[EXLIBRIS-L] Query: French exegetical manuscript, c. 1700

[Bill Cole <bill@COLE.JAZZTEL.ES>]

Dear Colleagues,

    I am cataloguing an item well outside my fields of expertise, and thus
would appreciate guidance from anyone more knowledgeable in this area than
I.

    The item is an extremely thorough manuscript exegesis, c. 1700, of the
books of Ezekiel and Daniel.  It is over 1,000 pages 4to, written in French,
on very fine paper, in a neat, almost calligraphic hand, and attractively
bound in contemporary calf.

    There is no name of either the author or the copyist, who may or may not
be two different people.  There is no date or place.

    Somebody obviously went to great trouble to write (or copy) this
manuscript, and then to have it bound.

    Are such manuscripts common?

    Why the anonymity?  Was it because such details didn't matter to the
author, or might it have been from fear of religious persecution?

    Were printed exegeses of Old Testament books common at the time?  I know
that Bossuet wrote (at about the same time) about the Psalms, Isaiah, and
Job.

    Are there any individuals who specialize in such writings?


Many thanks


Bill Cole
Cole & Contreras Books