deflorenne, Paris (France) *

• ca. 1878

  dealer/antiquarian

  Bernard Quaritch, London (United Kingdom) *

• 1878 - ca. 1973

  museum

  The British Museum, London (United Kingdom)

• ca. 1973 - present

  study center

  The British Library, London (United Kingdom)