Codex Aesinas

Last updated
Codex Aesinas Codex Aesinas.jpg
Codex Aesinas

The Codex Aesinas (Codex Aesinas Latinus 8) is a 15th-century composite manuscript. It was discovered by chance in 1902 at the former private estate of the Count Baldeschi Balleani family located in Jesi, in the province of Ancona, Italy. The manuscript is considered especially valuable because it contains the Opera Minora (shorter works) of the Roman historian Tacitus, including the Agricola and the Germania. Due to the inclusion of eight folia written in Carolingian minuscule script within the Agricola, the Tacitus portion of the Codex is generally regarded as a direct copy of the missing Codex Hersfeldensis (H), a 9th-century manuscript that contained a copy of the original Opera Minora by Tacitus. The Carolingian folia are thought to be originals taken from the lost codex. In 1994, the Baldeschi Balleani family sold the codex to the Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Roma where it is now known as the Codex Vittorio Emanuele 1631.

Contents

Discovery and Fate

In 1902, Count Aurelio Guglielmi Balleani commissioned Cesare Annibaldi, a local philologist and professor, to examine some manuscripts collected in the count's private library.

The manuscripts dated to the second half of the 15th century, and had belonged to the library of the humanist Stefano Guarnieri (1425-1493), a chancellor and diplomat in Perugia, which he had built with his brother Francesco. The Guarnieris were born in Osimo, only 15 km from Jesi, and came from an educated family of landowners that had been members of the nobility since the 12th century. This library was inherited by the Balleani family through the marriage Gaetano Balleani to Sperandia Guarnieri, a descendant of Francesco, in 1793. It remained in the family's possession until 1994.

Annibaldi discovered the works of Tacitus in one of Guarnieri's manuscripts, and in the Agricola quaternion found eight folia consisting of sixteen pages written in Carolingian minuscule script from the early 9th century (f. 56 - 63). The manuscript also contained a Latin version of the Dictys Cretensis , which according to the incipit, came from an L. Septimius, also written almost entirely in Carolingian minuscule from the 9th century. Since the lettering of the quaternion matched exactly Pier Candido Decembrio's description of the Agricola in the Hersfeldensis from the year 1455, [1] Annibaldi concluded that this was a fragment of the lost original document. Guarnieri must have acquired the Agricola section from the Hersfeldensis and copied the missing parts as well as the Germania from H. As a result, he published his findings: in 1907, a facsimile of the Agricola with collations of the Dictys and the Germania, and in 1910 a facsimile of the Germania with a diplomatically edited text.

In 1929 the family tried to auction the codex through Sotheby's in London without success and it was taken off the market. In the 1930s the codex drew attention from Nazi ideologues who regarded the included Germania as a foundational document of "germanic-German" history and ethnicity. In 1936, during Mussolini's state visit to Berlin, Hitler personally requested that the codex be given over to the German Reich, a request that Mussolini initially approved. He later changed his mind, however, due to widespread opposition among Italians, who considered the document to be an important part of their own national heritage. Through diplomatic mediation and Himmler's influence, the Italian government permitted Rudolf Till and Paul Lehmann of the Research Association of German Ahnenerbe to examine the codex in 1939. In 1943 the results of this examination were released along with photographic illustrations of the Agricola and Germania folia produced by the Istituto di Patologia del Libro in Rome. After the war, in 1947, a set of the photographs was transferred to the Widener Library at Harvard University through the U.S. Embassy in Italy.

Following the Allied invasion of Italy and the coup of June 1943 against Mussolini, Himmler ordered an SS command to Jesi in the autumn of that year to seize the codex. The command raided all three of the count's palazzi, but the search was unsuccessful. The anti-fascist family had been previously warned and had gone into hiding. The Aesinas had been concealed in a chest, which the SS command had overlooked. In the post-war period, the owners secured the manuscript in their own Florentine bank, where it suffered water damage from the flood of the Arno in 1966. In the following years, it was restored by a specialized laboratory in Grottaferrata, where it was also re-bound.

The Herzog August Library approached the Baldeschi Balleani family in 1987 to acquire the codex, but ultimately abandoned the purchase due to the damage. In 1993 the Italian Ministry of Culture expressed interest in purchasing the manuscript from the family's private library. As part of this effort, an official examined the Aesinas and two other manuscripts containing works by Cicero. The Italian government made an offer for all three, and the purchase was completed in June 1994. The three manuscripts were added to the collection of the Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Roma, where the Aesinas is catalogued as Vittorio Emanuele 1631.

As part of the 2000th anniversary of the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest in 2009, the Aesinas was presented to a wide audience for the first time in the three-part exhibition: "Imperium, Conflict, Myth" at the Lippisches Landesmuseum in Detmold, North Rhine-Westphalia.

Description and Composition

The Aesinas includes 76 parchment folia in quarto format (27.3 × 22.0 cm; after restoration and rebinding 26.4 × 21.1 cm) with text in two columns of thirty lines each, their heights and widths varying slightly between 20.3 and 6.2 cm.

The parts from the 9th century have the introductory words written in all capital letters—prominent in the folia of the incipit—which are executed in alternating rows of red, gold and green. The incipit is red and gold, written in uncial script. In folio 40v a tree is drawn in red ink at the end of the text. Furthermore, the lettering of the Carolingian parts show rubrications throughout.

The parts that Stefano Guarnieri added in the 15th century deliberately reflect the appearance of the older 9th century manuscript. They have rubricated titles and alternating red and black rubricated capital lettering in the introductory text. Annibaldi was able to determine that Guarnieri was the author of the 15th-century sections by comparing them with his other surviving writings. Guarnieri had probably compiled the codex in the 1460s [2] and had most likely copied the Tacitus parts either directly or indirectly from the Hersfeldensis. When copying he tried to match his writing to the Carolingian minuscule script of the original.

The codex is structured as follows:

There are also palimpsest folia which Guarnieri initially copied, but then shaved in order to rewrite. They include the Carolingian folia, among others, traces of which remain recognizable. The palimpsests are in the following sections:

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dictys Cretensis</span> Purported author of an account of the Trojan War

Dictys Cretensis, i.e. Dictys of Crete of Knossos was a legendary companion of Idomeneus during the Trojan War, and the purported author of a diary of its events, that deployed some of the same materials worked up by Homer for the Iliad. The story of his journal, an amusing fiction addressed to a knowledgeable Alexandrian audience, came to be taken literally during Late Antiquity.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nerthus</span> Deity in Germanic paganism

In Germanic paganism, Nerthus is a goddess associated with a ceremonial wagon procession. Nerthus is attested by first century A.D. Roman historian Tacitus in his ethnographic work Germania as a "Mother Earth".

<i>Germania</i> (book) Book by Publius Cornelius Tacitus

The Germania, written by the Roman historian Publius Cornelius Tacitus around 98 AD and originally entitled On the Origin and Situation of the Germans, is a historical and ethnographic work on the Germanic peoples outside the Roman Empire.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Irish Gospels of St. Gall</span>

The Irish Gospels of St. Gall or Codex Sangallensis 51 is an 8th-century Insular Gospel Book, written either in Ireland or by Irish monks in the Abbey of St. Gall in Switzerland, where it is now in the Abbey library of St. Gallen as MS 51. It has 134 folios. Amongst its eleven illustrated pages are a Crucifixion, a Last Judgement, a Chi Rho monogram page, a carpet page, and Evangelist portraits.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gospel Book (British Library, Add MS 40618)</span>

British Library, Add MS 40618 is a late 8th century illuminated Irish Gospel Book with 10th century Anglo-Saxon additions. The manuscript contains a portion of the Gospel of Matthew, the majority of the Gospel of Mark and the entirety of the Gospels of Luke and John. There are three surviving Evangelist portraits, one original and two 10th century replacements, along with 10th century decorated initials. It is catalogued as number 40618 in the Additional manuscripts collection at the British Library.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Vespasian Psalter</span> 8th century Anglo-Saxon psalm book

The Vespasian Psalter is an Anglo-Saxon illuminated psalter decorated in a partly Insular style produced in the second or third quarter of the 8th century. It contains an interlinear gloss in Old English which is the oldest extant English translation of any portion of the Bible. It was produced in southern England, perhaps in St. Augustine's Abbey or Christ Church, Canterbury or Minster-in-Thanet, and is the earliest illuminated manuscript produced in "Southumbria" to survive.

The Agricola is a book by the Roman writer, Tacitus, written c. AD 98. The work recounts the life of his father-in-law Gnaeus Julius Agricola, an eminent Roman general and Governor of Britain from AD 77/78 – 83/84. It also covers the geography and ethnography of ancient Britain.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lorsch Abbey</span> UNESCO World Heritage Site in Hesse, Germany

Lorsch Abbey, otherwise the Imperial Abbey of Lorsch, is a former Imperial abbey in Lorsch, Germany, about 10 km (6.2 mi) east of Worms. It was one of the most important monasteries of the Carolingian Empire. Even in its ruined state, its remains are among the most important pre-Romanesque–Carolingian style buildings in Germany.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Carolingian Gospel Book (British Library, Add MS 11848)</span> Latin Gospel Book

British Library, Add MS 11848 is an illuminated Carolingian Latin Gospel Book produced at Tours. It contains the Vulgate translation of the four Gospels written on vellum in Carolingian minuscule with Square and Rustic Capitals and Uncials as display scripts. The manuscript has 219 extant folios which measure approximately 330 by 230 mm. The text is written in area of about 205 by 127 mm. In addition to the text of the Gospels, the manuscript contains the letter of St. Jerome to Pope Damasus and of Eusebius of Caesarea to Carpian, along with the Eusebian canon tables. There are prologues and capitula lists before each Gospel. A table of readings for the year was added, probably between 1675 and 1749, to the end of the volume. This is followed by a list of capitula incipits and a word grid which were added in the Carolingian period.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Codex Beneventanus</span> 8th-century Italian book containing a Gospel

The Codex Beneventanus is an 8th-century illuminated codex containing a Gospel Book. According to a subscription on folio 239 verso, the manuscript was written by a monk named Lupus for one Ato, who was probably Ato, abbot (736–760) of the monastery of San Vincenzo al Volturno, near Benevento. The unusual odd number of Canon Tables suggests these seven folios were prepared as much as two centuries earlier than the rest of the codex.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hilleviones</span>

The Hilleviones were a Germanic people occupying an island called Scatinavia in the 1st century AD, according to the Roman geographer Pliny the Elder in Naturalis Historia, written circa 77 AD. Pliny's Scatinavia is generally believed to have referred to the Scandinavian peninsula, which in the 1st century AD had not yet been fully explored by the Romans and was therefore described as an island. Pliny wrote that it was an island "of a magnitude as yet unascertained". The Hilleviones lived in the only part of the island that was known, and according to Pliny, they thought of their 500 villages as a separate (alterum) world.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Schuttern Gospels</span>

The Schuttern Gospels is an early 9th century illuminated Gospel Book that was produced at Schuttern Abbey in Baden. According to a colophon on folio 206v, the manuscript was written by the deacon Liutharius, at the order of his abbot, Bertricus.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ludwigslied</span> Old High German poem

The Ludwigslied is an Old High German (OHG) poem of 59 rhyming couplets, celebrating the victory of the Frankish army, led by Louis III of France, over Danish (Viking) raiders at the Battle of Saucourt-en-Vimeu on 3 August 881.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">La Cava Bible</span> Vidigoda Manustric Bible from the 9th century

The La Cava Bible or Codex Cavensis is a 9th-century Latin illuminated Bible, which was produced in Spain, probably in the Kingdom of Asturias during the reign of Alfonso II. The manuscript is preserved at the abbey of La Trinità della Cava, near Cava de' Tirreni in Campania, Italy, and contains 330 vellum folios which measure 320 by 260 mm.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Venetus A</span> 10th-century manuscript

Venetus A is the more common name for the 10th century AD manuscript codex catalogued in the Biblioteca Marciana in Venice as Codex Marcianus Graecus 454, now 822. Its name is Latin for "Venetian A."

<i>Codex Sangallensis</i> 63

The Codex Sangallensis 63, designated by S in some critical editions of the Bible, is a 9th-century Latin manuscript of the New Testament. The text, written on vellum, is a version of the Vulgate and contains the text of the Acts of the Apostles, Epistles, Book of Revelation, and non-biblical material. The manuscript has not survived in a complete condition, some parts of it have been lost. The original manuscript did not contain the Comma Johanneum, but it was added by a later hand on the margin.

<i>Paenitentiale Theodori</i>

The Paenitentiale Theodori is an early medieval penitential handbook based on the judgements of Archbishop Theodore of Canterbury. It exists in multiple versions, the fullest and historically most important of which is the U or Discipulus Umbrensium version, composed (probably) in Northumbria within approximately a decade or two after Theodore's death. Other early though far less popular versions are those known today as the Capitula Dacheriana, the Canones Gregorii, the Canones Basilienses, and the Canones Cottoniani, all of which were compiled before the Paenitentiale Umbrense probably in either Ireland and/or England during or shortly after Theodore's lifetime.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Frankish Table of Nations</span> Early medieval genealogical text in Latin

The Frankish Table of Nations is a brief early medieval genealogical text in Latin giving the supposed relationship between thirteen nations descended from three brothers. The nations are the Ostrogoths, Visigoths, Vandals, Gepids, Saxons, Burgundians, Thuringians, Lombards, Bavarians, Romans, Bretons, Franks and Alamanni.

The Codex Hersfeldensis was a manuscript from the Early Middle Ages. Written between 830 and 850, the codex was found in Hersfeld Abbey in the first half of the 15th century. The codex was brought to Italy by Enoch of Ascoli in 1455, where it was divided up and copied. The original has since been lost. The Codex Hersfeldensis is considered to be the original source for the surviving manuscripts of the Opera Minora – the shorter works of Tacitus, including the Germania.

The Codex Heidelbergensis 921 or Codex Palatinus Latinus 921 is a parchment codex dated to the 8th–9th century, containing a copy of the Romana and Getica of Jordanes. It was destroyed in a fire on the night of July 15–16, 1880.

References

Published Editions
Research Literature

Notes

  1. R. Sabbadini: Milano, Bibl. Ambros. R 88 sup. In: RFIC 29, 1901, S. 262 – 264. According to Franz Römer: Kritischer Problem- und Forschungsbericht zur Überlieferung der taciteischen Schriften. 1991, S. 2325f. Est alius Uber eiusdem de vita Julii agricole soceri sui. In quo continetur descriptio Britanie Insule, nec non populorum mores et ritus. Incipit: Clarorum virorum … Opus foliorum decem et quattuor in columnellis.
  2. After 1455, but no later than 1474, based on the description of Decembrio, who was the last to see the complete H before it was divided.