Hi fellow Pandas! Maybe someone around can help me deciphering what my ancestors wrote on this book.
This is a peculiar book, printed sometime between 1700s and early 1800s. The cover is torn and on the inside it’s as if someone binded parts of two different books, it doesn’t start on page 1 and when the first section ends there’s another block whose pages follow another numeration. I think this could be done for the convenience of the first owner who wanted to keep together what he used the most.
It has been in my family for some generations, it’s a book of blessings, the first owner was a monk, I don’t know how long ago did he live, but I do know about the last 3 persons who owned it before me.
When dad was about to move abroad and went to say goodbye to one of his uncles, dad gave him a portrait of himself with a dedicatory written on the back. When the uncle read it, he stared at him and said “I have something that belongs to you”. Dad was surprised when he received the book since it was the first time he had seen it. But the uncle wasn’t refering to his present self.
There was a little boy called Kostas, like my dad, who was that uncle’s little brother. He liked going around town blessing people with the book pretending to be a priest, he wanted to become one when he grow up. But sadly, one day he was at the port he fell into the sea and drowned. The uncle had saved some papers with his brother’s scribbles, and the way they wrote were the same, so when he read the dedicatory he recognised his brother’s penmanship, and thought he could have reincarnated into his nephew who had been named after him.
As you can see, along all these years, the previous owners have written notes on the borders, and I’m super curious about what they wrote. But sadly I can’t speak Greek, and eventhough I can read it, reading faded handwriting in another language is so difficult.
I’m hoping that someone can decipher any of the notes, I uploaded them on Imgur too so you can see them wider. But maybe you just like looking at old books like me and find it curious as well!
Link to Imgur: https://imgur.com/gallery/UBWK9jM
Note: I posted it on Reddit on r/handwriting too
More info: imgur.com
-1
0