AEVUM - 2015 - 2

The front fly-leaf of the Ambr. Q 79 sup. comes from a Gospels lectionary and the hand seems to be the same as the London, British Library, Harley 5598, one of the rare dated examples of Greek majuscule, that’s to say the priest Constantine. Notes and observations about his majuscule. The Ambr. was probably restored in the same period and place as the Ambr. B 115 sup.

The Gesta Berengarii Imperatoris, an anonymous poem composed in honor of Berengar I of Italy ({ 924) in the early 10th century, probably at Verona, is preserved by only one witness, MS Venezia, Marciana, lat. XII 45. This manuscript includes a lot of glosses, a part of which is attributed to the author himself and another part, on questionable grounds, to a contemporary scholar. The sources of the glosses show unexpected links with the Auxerre school and the influence of Remigius of Auxerre ({ ca. 908) is particularly prominent. Now, the panegyric itself reflects Auxerre scholarship. The Auxerre-influenced glosses were certainly written by the poet, who appears to be acquainted with texts used in schools of North-Eastern France. In France he could have found some of the rare books which he quotes. Besides, several texts included in MS Par. lat. 7900A, an extraordinary manuscript written in Lombardy, are connected with the panegyrist’s erudition and suggest that this poet was in touch with a school of the Milan area, linked with schools of north of the Alpes.

The mundiburdium was a strictly personal privilege, bestowing on the protected person the right to access to the royal court. At its core lay the idea of royal protection and the image of the royal shield, under which the protected person would have found defence. Even though personal, this privilege actually worked as a tool for assuring the integrity of land assets. The use of mundiburdium increased in the Ottonian Age, particularly in the relationships between kings and royal monasteries. This reflected a shift in the institutional dynamics of the Kingdom of Italy. Once the royal administration waned during the post-Carolingian period, the monasteries lost their strong interest in the exercise of public rights and in immunitas from royal functionaries. At that time, the ancient abbeys with a scattered and widespread estates wished the safe-keeping of their whole land holdings (St. Salvatore on Monte Amiata) or of some very specific strategic assets (St. Ambrose in Milan). Thus, they asked for mundiburdium because it was the most suitable tool to neutralise every kind of seigneurial muggers. The immunitas was still required only by the urban monasteries that replaced a weak cathedral church in the exercise of public powers in the city (such as the royal monasteries in Pavia). The mundiburdium was a very useful tool for the Ottonians too. Indeed, personal links of protection and co-management of monastic estates let the Saxon kings to compensate for dim administrative structures in building the kingdom, in terms of Herrschaftsverband and not of State.

The MS Milan, Bibl. Ambrosiana A 181 sup., is a codex palimpsestus. The history of the MS is traced backwards. Both codex antiquior and recentior are studied in their codicological structure and script: the scriptio inferior (11th century), with John Chrysostom (a new homily is identified, De Sancto Babyla contra Iulianum), the scriptio superior (beginning of 14th century), with some antehomerica and the Iliad (X 289 – P 305 are missing), equipped with abundant mixed scholia and the pseuso-Psellian Paraphrase (only A and I). The text of the Iliad belongs to the h family, well-know for its high number of lectiones antiquae. The MS of Milan shows even some scholia typical of the h family (scholia h). A status quaestionis is discussed both of h-text and scholia h. The Shield of Achilles (S 478-608) is used as a sample to verify some peculiarities of the h-text, among which that fixed by M.L. West, comparing the text of other h-MSS, mostly Marc. gr. 458 and Paris. gr. 2766, and to study the exegetical apparatus of the MS, showing both scholia D and scholia h.

In MS Novara, Bibl. Cap., XXIII, a large 13th-century Homiliary, a subscription offers the date (1234) and the copyist’s name in abbreviated form. However, by means of other manuscripts, also written by the same copyist and where the name is given in full, and of a deed, recording his presence as witness, his identity and career can be reconstructed. He is a notary in Novara and active as copyist both in Novara and in the milieu of the University of Bologna; beside the Novara Homiliary, his subscription is found in a small Bible and in a canon law manuscript.

This paper investigates the intertextuality of the most celebrated Dante’s epitaph, Theologus Dantes, seven elegiac couplets composed by Giovanni del Virgilio and transmitted by Boccaccio’s Trattatello in laude di Dante. It also describes the Ovidian background of this poem (especially the connection with the Tristia) and identifies two important echoes from Macrobius’ Commentarii in Somnium Scipionis and Valerius Maximus.

Thanks to the invention of a small-size codex in the 2627 folder of the Fondo di religione at Milan’s Archivio di Stato, we publish here the full text of a short chronicle of the 14th century. Its title is Miracula meritis gloriose Virginis Marie facta in opere eius ecclesie de novo edifficate in Modoetia in contrata Strate; until now, we have only known it through the partial transcription made by Anton Francesco Frisi in the 18th century. Bonincontro Morigia from Monza (which is also the author of the more famous Chronicon Modoetiense) wrote that chronicle. The text is dedicated to the historical events happened in the village of Monza, from its origins in the Longobardic age, until the tumultuous sequence of events occurred in the first half of 14th century. In both these works, the chronicler turns out to be very careful about political factors, but he also focuses on the extraordinary and miraculous events. In fact, he is convinced that they are essential elements, regarding the historical facts he writes about. As in the Chronicon the miracles performed by the Monza patron st. Giovanni Battista were definitely relevant, in the Miracula narration Morigia gives special attention to Mary’s interventions. This is mainly due to the diffusion of a popular religious feeling involving a strong devotion to the Virgin Mary. Therefore, the Miracula become, in the author’s intention, the representation and the wish for a reconciled and unanimous society.

This article examines the transmission of Francesco Filelfo’s Consolatio ad Iacobum Antonium Marcellum de obitu Valerii filii, and concludes that a critical edition of the Consolatio should be based on the incunabulum of 1483/84, the only relevant witness reflecting Filelfo’s final redaction of the text. Its readings are to be weighed against other prime witnesses such as the dated manuscript Vat. lat. 1790, and Urb. lat. 1182, which originated in close proximity to the author and reflect most faithfully his orthographical preferences.

Lazzaro Bonamico wrote on Ambr. O 122 sup. a list of lemmata from Aristoteles’ Ethica Nicomachea and on Ambr. O 129 sup. one from Oppian’s Halieutica. Some Greek words are explained by Latin or vernacular glossae and it is possible that they derived from Pietro Pomponazzi’s philosophical lessons or Marco Musuro’s lectures in Greek literature. Bonamico shows a prevailing lexical interest, but the orthographical mistakes, the uncommon and elementary classical quotations and the formal irregularity of the two compilations suggest a quite superficial knowledge of Greek language.