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 .
In 1425, Heinrich von Grebenstein, a Hersfeld monk visiting Rome, informed the apostolic secretary, humanist, and collector of Latin manuscripts, Poggio Bracciolini, of the discovery of copies of ancient works at the abbey. Grebenstein sent a list of the works to Poggio who recognized the value of the finds and sent his agent Niccolò Niccoli to Hersfeld to obtain a detailed inventory. In 1431, Niccoli identified three writings of Tacitus as works contained within the codex ( Germania , Agricola , Dialogus de oratoribus ), as well as a fragment of Suetonius's De grammaticis et rhetoribus from De viris illustribus with their incipit and volume in folia:
Though Poggio tried to obtain it for himself, the codex was not brought to Rome until Enoch of Ascoli acquired it as part of Pope Nicholas V's search for books in Germany and Northern Europe. After a few copies were made of the individual works, the manuscript disappeared without a trace.
The only existing manuscript that is considered a direct copy of the Codex Hersfeldensis is the Codex Aesinas Latinus 8 , discovered in 1908 (catalogued as Codex Vittorio Emanuele 1631 in the Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Roma). The humanist Stefano Guarnieri created the Aesinas in the period after Pietro Candido Decembrio described the Codex Hersfeldensis, no later than 1474. It contains parts of the Agricola, the full Germania, as well as other writings. Eight folia written in Carolingian minuscule are included in the Agricola section. This Agricola fragment is generally considered to be the only original piece of the Codex Hersfeldensis that has survived to the present day.
The gens Julia was one of the most prominent patrician families in ancient Rome. Members of the gens attained the highest dignities of the state in the earliest times of the Republic. The first of the family to obtain the consulship was Gaius Julius Iulus in 489 BC. The gens is perhaps best known, however, for Gaius Julius Caesar, the dictator and grand uncle of the emperor Augustus, through whom the name was passed to the so-called Julio-Claudian dynasty of the first century AD. The nomen Julius became very common in imperial times, as the descendants of persons enrolled as citizens under the early emperors began to make their mark in history.
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In Germanic paganism, Nerthus is a goddess associated with a ceremonial wagon procession. Nerthus is attested by first century AD Roman historian Tacitus in his ethnographic work Germania.
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.
Gian Francesco Poggio Bracciolini, usually referred to simply as Poggio Bracciolini, was an Italian scholar and an early Renaissance humanist. He was responsible for rediscovering and recovering many classical Latin manuscripts, mostly decaying and forgotten in German, Swiss, and French monastic libraries. His most celebrated finds are De rerum natura, the only surviving work by Lucretius, De architectura by Vitruvius, lost orations by Cicero such as Pro Sexto Roscio, Quintilian's Institutio Oratoria, Statius' Silvae, and Silius Italicus's Punica, as well as works by several minor authors such as Frontinus' De aquaeductu, Ammianus Marcellinus' Res Gestae, Nonius Marcellus, Probus, Flavius Caper, and Eutyches.
Publius Pomponius Secundus was a distinguished statesman and poet in the reigns of Tiberius, Caligula, and Claudius. He was suffect consul for the nundinium of January to June 44, succeeding the ordinary consul Gaius Sallustius Crispus Passienus and as the colleague of the other ordinary consul, Titus Statilius Taurus. Publius was on intimate terms with the elder Pliny, who wrote a biography of him, now lost.
Alfred Gudeman was an American-German classical scholar.
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The Dialogus de oratoribus is a short work attributed to Tacitus, in dialogue form, on the art of rhetoric. Its date of composition is unknown, though its dedication to Lucius Fabius Justus places its publication around 102 AD.
Richard August Reitzenstein was a German classical philologist and scholar of Ancient Greek religion, hermetism and Gnosticism. He is described by Kurt Rudolph as “one of the most stimulating Gnostic scholars.” With Wilhelm Bousset, he was one of the major figures of the Religionsgeschichtliche Schule.
Publius Cornelius Tacitus, known simply as Tacitus, was a Roman historian and politician. Tacitus is widely regarded as one of the greatest Roman historians by modern scholars.
Rudolf Much was an Austrian philologist and historian who specialized in Germanic studies. Much was Professor and Chair of Germanic Linguistic History and Germanic Antiquity at the University of Vienna, during which he tutored generations of students and published a number of influential works, some of which have remained standard works up to the present day.
Carl Schmidt was a German Coptologist. He made editions of various Coptic texts, and was active in Egypt in purchasing papyri for German universities. He also assisted Sir Chester Beatty in his papyri purchases.
Justus Friedrich Kritz was a German schoolteacher and classical philologist, known for his scholarly examination of the Roman historian Sallust.
Marcus Cornelius Nigrinus Curiatius Maternus was a Roman senator and general during the reign of Domitian. He was suffect consul during the nundinium of September to October AD 83 with Lucius Calventius Sextius Carminius Vetus. Although some experts consider him a rival with Trajan as heir apparent to the emperor Nerva, he is primarily known from inscriptions.
Lucius Fabius Justus was a Roman senator who occupied a number of offices in the imperial service. He also served as suffect consul in 102, replacing Lucius Licinius Sura as the colleague of the consul who opened the year, Lucius Julius Ursus Servianus; both Justus and Servianus closed their nundinium at the end of April.
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Eugen Fehrle was a German philologist who specialized in classical and Germanic philology.
The Codex Aesinas 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 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.
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