The volume contains the critical edition of Prosper of Aquitaine's
Liber epigrammatum, thoroughly reliant on Prosper's Augustinian florilegium, the
Liber sententiarum, which itself draws upon the entire corpus of Augustine's works and on Prosper's own commentary on Psalms 100-150, the
Expositio Psalmorum (based on Augustine's
Enarrationes). According to the A., the presence of doublet verses adhering to Prosper's
usus scribendi, epigrams that have no accompanying sententiae and irregularities in the structure of the work might suggest that the
Liber was never completed; these inconsistencies within the text also appear to be the cause of a very early and widespread horizontal transmission. The
Liber epigrammatum is transmitted in about one hundred and eighty manuscripts, ranging in date from the sixth or seventh century to the sixteenth century. Some copies, now lost, were also possessed by the libraries of Freising, Lorsch, Murbach and York, and in the British medieval catalogues alone there are nineteen entries for which no manuscript can be found; ms. Dresden, Sächsische Landesbibl., A.208 (sec. X) was irreparably damaged by water during World War II. The study highlights four primary patterns of textual transmission for the
Liber: in some manuscripts the epigrams were transmitted together with a body of Christian latin poetry (
corpus poetarum); in some others, they were copied alongside other works attributed to prosper («Prosper compilation»); in some cases, the
Liber accompanies various works of Augustine («Augustine compilation»); finally, in a small number of manuscripts the epigrams are part of a «theological miscellany». The study contains a thorough description of all the collated manuscripts, fourty-one codices securely dated before the beginning of the twelfth century; namely: Antwerpen, Museum Plantin-Moretus, M. 17.4 ff. 41v-68v (saec. IX in.) and ff. 70r-76r (saec. XIII); M. 374 ff. 37r-59r (saec. XI); München, BSB, Clm 14569 ff. 72r-99r (saec. XI); Montecassino, Archivio dell'Abbazia, 226 pp. 234-281(saec. XI in.); Châlons-en-Champagne, BM, 8 (9), ff. 1r-26r (saec. XI-XII); Cambridge, CCC, 448 ff. 1r-36r (saec. X 1/2); Einsiedeln, Stiftsbibl., 15 ff. 68r-102r (saec. IX-X); 149 pp. 1-47 (saec. X); 302 ff. 113r-115r (saec. X-XI); 365 (two different fragments bound together); Erfurt, UB, Amplon. 8° 32 ff. 90r-152v (saec. XI med.); Firenze, Laurenziana, Ashburnham 70 (saec. IX ex.); Sankt Gallen, Stiftsbibl., 187 U.C. II pp. 261-301 (saec. IX, mentioned in the oldest catalogue of the library of Saint Gall, cod. 728); London, BL, Harley 110 ff. 3r-22v (saec. X-XI) and Harley 3093 ff. 26r-34r (saec. XI-XII); Kassel, UB, 2° iur. 67 (fragm., saec. IX post med.); Laon, BM, 101 ff. 48r-60r (saec. IX); Leiden, UB, Voss. lat. Q. 86 ff. 63v-79r (= L1, saec. IX ante med.); Voss. lat. O. 88 U.C. II ff. 48r-94v (saec. X); Voss. lat. O. 15 ff. 83r-104r (saec. XI); London, BL, Cotton Tiberius A. VII (fragm., saec. X); Milano, Ambrosiana, C 74 sup. ff. 109r-117r (saec. IX 1/4, probably owned by the Irish monk, teacher and astronomer Dungal); M 32 sup. ff. 85r-105v (saec. X); Montpellier, Bibl. Interuniversitaire, Section Médicine H 218 ff. 82r-108r (saec. IX-X); Orleans, BM, 343 U.C. IV pp. 143-199 (saec. XI); Paris, BNF, lat. 11326 ff. 1r-27r (= P1, saec. VI-VII); lat. 2772 ff. 4r-27v (= P2, saec. IX 1/2); lat. 9347 ff. 39r-48v (saec. IX 2/4); lat. 2773 U.C. I ff. 1r-22v (Reims, saec. IX, probably under the episcopacy of Hincmar [845-882]); lat. 13377 ff. 56v-79v (Corbie, saec. IX); lat. 18554 U.C. I ff. 111v-138v (saec. IX-X); lat. 544 ff. 143r-163r (saec. X); lat. 8094 U.C. I ff. 35v-54r (saec. X); Troyes, Médiathèque, 1722 ff. 1r-26r (palimpsest, saec. XI-XII); Cambridge, Trinity Coll., Ms. O.2.31 ff. 1r-31r (saec. X) and Ms. O.3.41 ff. 1r-30v (saec. XII); UL, Gg.V.35 U.C. I ff. 126v-146r; Vat. Reg. lat. 479 ff. 48r-51r (fragm., saec. IX); Vat. Reg. lat. 206 U.C. I ff. 39r-57r (saec. XI); Wolfenbüttel, HAB, Weiss. 56 ff. 62v-84v (saec. IX med.). The critical text is based on the comparison between two reconstructed hyparchetypes, that is the lost ancestor of P2 and L1 on one side, and the lost ancestor of P1 and the remaining witnesses on the other: the consensus of these three manuscripts is given the highest degree of consideration. The A. also provides a list of all the printed editions of the epigrammata, and indicates the most important indirect witnesses of the
Liber: Aldhelm (
De virginitate,
De metris et enigmatibus ac pedum regulis), Bede (
De arte metrica), Alcuin and Byrhtferth. The volume is also provided with an
Index biblicus and an
Index auctorum. (Matteo Salaroli)
Riduci