Physical description: Manuscript is written on 21 lines per page in a brownish ink with interlinear glosses and marginal commentaries in the scribal hand in a red faded ink; nota bene hands and large ornamental initial letters on several pages.
Physical description: I (modern) + 222+I' (modern) folios; 16.9 x 11.6 cm (13.2 x 9.5 cm); 30-32 long lines per page. Arabic paper (bombycine). Modern foliation in pencil in the outside corner of the upper margins. Quire marks by a modern hand in pencil for the purpose of rebinding, the final quire lacks the last two folios, which may have been blank.
Manuscript is written by one scribe using brown ink in the second half of the 13th century. Initials in pale reddish brown (red from fol. 201 on). A 16th-century hand wrote the poem on fol. 222r (in dark brown ink with red initial letters) and replacement text (on the upper right part of the page) on fol. 137r. Some notes by two different hands of the 14th and 16th centuries. One tall leafy initial outlined in brown ink and occasional strips, all in brown ink, in the hand of the scribe. The ornament of the strips is a running ribbon design outlined against a pale brown background (fol. 15r).
Collation: Parchment ; fol. iv + 152 + iv ; foliation in dark brown ink (19th century?) in numerals.
Layout: 37-38 lines in cruciform (12+10+16) per page ; hardpoint ruling ; prick-marks visible in outer margins ; fol. 75r is written in two columns.
Description: Written in dark brown ink by a single scribe ; red ink for titles, some poems, and the liturgical indications ; a different hand of the same period, in a slightly sloping pointed majuscule script, added a text of pseudo-Basil the Great on the formerly blank fol. 74v ; marginal notes, liturgical references, and pen-trials in various hands ; on fol. 46v a 13th- or 14th-century hand completed the verses for Matthew in minuscule script written in brown ink ; it was adopted for liturgical use from the outset, as the same hand wrote both the text and the liturgical indications ; the poems to the evangelists were written in carmine ink, apparently after the tailpieces were painted (see fols. 75v, 123v) ; the dark rose is the same color as the carmine ink used to write the verses ; MS in fair condition with a few repairs.
Decoration: Garrett MS. 1 is the oldest known Byzantine manuscript written entirely in cruciform. The headpiece at the beginning of the Gospel of Matthew (fol. 1r) is mutilated, as the entire upper right-hand corner of the page has been lost. The painted strips respect the cruciform design and are limited to the width of the upper arm of the cross. The tailpieces include a variety of vegetal chalice and candelabralike designs, which sometimes incorporate small birds pecking at the branches. The initials are segmented and painted in abstract patterns; two of them (letters E) enclose a human hand which either blesses (fol. 76r) or holds a tiny cross (fol. 125r). Two designs on fol. 124v: the upper design is a network of leaves on a tall pyramidal base, while the lower design is a large dark rose and blue almond rosette.