Paola Buzi‘s catalogue of the Coptic manuscripts in the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin has finally been printed. This is a long awaited publication for those interested in Coptic manuscripts in general and in the reconstruction of the White Monastery codices in particular.

Although the collection belongs to the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, the manuscripts are actually hosted at the Staats- und Universitätbibliothek Carl von Ossietzky, Hamburg. They were moved here some decades ago in order to be catalogued under the auspices of the Katalogisierung der Orientalischen Handschriften in Deutschland. Thus, I often had the possibility to consult them in situ. It is an amazing collection of well-preserved parchment folios from the White Monastery.

The book can be purchased online via the publisher’s website. Here is a description of the catalogue:

“This volume is the seventh catalogue of the Verzeichnis der Orientalischen Handschriften in Deutschland series dedicated to the collection Coptic manuscripts belonging to the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, Preußischer Kulturbesitz – Orientabteilung.

The volume contains the analytical description of literary and liturgical manuscripts (Ms. or. fol. 1348–1350, 1605–1610; Ms. or. fol. 3065; Ms. or. oct. 409 and Ms. or. oct. 987) from the well known library of the White Monastery, in Sohag (Upper Egypt), two papyrus documents from Thebes (Ms. or. fol. 2097) and two Old Nubian manuscripts (Ms. or. quart. 1019 and Ms. or. quart. 1020), which are all dated between the fourth and the tenth-eleventh centuries CE.

Since a large part of these manuscripts consists of leaves of dismembered codices, great attention has been devoted to the description of each single codicological unit (that often correspond to one single leaf), and, wherever possible, to the virtual reconstruction of the original codices. Moreover, particular care has been dedicated to applying an extensive codicological description and to the possibly exhaustive listing of secondary literature.”