Moralia in Job 945 - Laberinto conmemorativo - Biblioteca Nacional Cod80

Florentius ( es, Florencio; – after 978) was a monk, scribe and artist of the monastery of San Pedro de Valeránica in the

County of Castile The Kingdom of Castile (; es, Reino de Castilla, la, Regnum Castellae) was a large and powerful state on the Iberian Peninsula during the Middle Ages. Its name comes from the host of castles constructed in the region. It began in the 9th cent ...

.Miguel C. Vivancos Gómez
"Florencio de Valeránica"
'' Diccionario biográfico español'' (2018). All that is known of Florentius comes from the colophons of

manuscript A manuscript (abbreviated MS for singular and MSS for plural) was, traditionally, any document written by hand – or, once practical typewriters became available, typewritten – as opposed to mechanically printed or reproduced in ...

s he copied (or their copies). He gave his age as 24 or 25 years in a colophon of 945, but in another of 953 he gave it more precisely as 35. The latter is generally accepted, putting his birth around 918. His place of birth is unknown. He may have been offered to the recently founded monastery of Valeránica as a child oblate or perhaps to its nearby mother house,

San Pedro de Cardeña Castrillo del Val is a municipality located in the province of Burgos, Castile and León, Spain. It is in the valley of the River Arlanzón. According to the 2004 census ( INE), the municipality had a population of 515 inhabitants. Main sights ...

. The first record of Florentius's activity is the foundation charter of the monastery of San Andrés de Boada, which he drew up on 1 March 937. That same day, he drew up Count

Fernán González Fernan or Fernán is both a given name and a surname. Notable people with the name include: * Fernán Blázquez de Cáceres, Spanish nobleman * Fernán Caballero (1796–1877), Spanish novelist * Fernando Fernán Gómez (1921–2007), Spanish actor ...

's charter of donation to the monastery of

San Pedro de Arlanza San Pedro de Arlanza is a ruined Benedictine monastery in north central Spain. It is located in the valley of the river Arlanza in Hortigüela, Burgos. Founded in 912, it has been called the "cradle of Castile" (''cuna de Castilla''). It was aban ...

. On 15 March 942, he wrote up Fernán's concession of some salt pans at

Añana Añana or Salinas de Añana ( eu, Gesaltza Añana) is both a valley and municipality located in the province of Álava, in the Basque Country, northern Spain, with the main population nucleus being the village of Salinas de Añana. Moreover, Añ ...

to Valeránica. All of these acts are preserved as copies. The

original Originality is the aspect of created or invented works that distinguish them from reproductions, clones, forgeries, or substantially derivative works. The modern idea of originality is according to some scholars tied to Romanticism, by a notion t ...

of the donation to Arlanza is also preserved in the

British Library The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom and is one of the largest libraries in the world. It is estimated to contain between 170 and 200 million items from many countries. As a legal deposit library, the British ...

.Julio Escalona , Isabel Velázquez Soriano and Paloma Juárez Benítez, "Identification of the Sole Extant Original Charter Issued by Fernán González, Count of Castile (932–970)," ''Journal of Medieval Iberian Studies'' 4, 2 (2012): 259–288. Florentius is known to have executed five complete

codices The codex (plural codices ) was the historical ancestor of the modern book. Instead of being composed of sheets of paper, it used sheets of vellum, papyrus, or other materials. The term ''codex'' is often used for ancient manuscript books, with ...

. The oldest is the Oña Bible, of which only a few

folio The term "folio" (), has three interconnected but distinct meanings in the world of books and printing: first, it is a term for a common method of arranging sheets of paper into book form, folding the sheet only once, and a term for a book ma ...

s are preserved today. He completed it on 10 June 943. On 11 April 945, he finished a copy of

Gregory the Great Pope Gregory I ( la, Gregorius I; – 12 March 604), commonly known as Saint Gregory the Great, was the bishop of Rome from 3 September 590 to his death. He is known for instigating the first recorded large-scale mission from Rome, the Gregoria ...

's lengthy ''

Moralia in Job ''Moralia in Job'', also called ''Moralia, sive Expositio in Job'' or ''Magna Moralia'', is a commentary on the '' Book of Job'' by Gregory the Great, written between 578 and 595. It was begun when Gregory was at the court of Emperor Tiberius II ...

''. It is currently Madrid, Biblioteca Nacional de España, MS 80. On 9 July 953, he completed a copy of

Cassiodorus Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator (c. 485 – c. 585), commonly known as Cassiodorus (), was a Roman statesman, renowned scholar of antiquity, and writer serving in the administration of Theodoric the Great, king of the Ostrogoths. ''Senator'' ...

's commentary on the ''

Psalms The Book of Psalms ( or ; he, תְּהִלִּים, , lit. "praises"), also known as the Psalms, or the Psalter, is the first book of the ("Writings"), the third section of the Tanakh, and a book of the Old Testament. The title is derived ...

''. Once kept in the San Isidoro de León, it disappeared early in the 19th century. Sometime after 953, Florentius copied out the ''Liber homeliarum'' of

Smaragdus of Saint-Mihiel Smaragdus of Saint-Mihiel< OSB ( 770 – c. 840) was a

Benedictine

monk of cathedral of Córdoba.Raymond Etaix
"Le 'Smaragde' de Cordoue et autres manuscrits apparentés,"
''Miscel·lània litúrgica catalana'' 4 (1990): 13–27. His last know codex is the León Bible of 20 July 960, which was mostly executed by his student, Sancho, under his direction. Florentius is recognized today for his calligraphy, his decorated

initial In a written or published work, an initial capital, also referred to as a drop capital or simply an initial cap, initial, initcapital, initcap or init or a drop cap or drop, is a letter at the beginning of a word, a chapter, or a paragraph that ...

s, well executed frontispieces and miniatures and his work with interlace, relatively recently brought to Spain from the north. In the '' Diccionario biográfico español'', he is called the "prince of calligraphers" (''príncipe de los calígrafos''). All of his codices are large in size, deluxe illuminated manuscripts that use multiple inks. Two original documents in Florentius's own hand survive from his later years. One is Count García Fernández's purchase of Covarrubias from Valeránica, dated 7 September 972. The other is the act by which the count founded the on 24 November 978. On the same day, he drew up the count's donation of the monastery of San Quirce de Yesares at Añana to Valeránica. This act survives only in a copy. It is the latest record of Florentius.

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