This leaf, written in Latin, is one of many removed from Otto Ege’s personal copy of Dialogues of Gregory the Great. Although leaves from this manuscript were included in Ege’s Fifty Original Leaves from Medieval Manuscripts: Western Europe: XII – XVI Century, this particular leaf was not designated for inclusion in one of those portfolios but was given to the Reading Public Museum as a gift by Otto’s wife, Louise Ege.
Written by Pope Gregory I (540 – 604 AD) the Dialogues consisted of four books. The first was largely autobiographical and the rest were made up of writings on the lives and miracles of the early Italian Church Fathers. The script used is lettre bâtarde, a semi-cursive which could be written more quickly than other scripts. It is said that there is no other book that gives us so vivid a picture of religious life in Italy during the sixth century.