manuscripts in America, including several that even the
greatest European libraries would be proud to own. The collection is
also admirably representative of the development of script throughout
the Middle Ages. It comprises specimens of the uncial hand, the
half-uncial, the Merovingian minuscule of the Luxeuil type, the script
of the famous school of Tours, the St. Gall type, the Irish and
Visigothic hands, and the Beneventan and Anglo-Saxon scripts.

Among the oldest manuscripts of the library, in fact the oldest,
is a hitherto unnoticed fragment of great significance not only to
palaeographers, but to all students of the classics. It consists of six
leaves of an early sixth-century manuscript of the _Letters_ of the
younger Pliny. This new witness to the text, older by three centuries
than the oldest codex heretofore used by any modern editor, has
reappeared in this unexpected quarter, after centuries of wandering and
hiding. The fragment was bought by the late J. Pierpont Morgan in Rome,
in December 1910, from the art dealer Imbert; he had obtained it from De
Marinis, of Florence, who had it from the heirs of the Marquis Taccone,
of Naples. Nothing is known of the rest of the manuscript.

The present writers had the good fortune to visit the Pierpont Morgan
Library in 1915. One of the first manuscripts put into their hands was
this early sixth-century fragment of Pliny's _Letters_, which forms the
subject of the following pages. Having received permission to study
the manuscript and publish results, they lost no time in acquainting
classical scholars with this important find. In December of the
same year, at the joint meeting of the American Archaeological and
Philological Associations, held at Princeton University, two papers
were read, one concerning the palaeographical, the other the textual,
importance of the fragment. The two studies which follow, Part I by
Doctor Lowe, Part II by Professor Rand, are an elaboration of the views
presented at the meeting. Some months after the present volume was in
the form of page-proof, Professor E.T. Merrill's long-expected edition
of Pliny's _Letters_ appeared (Teubner, Leipsic, 1922). We regret that
we could not avail ourselves of it in time to introduce certain changes.
The reader will still find Pliny cited by the pages of Keil, and in
general he should regard the date of our production as 1921 rather
than 1922.

The writers wish to express their gratitude for the privi