Skip to main content
Princeton Ethiopian, Eritrean, and Egyptian Miracles of Mary (PEMM) project
Princeton Ethiopian, Eritrean, and Egyptian Miracles of Mary (PEMM) project

Bibliothèque nationale de France, Ethiopien d'Abbadie Collection, Manuscript No. 222

This Geʿez language manuscript was created between 1675 and 1724. This date is estimated, based on paleography, a study of the manuscript's letter shapes, by Jeremy Brown and Stephen Delamarter.

This manuscript is held in the repository of Bibliothèque nationale de France in their Ethiopien d'Abbadie Collection in Paris, France. This manuscript's last known location in Ethiopia was West: Gondar.

To view the manuscript, go to the digital copy.

This manuscript has a high number of Marian miracle stories: 104. Also, we are uncertain about the identification of 1 stories, marked with a [?] in the table below, under Other Aspects.

This manuscript has some paintings of Marian miracle stories: 7. To see the paintings in this manuscript, go to its PEMM Paintings by Manuscript page.

These paintings are digitized and available online but only in black and white.

This manuscript has a total of 170 folios and 344 scans. It has 2 columns per page and approximately 26 lines per column.

The stories in this manuscript were cataloged by C. Conti Rossini and W.F. Macomber.

The PEMM abbreviation for this manuscript is d'Abbadie (BNF) 222.

The Beta Maṣāḥǝft abbreviation for this manuscript is BNFabb222. Other shelfmarks and/or abbreviations for this manuscript include Ethiopien d'Abbadie 222; CRA 53; CR-Paris (BNF) 53.

Regarding this manuscript's repository:

The Ethiopian Collection at the Bibliothèque nationale de France in Paris contains 1034 manuscripts, one of the largest collections of Ethiopian/Eritrean manuscripts in Europe. This vast collection comprises several subcollections. First is the Antoine d’Abbadie Collection at the Bibliothèque nationale de France in Paris, which contains 283 Ethiopian/Eritrean manuscripts acquired by Antoine d’Abbadie. The Antoine d’Abbadie Collection has been cataloged in several catalogs written by Antoine d’Abbadie (1859), Marius Chaîne (1912), and Carlo Conti Rossini (1914). Second are several subcollections that utilize the shelfmark “Éthiopien”. These include manuscripts from royal and imperial collections, manuscripts collected by Casimir Mondon-Vidhaillet, and manuscripts collected by Marcel Griaule in Gondar in 1932. The Éthiopien Collection has been cataloged in several catalogs written by Hermann Zotenberg (1877), Marius Chaîne (1913), and Sylvain Grébaut (1938, 1941, 1944, and 1954). Third is the manuscript collection acquired by Duchesne-Fourney, which was cataloged by J. Blanchart in 1909. Fourth is the manuscript collection acquired by Marcel Cohen, which was cataloged by Marcel Cohen (1912) and Marius Chaîne (1914).

For more information about understanding this table, see Using This Site. If you think any of the information on this page is incorrect (e.g., the location, date, folios, story IDs), please use our PEMM Feedback Form to let us know. We depend on users like you to improve the site.

d'Abbadie (BNF) 222

Order in MS
Story Title
Location in MS
Paintings
Story Recension
Incipit
Other Aspects
Story ID
1Ephrem the Syrian Potter who composed the praise hymn called Weddase Maryam over seven days5r 0---14
2Holy Family's Journey: The Virgin Mary blesses Scete, which Saint Macarius chooses for his monastery.7r 0---91
3Saint Basil and the Jewish merchant of Caesarea who stole a golden plate from the church, but later became a Christian.10r 2---127
4King Zara Yaqob's (Zarʾa Yaʿeqob) reign and the beggar at the church of Qirqos in Amhara from whose head a horn grew14r 0---116
5Patriarch Gabra Krestos of Alexandria who heard of the withered olive tree that bloomed at the Andalusian church gate every year on the feast of the Virgin Mary (from the History of the Patriarchs)17r 0---105
6The pilgrim [to Santiago] whom Satan persuaded to mutilate himself after falling into a sexual sin18v 0---144
7The knight who plotted to seduce the shoemaker's daughter, who had pledged her virginity to the Virgin Mary19v 0---146
8The Jewish boy who was thrown into the furnace by his father after he received Holy Communion with his Christian companions21v 0---147
9Emperor Constantine's sister, who prayed to know how the Virgin Mary bore the Word of God, but then failed to recognize her Son when he appeared to her in church.22v 0---155
10The hypocritical superior of a monastery who pretended to be religious and is rescued from hell by the Virgin Mary23v 0---196
11The Jew of Constantinople who threw an icon of the Virgin Mary into a pit toilet and was taken to hell by a demon24r 0---197
12A woman from the city of Rome who killed the baby she bore after sleeping with her son25r 0---198
13A monk who got himself appointed by the king to be abbot when the abbot died, angering the monks, and then he himself died26r 0---199
14A ship in a storm was about to founder when it was saved by the passengers praying to the Virgin Mary27r 0---201
15Mary gives a prodigal son two grains of gold and a trader uses them to buy a cat and sell it for a fortune to a cat-less kingdom overrun by mice28r 0---469
16Barnabas from Sandafa, who used to venerate the Virgin Mary's icon.29v 0---507
17Elias from Al Qusayr, Egypt, who was falsely accused and was suspended by the abbot31v 0---473
18Emperor Honorius, who lived like a monk.32v 0---463
19Saint Theodore the Anatolian is visited by the Virgin Mary in an apparition33v 0---275
20Abadir, a district governor of Egypt, who loved the Virgin Mary34r 0---449
of 6
pricenton ethiopian eritrean & egyptian miracles of marry project

The Princeton Ethiopian, Eritrean, and Egyptian Miracles of Mary (PEMM) project is a comprehensive resource for the 1,000+ miracle stories written about and the 2,500+ images painted of the Virgin Mary in these African countries, and preserved in Geʿez between 1300 and the present.

Princeton Department of Comparative Literature 133 East Pyne, Princeton, NJ 08540

Princeton Department of African American Studies Morrison Hall, Princeton, NJ 08540

Explore

Research Tools

About

pemm@princeton.edu

© 2025 The Trustees of Princeton University