It happens that some protective flyleaves or pastedowns of a codex are palimpsests. In such cases, the erased or cancelled text is often not overwritten, or the text which is written on top of the removed text does not belong to the body of the manuscript. A good example of this phenomenon is Vat. gr. 1307 which includes a palimpsest folio in the front (f. 1), recycled from a codex with the historical work of Leo the Deacon (born ca. 950). The most interesting feature of this folio is that Leo the Deacon’s important historical work survives only in a single Byzantine copy (Par. gr. 1712, ff. 272r-322r) which is ca. one century later that this actual fragment, which instead dates to the eleventh century. Another example is Vat. gr. 308, which contains the body of the manuscript in paper and which is protected by a recycled bifolio (Vat. gr. 308, pt. 1, ff. I-II) in the front and a folio at the end of the codex (Vat. gr. 308, pt. 2, f. 362). See also ms. Oxon. Barocci 197. It is more frequent that the body of the manuscript includes recycled folios.
Intitial flyleaf with two Greek texts in the same orientation (Vat. gr. 308, pt. 1, f. IIv)
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Other codices include palimpsests both in the flyleaves and the body of the manuscript (e.g. Vat. gr. 19 and Vat. gr. 21). Another frequent way of recycling was to sew paper quires together to strengthen the writing surface; in such a practice the outer and the middle bifolios are parchment which may also be palimpsests because they were cheaper than unwritten parchment (e.g. Vat. lat. 752; Vat. lat. 815; Vat. lat. 1044).
Intitial flyleaves with two Greek texts in different orientation (Vat. gr. 19, f. 124r and Vat. gr. 21, f. 117r)
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We know of several important manuscripts that were recycled in one codex which still survives today. The best example for such a case is Cicero’s De re publica (5th century) which was dismembered and partially reused for a massive volume including a section of St Augustine’s Commentary on the Psalms in Vat. lat. 5757. Another example is Vat. gr. 73 (14th century) which includes the only surviving fragments of an imperial volume of the Excerpta Constantiniana, a collection of excerpts from historical works with numerous unique fragments, which was compiled upon commission of Emperor Constantine VII (sole reign 945-959) in the tenth century. Based on their respective reconstructions, each must have had enough parchment folios to suffice – if recycled – for another massive codex too. However, we do not know whether or not the remaining portions were recycled since these other manuscripts do not survive. In these cases, the dismemberment of the old manuscript and the production of the new manuscripts seem to be closely interrelated.
Nevertheless, it more often happens that a manuscript includes recycled parchment folios which derive from more than one codex. Quite a few manuscripts include parchment material that derive from different and unrelated circumstances, in as many as four or five manuscripts. For example, Vat. gr. 19, Vat. gr. 903, Urb. gr. 154 include palimpsest folios from a total of five different manuscripts each. As an extreme case, Pal. lat. 24 includes palimpsest folios that were recycled from no fewer than 10 manuscripts, most of which are unique and important texts.
Several palimpsests in Pal. lat. 24
It also happens that folios of the same codex are recycled in different manuscripts that survive. George Baiophoros, the Constantinopolitan scribe, for example, used parchment folios with Simplicius’ commentary on Aristotle’s Categories both in Urb. gr. 154 and Vat. gr. 21. In these cases, it is possible to reconstruct a substantial part of the lost codex from more than one actual object, often held in different institutions.
Vat. lat. 5763, for example, includes a folio with fragments of Galen in Greek majuscule which was recycled in Bobbio. Other folios of the same Galen codex were recycled in another codex, again probably in Bobbio, which is now kept in Wolfenbüttel, Herzog August Bibliothek (Cod. 64 Weissenburgensis). The same group of important Greek manuscripts, including an early copy of Strabo’ Geography, were recycled in Vat. gr. 2061A, Vat. gr. 2306 and Grottaferrata, Crypt. A.δ.XXIII.
Vat. gr. 2306, ff. 4r + 1v. Double palimpsest: both lower scripts (Biblical Majuscule and Byzantine Cursive Minuscule) are perpendicular to the upper Greek text
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Even folio can include pieces or strips from several recycled parchment manuscripts. For example, the Sinai copy of the Gospels in Arabic, one of the earliest copy in existence, from the 8th century (Arabic NF 8) includes many folios which are made up of four or five smaller strips of recycled parchment sheets that were sewn together to become a folio.