Manuscript of Cicero - BL Kings MS 23 f1

''Epistulae ad Familiares'' (''Letters to Friends'') is a

collection of letters A letter collection or letter book consists of a publication, usually a book, containing a compilation of letters written by a real person. Unlike an epistolary novel, a letter collection belongs to non-fiction literature. As a publication, a lett ...

between

Roman Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of ancient Rome *''Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a letter ...

politician and orator

Marcus Tullius Cicero Marcus Tullius Cicero ( ; ; 3 January 106 BC – 7 December 43 BC) was a Roman statesman, lawyer, scholar, philosopher, and academic skeptic, who tried to uphold optimate principles during the political crises that led to the estab ...

and various public and private figures. The letters in this collection, together with Cicero's other letters, are considered the most reliable sources of information for the period leading up to the fall of the

Roman Republic The Roman Republic ( la, Res publica Romana ) was a form of government of Rome and the era of the classical Roman civilization when it was run through public representation of the Roman people. Beginning with the overthrow of the Roman Kin ...

. Traditionally spanning 16 books, and featuring letters from 62 to 43 BCE, the collection was likely first published by Cicero's

freedman A freedman or freedwoman is a formerly enslaved person who has been released from slavery, usually by legal means. Historically, enslaved people were freed by manumission (granted freedom by their captor-owners), emancipation (granted freedom a ...

and personal secretary

Marcus Tullius Tiro Marcus Tullius Tiro (died 4 BC) was first a slave, then a freedman, of Cicero from whom he received his nomen and praenomen. He is frequently mentioned in Cicero's letters. After Cicero's death Tiro published his former master's collected w ...

sometime after Cicero's death in 43 BCE. A number of manuscript copies of this collection have reached modern times. The earliest witness to the text is a

palimpsest In textual studies, a palimpsest () is a manuscript page, either from a scroll or a book, from which the text has been scraped or washed off so that the page can be reused for another document. Parchment was made of lamb, calf, or kid skin an ...

on a single leaf, written in

uncial Uncial is a majuscule Glaister, Geoffrey Ashall. (1996) ''Encyclopedia of the Book''. 2nd edn. New Castle, DE, and London: Oak Knoll Press & The British Library The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom and is one ...

s of the fifth or sixth century ( CLA IV.443; it contains portions of letters 6.9 and 6.10. Two more fragments from 12th-century manuscripts – the outer bifolium of an eight-sheet gathering containing 2.1.1–2.17.4, and a single leaf containing 5.10.1–5.12.2 – represent one medieval tradition. One complete manuscript survives containing the entire collection, written in the first half of the 9th century in several hands (M); at one point it was in the hands of bishop

Leo of Vercelli Leo (''c''.965–1026) was a German prelate who served as the Bishop of Vercelli from 999. Born in Hildesheim, he was made an archdeacon by 998 and was appointed to the see of Vercelli as the candidate of the Emperor Otto III and Pope Sylvester II ...

, and it is included in the 9th-century library catalog of the

Abbey of Lorsch Lorsch Abbey, otherwise the Imperial Abbey of Lorsch (german: Reichsabtei Lorsch; la, Laureshamense Monasterium or ''Laurissa''), is a former Imperial abbey in Lorsch, Germany, about east of Worms. It was one of the most renowned monasteries ...

;

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 ...

made a copy of this manuscript in 1392; it currently resides at the

Laurentian Library The Laurentian Library (Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana or BML) is a historic library in Florence, Italy, containing more than 11,000 manuscripts and 4,500 early printed books. Built in a cloister of the Medicean Basilica di San Lorenzo di Firenze ...

Florence Florence ( ; it, Firenze ) is a city in Central Italy and the capital city of the Tuscany region. It is the most populated city in Tuscany, with 383,083 inhabitants in 2016, and over 1,520,000 in its metropolitan area.Bilancio demografico an ...

as manuscript 49.9. There are also two groups of medieval manuscripts which represent a tradition independent of M: one provides the text for books 1–8 (X), the other for books 9–16 (Y). The X tradition is contaminated by M, and thus is of less value than the Y tradition.R.H. Rouse, "Epistulae ad familiares" in ''Texts and Transmission: A survey of the Latin Classics'', ed. L.D. Reynolds (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1983), pp. 138–142

References

External links

* *
Epistulae ad Familiares
' – Perseus under PhiloLogic,

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chicago is consistently ranked among the b ...

*Cicero, ''The letters to his friends'' translated by William Glynn Williams
volume 1volume 2volume 3
(1927), Loeb Classical Library, at the Internet Archive {{Authority control 1st-century BC Latin books Collections of letters Works by Cicero