Leto Lecture

You settle into your seat and await the arrival of the lecturer, Pomponius Leto, perhaps the most famous university professor in 15th century Rome. His classics lecture today is about Varro, replete with mentions of ruined things you often see on your walks in the city.

You have been tasked with writing up the lecture for the rest of the class. Your blotted jottings will be transferred to a clean notebook after each class in the series.

How surprised you would be to hear that the notes, after you have polished them up, will be flown to the United States (where?) in the 1990s for the great Rome Reborn exhibition and will be re-digitized in color and high quality by the Vatican Library in 2018 so that even people in New Zealand (where?) will be able to see every shiver of your quill.

Anthony Grafton comments: "The student who copied this manuscript had a lively talent for drawing, seen here in his sketches of the Baths of Diocletian. As a whole the lectures show the rich way in which Roman texts and antiquities illuminated each other in the interdisciplinary scholarship of the Roman humanists."

There's a detailed online description of the notebook in the St Louis microfilm library catalog. Grafton's catalog has the wrong folio reference to the image above, but page through the digitization and enjoy the other quick sketches made in 1484 or thereabouts.

Only four Vatican manuscripts were released online last week. They were:

• Chig.A.IV.70,
• Vat.lat.2871,
• Vat.lat.3415 (Upgraded to HQ) (above)

  In 1484 Pomponio Leto lectured on Varro De lingua Latina.
  Browse the notes taken by Pomponio's students during his lessons in Vat. lat. 3415! #LatestDigitizedManuscripts - https://t.co/fmqel1FHzt pic.twitter.com/QZd7iMlLWs

  — Digita Vaticana (@DigitaVaticana) June 26, 2018

• Vat.lat.3430,

  'De fato et fortuna' by Coluccio Salutati (1331 - 1406), great political and cultural leader of the #Renaissance, in Vat. lat. 3430 (15th cent., first half), #LatestDigitizedManuscripts - https://t.co/R3QjbIGi1n pic.twitter.com/H5QHDboy2n

  — Digita Vaticana (@DigitaVaticana) June 27, 2018

This is Piggin's Unofficial List number 167. Thanks to @gundormr for harvesting. If you have corrections or additions, please use the comments box below. Follow me on Twitter (@JBPiggin) for news of more additions to DigiVatLib.