Old Trees

Early tree diagrams are some of the surprises in the latest batch of Vatican digitizations. One welcome arrival online is a 10th-century text of the Lex Romana Visigothorum with two elaborate kinship scheme diagrams at 20v and 21r. This has now been issued in color, after only a black and white scan had been online at the Vatican Library portal.

You'll notice this looks a bit like a Flemish building facade, not a tree. A full list of contents of this codex, Reg.lat.1048, from the Cologne Leges Database:

• 1 - 19: Isidore, Etymologiae
  
• 20 - 21r: Stemmata graduum
  
• 21v - 224r: Lex Romana Visigothorum with younger explanationes titulorum and younger glosses
  
• 224r - Series regum Francorum, Formula extravagans I No. 5, glossary in three languages
  

The table above had come to be called an arbor juris, a law diagram, so it was not long before the decoration began to become treelike, perhaps as a mnemonic aid to students. The completely new releases at DigiVatLib include a law book, the Decretum of Burchard of Worms, which takes the tree idea further, indicating the change in progress. Reg.lat.979 is one of the earliest codices ever to associate a tree with a table of consanguinity. Note how the Reg.lat.979 drawing below, dated about 1080, does not yet put the table in the tree. The tree simply takes root on the roof like a cheeky weed:

Here is the full list of new releases (I am reporting occasional the black and white conversions to color, but am not able to track these systematically):

1. Chig.I.V.152, a fine Renaissance edition of Aristotle's Rhetorica translated to Latin by George of Trebizond
2. Ferr.409, another, less lavishly executed copy of the same text, HT to @LatinAristotle
3. Reg.lat.149, copyist Nicolò de' Ricci
4. Reg.lat.153, sturdy old breviary with liturgical calendar, litanies, etc.
5. Reg.lat.184
6. Reg.lat.647, hagiography,
7. Reg.lat.896
8. Reg.lat.946, Gesta Francorum
9. Reg.lat.979, Decretum of Burchard of Worms (above)
10. Reg.lat.1034
11. Reg.lat.1038
12. Reg.lat.1045
13. Reg.lat.1058
14. Reg.lat.1059
15. Reg.lat.1060
16. Reg.lat.1063
17. Reg.lat.1064
18. Reg.lat.1068, Plato: Calcidius' translation of the Timaeus, HT to @LatinAristotle
19. Reg.lat.1073
20. Reg.lat.1075
21. Reg.lat.1077
22. Reg.lat.1086
23. Reg.lat.1087
24. Reg.lat.1088
25. Reg.lat.1089
26. Reg.lat.1093
27. Reg.lat.1091
28. Reg.lat.1100
29. Reg.lat.1114, yet another Calcidius' translation of the Timaeus of Plato, HT to @LatinAristotle
30. Reg.lat.1134
31. Reg.lat.1141
32. Reg.lat.1142
33. Reg.lat.1151 the Physiognomia of Pseudo-Aristotle, translated to Latin by Bartholomew of Messina in the 13th century, HT to @LatinAristotle, who also points to a new edition and survey by Lisa Devriese, plus earlier work.
34. Reg.lat.1154
35. Reg.lat.1155
36. Reg.lat.1163
37. Reg.lat.1166
38. Reg.lat.1167
39. Reg.lat.1168
40. Reg.lat.1169
41. Reg.lat.1172
42. Reg.lat.1175
43. Reg.lat.1178
44. Reg.lat.1181
45. Reg.lat.1183
46. Reg.lat.1193
47. Reg.lat.1210
48. Reg.lat.1225
49. Reg.lat.1229
50. Reg.lat.1244
51. Reg.lat.1250
52. Reg.lat.1251
53. Reg.lat.1256
54. Vat.gr.334, Byzantine
55. Vat.lat.1303
56. Vat.lat.1844
57. Vat.lat.1863
58. Vat.lat.1908
59. Vat.lat.1923
60. Vat.lat.1947
61. Vat.lat.1983
62. Vat.lat.1979
63. Vat.lat.1989
64. Vat.lat.1990
65. Vat.lat.2003
66. Vat.lat.2008
67. Vat.lat.2012
68. Vat.lat.2015
69. Vat.lat.2016
70. Vat.lat.2017
71. Vat.lat.2020
72. Vat.lat.2031
73. Vat.lat.7697, Bindo da Siena, sermons
74. Vat.lat.15204, a collection of fragments, including 3r-v, 4r-v: Canonum collectio "Concordia canonum"; 5r-v Gregorius Magnus, Homiliae in Evangelia (28.2–3) from the 7th or 8th century.
    
    The latter item, ELMSS number 2194, was found in the binding of a book printed 1498 at the Aldine press in Venice:
    
    Plus a 9th-century fragment of the Lex Ribuaria. My eye was also caught by the elaborate green cross below (folio 27v) where you can read the words Sancti Evagrii horizontally and De virtute animi vertically.
    
    

This is Piggin's Unofficial List number 127. If you have corrections or additions, please use the comments box below. Follow me on Twitter (@JBPiggin) for news of more additions to DigiVatLib.