Codex Vaticanus Ottobonianus Latinus 1829 is one of the three most important manuscripts preserving the poems of

Catullus Gaius Valerius Catullus (; 84 - 54 BCE), often referred to simply as Catullus (, ), was a Latin poet of the late Roman Republic who wrote chiefly in the neoteric style of poetry, focusing on personal life rather than classical heroes. His ...

. Among students of the matter it is commonly known as Codex Romanus (or "R").

Description

It is a Latin manuscript, written in

Gothic minuscule Blackletter (sometimes black letter), also known as Gothic script, Gothic minuscule, or Textura, was a script used throughout Western Europe from approximately 1150 until the 17th century. It continued to be commonly used for the Danish, Norweg ...

script on

parchment Parchment is a writing material made from specially prepared untanned skins of animals—primarily sheep, calves, and goats. It has been used as a writing medium for over two millennia. Vellum is a finer quality parchment made from the skins o ...

, dated to around 1390. It consists of 40 leaves (80 pages), 37 of them containing the poems of Catullus. It is the youngest of the three most important manuscripts of Catullus, the other two being: ''codex Oxoniensis'' (O) preserved in the Bodleian Library in

Oxford Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...

and ''codex Sangermanensis'' (G) in the Bibliothèque nationale de France in

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), ma ...

. Considering the stemma codicum, the Vatican codex is of the same rank as the latter one (the Oxford manuscript being one step closer to the lost archetype, known as ''codex Veronensis'' or "V").

History

The first owner of the manuscript was an Italian humanist,

Coluccio Salutati Coluccio Salutati (16 February 1331 – 4 May 1406) was an Italian humanist and notary, and one of the most important political and cultural leaders of Renaissance Florence; as chancellor of the Republic and its most prominent voice, he was effec ...

. In the mid-16th century

Achilles Statius Achilles Statius (or Aquiles Estaço) (12 June 1524, Vidigueira – 17 September 1581) was a Portuguese people, Portuguese Humanism, humanist and writer, since 1555 living in Rome, where he was a secretary of the pope. Achilles Statius is now mo ...

, in his edition of Catullan poems, shows an acquaintance with this codex. Later the codex was lost: it was probably housed in the

Vatican Library The Vatican Apostolic Library ( la, Bibliotheca Apostolica Vaticana, it, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana), more commonly known as the Vatican Library or informally as the Vat, is the library of the Holy See, located in Vatican City. Formally es ...

for a very long time, hidden under a false catalogue number, until it was rediscovered in 1896 by William Gardner Hale. Hale promised to collate the codex, but failed to do so before his death in 1928 – this in turn delayed the now general acceptance of R as one of the first rank Catullian codices. The codex was collated by a Canadian scholar, D. F. S. Thomson, in 1970.

Description

History

See also

Further reading