Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, lat. 5288

Images: Gallica; Biblissima 

Other shelf marks: Regia 3863, Baluze 439

Physical description: BnF lat. 5288 is a miscellany of parchment and paper copied in the 10th or 11th centuries. 3 Corinthians and the Epistle to the Laodiceans appear to have originated in a different codex and the beginning of 3 Cor. is missing.

Curiously, the missing portion of this manuscript is reproduced in a 17th/18th century manuscript, also held in the BnF (lat. 13069). Clues to the history of this manuscript can be found in a colophon of BnF lat. 13069, which indicates that the beginning of the Epistle had been attached to a slightly older manuscript of Augustine’s Confessions. Whether the undivided copy of 3 Cor/Ep. Lao. was part of a larger codex is not clear, though De Bruyne (1908) thinks the leaves come from the end of a codex. This text of 3 Cor. is virtually identical to another Latin copy in Milan (Biblioteca Ambrosiana, Cod. Ambrose E 53 inf.), a Latin Bible also from the 10th c. This relation could indicate that the folio in BnF lat. 5288 was also part of a Latin Bible. However, the Milan manuscript lacks the brief narrative interlude between the letter from the Corinthians and the letter from Paul.

Language: Latin

Date: 10th/11th cent.

Provenance: unknown


3 Corinthians (CANT 211.IV; fol. 32r–33r)

Epistle to the Laodiceans (CANT 305; fol. 33r)

Additional contents: numerous passions, letters, chronicles, and other documents of saints, popes, and other Christian clergy.


Montfaucon, Bernard de. Bibliotheca Bibliothecarum Manuscriptorum Nova. Tomus Secundus. Paris: Briasson, 1739 (p. 747, item 3863, does not note the inclusion of 3 Cor/Ep. Lao.).

C.A.L.M.A. Compendium Auctorum Latinorum Medii Aevi (500-1500). Vol. I.2. Firenze: SISMEL, 2000, 89 (text 10).

Other online databases: Biblissima

Entry created by Gregory Peter Fewster, University of Toronto (, 28 August 2017.