[5]: 91  The capital letters at the section beginnings stand out in the margin as in the Codices Alexandrinus and Ephraemi.

The commentary is a catena of quotations of nine church fathers: Origen, Eusebius, Titus of Bostra, Basil, Isidore of Pelusium, Cyril of Alexandria, Sever from Antioch, Victor from Antioch, and Chrysostom.

On the basis of this profile the Alands considered the quality of the text to suit his Category III.

[4] The codex is a palimpsest, meaning that the original text was scraped off and overwritten and the parchment leaves folded in half.

The upper text was written by a minuscule hand and contains lectionary 299 (ℓ 299) from the 12th or 13th century,[15] though the lectionary text is not complete; it is written on 176 leaves (28.7 cm by 18.2 cm), in one column per page, 33-36 lines per page.

[5]: 91 The text of the lectionary is cited in some critical editions of the Greek New Testament (UBS3)[20]: XXVIII  in the following places: Matthew 10:4; 11:17; 12:47; 13:13; 14:22; 18:10; 22:30; 26:27; 28:9; Mark 1:27; 2:10.26; 4:16.20; 6:2.2.3.33.

The letters Ε Θ Ο Σ are round, high, and narrow, and could not have been written before the 8th century.

[7]: 136–137 William Hatch in 1937, on the basis of palaeographical data, suggested that the codex should be dated to the 6th century.

In 1821 it was brought by General Colin Macaulay to England from the Greek island Zakynthos in the Ionian Sea, after being presented to him by Prince Comuto (Antonios Dimitriou Komoutos, 1748-1833) a former President of the Septinsular Republic.

On his return to England Macaulay presented the Codex to British and Foreign Bible Society[23] which then placed it in its library (Mss 24) in London.

[7]: 137  He did not decipher the small Patristic writing and doubted that it could be read without chemical restoration.

[19]: 126 Nicholas Pocock found errors in Tregelles' edition,[7]: 137  but William Hatch thought it satisfactory.

[4] Tischendorf cited the codex in his Editio Octava Critica Maior in 564 places.

[16] In December 2013, the Bible Society announced plans to sell some manuscripts, among them the Codex Zacynthius, to raise funds for a Visitors Centre in Wales.

[27] The public appeal raised £1.1 million and the codex was purchased by the Cambridge University Library.