Vatican, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, vat. gr. 1070, fol. 195v; Colophon signed and dated by scribe Romanos. © 2023 Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana

☩ ἐγράφ(η) τὸ παρὸν ψαλτήριον• διά χειρὸ(ς)
τοῦ πολυαμαρτήτου Ῥωμανοῦ
ἠγουμένου ἀναξίου τοῦ ἁγίου Βενεδικτου
τοῦ Οὐλλάνου τῆς βαθείας τοῦ Γράτη
ὅντως αὐτοῦ διωγμένου διά τοὺς ἀθέους
Μουγαβάρους, καὶ καρτεροὺντο(ς)
είς τ(ὸ) μετοχ(ιον) τοῦ ἁγιοῦ Π(ατ)ρ(ὸ)ς τὸ λεγόμενον
τοῦ ἁγίου Σησυννίου μετὰ τοῦ ἁγιωτ(ά)τ(ου)
αρχ(ι)μανδρίτ(ου) κ(υρ) Νήφωνο(ς) σὺν
τοῦ ἁγίου κοινοβ(ίου) αὐτοῦ:
Ἐτελειώθ(η) δὲ διὰ κόπ(ου) καὶ δαπάνης
καὶ προθυμίας τοῦ ἱερομονάχ(ου)
Μάρκου καὶ κ(α)τα τὴν ἡμέραν
ἐκκλησιαρχ(ου) τῆς αὐτῆς ἁγίας μονης τοῦ Π(ατ)ρ(ό)ς:
ἕτους δὲ ἀπο κτήσεως κόσμου
,ςψςθ • ἰνδ(ι)κτ(ιῶνος) δ᾽
μην αὕγουστ(ος) εἰς τ(ὴν) ε: 

οἱ ἀναγινώσκοντες εὕχεσθαι διὰ τὸν κ(ύριο)ν ὅ-
τι ὁ γράφων πολλάκης παραγράφῃ: 

ὁ γράψας γραψάτο ἀεὶ έν κ(υρί)ω ζησάτο
quid sc(r)ipsit sc(r)ipsit semper cum d(omi)no uiuat

“This Psalter was written by the hand of the great sinner Romanos, the unworthy abbot of San Benedetto of Ullano.” Dated to the fifth of August 1291, the colophon on folio 195v[1] of Vat. gr. 1070 (Ra 1787) offers readers an exceptionally rare window into the reality of its scribe and the creation of a remarkable manuscript. Relaxing from the elegant minuscule used in the adjacent column, Romanos switches to a more informal script to tell his story. Although he identifies himself as the abbot of the Benedictine abbey founded in the province of Cosenza in 1099, he explains that he did not write the Psalter in his monastic community in the Crati valley. Instead, the Psalter was written rather about seventy-five kilometers east at San Sisinnio, the dependency or metochion of the Abbey of Patire in Rossano. Romanos explains that he had been taking refuge there after having been driven out from his home by yet another relentless Almugaveri pirate raid.[2]

Almost half of this intimate colophon is dedicated to its scribe. Only after telling his story and acknowledging his superior (and probable host), the archimandrite Niphon, does Romanos finally identify the Psalter’s patron: “This book was completed due to the exertion, payment, and zeal of the hieromonachos Mark.” The hieromonachos Mark, who also served as the Ecclesiarch of the Abbey of Patire, was the source of the mandate, required expenses, and perhaps also the materials required to make this Psalter. Romanos finishes off the colophon with a request for prayers from the reader and a short epigram, concluding by repeating the epigram directly underneath in Latin: quid sc(r)ipsit sc(r)ipsit semper cum d(omi)no uiuat.

Vatican, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, vat. gr. 1070, fol. 195v, detail of the bilingual epigram. © 2023 Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana 

The inclusion of the bilingual epigram is the colophon’s first indication that the present Psalter, identified as τὸ παρὸν ψαλτήριον, is in fact a Greco-Latin psalter. In transitioning from the Greek to the Latin formula, the increased thickness of the Latin script indicates that Romanos had switched the reed he was using to pen the Greek and reached for a writing tool with a nib cut to write the style of Latin script seen here, in which the letter forms are composed of strokes of varying thickness. The informal Greek script tightens into a formal Latin bookhand, which also hangs from its ruling line.

The Vatican Psalter ceremonially opens with an elegant decorative headpiece comprised of an elaborate circular knotwork medallion centered in a rectangular field with finials at each of the corners. The complex geometric wreath is surrounded by vegetal motifs silhouetted against a red background. These sinuous vines terminate in tri-lobed leaves touched in blue while the interstices of the central medallion feature cross hatching in grey. A griffin/dragon wraps around the bar extending to the right of the frame, its scales and feathers accented in blue. Heralded by a pair of blue, red, and grey-hatched knotted initial in what is called the “Reggio Style”, the mirrored Psalms begin underneath the headpiece with Greek on the left and Latin on the right.

Vatican, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, vat. gr. 1070, fol. 6r. © 2023 Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana

Vat. gr. 1070 is in fact just one of several Greco-Latin codices that Romanos made.[3] An earlier Greco-Latin psalter with a similar bilingual epigram is in Grottaferrata Ra 1582 – Crypt. A.γ.ii , while a Greco-Latin Evangeliary (Barb. gr. 541) also bears Romanos’ signature and makes mention of the Charles II, King of Naples in its dating.[4] Each of the manuscripts securely attributed to Abbot Romanos is remarkable alone as an independent repository of the calligraphic Greek and Latin script of the same person. Collectively, these manuscripts highlight the great diversity of the Greco-Latin codex. Rather than repeating himself in each, however, Romanos’ personal story survives solely in Vat. gr. 1070.

Nonetheless, Romanos’ oeuvre creates one of the largest groupings of Greco-Latin psalters attributed to the same person and is representative of a short chapter of the long tradition of the bilingual subgenre of the Psalter.[5] Spanning over a millennium from the sixth century to and beyond the sixteenth to include over seventy surviving examples, these mirrored psalters are crucial witnesses of the transmission of the Septuagint Psalms and the comparative evolution of the Latin and Greek Psalters.[6] One of the most extensive collections of bilingual Odes/Canticles in the entire tradition of the Greco-Latin Psalter, for instance, follows the 151 Psalms in Vat. gr. 1070.

Despite offering us vivid information about its creation for the Hieromonachos Mark at the Abbey of Patire, the Vatican Psalter is difficult to track through time. Several readers left their marks throughout in Latin, Greek, and a southern Italian dialect written with Greek letters. Given its inclusion in the Vatican librarian Sirleto’s inventory, Romanos’ Psalter arrived in Rome at least by the sixteenth century.