Lateran Palace

The Vatican is an independent country, the remnant of the old Papal States of Italy. It has an exclave about half an hour away by foot, the Lateran Palace. This used to be the seat of the popes and is now a museum. That palace was heavily rebuilt in the 17th century, but we have some idea of what it looked like previously from the historian-archivist Giacomo Grimaldi's manuscript description.

Last May, the first part of his survey of Old St Peter's Basilica was brought online, as I reported at the time on this blog. The second part has just been released on Digita Vaticana and is a further huge compilation of art preservation, sadly spoiled by running ink and even burns in some places.

Grimaldi's sketch of the palace before the alterations shows it thus, with numbering indexed to specific features:

This sketch is the basis for a better-known engraving by Louis Rouhier in the 1656 book by Cesare Raspono which is reproduced at the Bildarchiv Foto Marburg.

From the interior of the old palace we can see a mosaic ceiling of Byzantine style in the triclinium as Grimaldi saw it:

Compare this to the existing reconstruction which is stiffer and rather graceless:

Also in the January 4, 2016 uploads are an early medieval chronicle and very early manuscripts of Terence and Donatus. Here is the full list:

1. Barb.gr.4,
2. Barb.gr.265,
3. Barb.gr.336,
4. Barb.gr.463,
5. Barb.gr.472,
6. Barb.lat.74, Boccaccio’s Glosses on Statius
7. Barb.lat.444, offices, masses, beautiful Renaissance illumination, but sadly it has has suffered water damage as you see in this miniature of the Visitation:
   
8. Barb.lat.457, Vulgate Bible, possibly from the library of  King Matthias Corvinus, with swash initials
9. Barb.lat.1669, folded charters with seal on outside
10. Barb.lat.1682, Petrarch, letters? in a fine antiqua hand, unfinished illumination 
11. Barb.lat.2048, Commentary by Tommaso Campanella (1568-1639)
12. Barb.lat.2733.pt.2 (above), the Instrumenta autentica translationum sanctorum corporum et sacrarum reliquiarum e veteri in novam principis apostolorum basilicam, containing notes on Old St Peters and the Old Lateran, part 1 of which was brought online last year. This codex includes an architectural plan of the new St Peter's:
    
    
13. Barb.lat.3640, Gabriello Chiabrera (1552-1638)
14. Barb.lat.3644, Dante, Comedy
15. Barb.lat.3953, Italian comic poetry
16. Barb.lat.3975, Italian poetry
17. Barb.lat.4007, Italian
18. Barb.lat.4015, Dante
19. Barb.lat.4024,
20. Barb.lat.4029, Pietro Alighieri
21. Barb.lat.4049,
22. Barb.lat.4071, Boccaccio
23. Barb.or.157.pt.A, a single sheet of Arabic
24. Borg.turc.8, poet (prince?) Mustafa: To the Glory of God Lord of the Universe
25. Reg.lat.528, hagiographical
26. Reg.lat.713, the Chronicle of Fredegar; this is the second half of a codex of which the other part is Voss.lat.Q.5 at Leiden in the Netherlands (digitized at Socrates.Leiden); Bischoff 2212. The usual edition is that of Bruno Krusch in the MGH, digitized here. This manuscript is there termed 3.I.
27. Ross.12, Petrarch
28. Vat.gr.192,
29. Vat.gr.2556.pt.,
30. Vat.lat.17, Vulgate Bible, 14th century
31. Vat.lat.82, Psalter Ambrosianum with Canticles, Beuron Number 407, version with diacritic signs
32. Vat.lat.195, Cyprian of Carthage, 15th century manuscript
33. Vat.lat.213, Homilies of Origen in Latin translation 
34. Vat.lat.399, John Chrystostom, On Psalms, etc.
35. Vat.lat.414.pt.3, Augustine of Hippo, various
36. Vat.lat.416, Augustine, De Trinitate, etc.
37. Vat.lat.430, Augustine of Hippo, City of God
38. Vat.lat.436, Augustine of Hippo, City of God
39. Vat.lat.458, Augustine of Hippo, Sermons, letters, etc
40. Vat.lat.475, Augustine of Hippo, Sermons
41. Vat.lat.476, Augustine of Hippo, Sermons
42. Vat.lat.1512, the oldest extant manuscript of Claudius Donatus (4th-century author), Interpretationes Vergilianae, made about 800 at monastery of Luxueil
    
43. Vat.lat.1640, the so-called codex decurtatus with the sigle G of the Comedies of Terence, a  10th-century codex from Germany or Lorraine

If you have corrections or additions, please use the comments box below. Follow me on Twitter (@JBPiggin) for news of more additions to Digita Vaticana. [This is Piggin's Unofficial List 35.]