For about 700 years, an epic poem in Latin about the Roman civil war between Julius Caesar and the forces of the Roman Senate led by Pompey the Great provided the key introduction to students in western Europe to the themes of war and politics. Pharsalia or De Bello Civili was constantly studied and commented on.
My own interest in the matter revolves around the diagrams often attached to manuscripts of the poem, and the vexed question of who devised the diagrams and when. (Spoiler alert:) it wasn't Lucan. Perhaps it was a late antique grammaticus. Here's a sample from Cod. 370 at the Burgerbibliothek Bern.
In other Lucan manuscripts without diagrams, layer upon layer of commentary was added. The manuscript Vat.lat.3284 contains both the text of Lucan’s DBC and level after level of exegesis by different hands over a long period.
Alessio Mancini of Kiel notes in a newly published paper on it: "The most recent hand, in particular, supplies a true full-scale commentary to Lucan’s text, and has been ascribed by Mariagrazia Antonetti to an unknown humanist close to the members of the Accademia Romana." But Mancini sees "massive use of the recollectae to Lucan written by Benvenuto da Imola." He instead traces the last layer of glosses to Ferrara in the first decades of the 15th century.
That manuscript has just been digitized by the Vatican Library, along with 41 other treasures in the past week. The full list:
My own interest in the matter revolves around the diagrams often attached to manuscripts of the poem, and the vexed question of who devised the diagrams and when. (Spoiler alert:) it wasn't Lucan. Perhaps it was a late antique grammaticus. Here's a sample from Cod. 370 at the Burgerbibliothek Bern.
In other Lucan manuscripts without diagrams, layer upon layer of commentary was added. The manuscript Vat.lat.3284 contains both the text of Lucan’s DBC and level after level of exegesis by different hands over a long period.
Alessio Mancini of Kiel notes in a newly published paper on it: "The most recent hand, in particular, supplies a true full-scale commentary to Lucan’s text, and has been ascribed by Mariagrazia Antonetti to an unknown humanist close to the members of the Accademia Romana." But Mancini sees "massive use of the recollectae to Lucan written by Benvenuto da Imola." He instead traces the last layer of glosses to Ferrara in the first decades of the 15th century.
That manuscript has just been digitized by the Vatican Library, along with 41 other treasures in the past week. The full list:
- Ross.21,
- Ross.37,
- Vat.lat.2353,
- Vat.lat.2407,
- Vat.lat.3221 (Upgraded to HQ),
- Vat.lat.3284,Vat. lat. 3284 (11th cent.): Bellum civile, Lucanus (ff. 2-113v); Glosulae super Lucanum (11th, 12th/13th, 14th, 15th cent.)#LatestDigitizedManuscripts - https://t.co/UxkGsaqtnp pic.twitter.com/ybzRK8FIgx— Digita Vaticana (@DigitaVaticana) November 16, 2018
- Vat.lat.3345, Translator Georg of Trebizond justifies his choice to translate συσσίτιον as concibatio in a long gloss in the margin of Plato's Laws. Seen in @JBPiggin's list of MSS @DigitaVaticana.https://t.co/Ogf0fFlgv8 pic.twitter.com/C4PQMCpEJP— Pieter Beullens (@LatinAristotle) November 18, 2018
- Vat.lat.3363 (Upgraded to HQ), Among the #latestdigitizedmanuscripts from @DigitaVaticana also this 9thC copy of Boethius' Consolatio: copied in the Loire region, annotated by a late 9thC Welsh scribe and glossed in 10thC England!— GiorgiaV (@ParvaVox) November 19, 2018
One to match the #BLAngloSaxons mss!
HT @JBPiggin
🔗https://t.co/FC1ZNHmyd3 pic.twitter.com/wQxsT98q5G - Vat.lat.3401,
- Vat.lat.3421, Another fascinating codex among the #latestdigitizedmanuscripts @DigitaVaticana : a beautiful 10thC copy of Sidonius Apollinaris' works owned by 3 Italian humanists and used to prepare the 16thC editions of the late antique poet's Opera.— GiorgiaV (@ParvaVox) November 26, 2018
HT @JBPiggin
🔗https://t.co/oL86lx2aDi pic.twitter.com/3znVpoOCOv - Vat.lat.3936,
- Vat.lat.3954 (Upgraded to HQ), a 1475 inventory of the pope's library, described for the Rome Reborn exhibition as one of the oldest surviving catalogs of the library. It has the signature of the compiler, Bartolomeo Platina, on fol. 76 and uses classification by subject, author, and title.
- Vat.lat.4004,
- Vat.lat.4025,
- Vat.lat.4037.pt.1 (Upgraded to HQ), speeches and letters of Bessarion, with some scientific texts included. Jordanus lists an anonymous mathematical text.
- Vat.lat.4073,
- Vat.lat.4076,
- Vat.lat.4079 (Upgraded to HQ),
- Vat.lat.4084, a 14th century compilation of 11 Arabic (Alhandreus, etc), Aristotelean and other astronomical/mathematical texts. See Jordanus and eTK. Here is a fine zodiac diagram:
- Vat.lat.4115 (Upgraded to HQ),
- Vat.lat.4122,
- Vat.lat.4123,
- Vat.lat.4129,
- Vat.lat.4130,
- Vat.lat.4131,
- Vat.lat.4138,
- Vat.lat.4141 (Upgraded to HQ),
- Vat.lat.4155,
- Vat.lat.4156 (Upgraded to HQ),
- Vat.lat.4172,
- Vat.lat.4174,
- Vat.lat.4178.pt.1,
- Vat.lat.4191,
- Vat.lat.4211,
- Vat.lat.4213,
- Vat.lat.4236,
- Vat.lat.4237,
- Vat.lat.4283,
- Vat.lat.4295,
- Vat.lat.4318,
- Vat.lat.4320,
- Vat.lat.4341,
- Pal.lat.608.pt.1 (Upgraded to HQ),
- Pal.lat.616,
- Pal.lat.619,
- Pal.lat.626,
- Pal.lat.627,
- Pal.lat.628,
- Pal.lat.630,
- Pal.lat.631,
- Pal.lat.632,
- Pal.lat.633,
- Pal.lat.634,
- Pal.lat.637,
- Pal.lat.638,
- Pal.lat.639,
- Pal.lat.640,
- Pal.lat.642,
- Pal.lat.644,
- Pal.lat.645,
- Pal.lat.646,
- Pal.lat.647 (Upgraded to HQ),
- Pal.lat.648,
- Pal.lat.650,
- Pal.lat.651,
- Pal.lat.652,
- Pal.lat.654,
- Pal.lat.655,
- Pal.lat.658 (Upgraded to HQ),
- Pal.lat.661,
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