The Vatican Terence (Terentius Vaticanus), or Codex Vaticanus Latinus 3868, is a 9th-century
illuminated manuscript
An illuminated manuscript is a formally prepared manuscript, document where the text is decorated with flourishes such as marginalia, borders and Miniature (illuminated manuscript), miniature illustrations. Often used in the Roman Catholic Churc ...
of the
Latin
Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...
comedies of
Publius Terentius Afer
Publius Terentius Afer (; – ), better known in English as Terence (), was a playwright during the Roman Republic. He was the author of six comedies based on Greek originals by Menander or Apollodorus of Carystus. All six of Terence's play ...
, housed in the
Vatican Library
The Vatican Apostolic Library (, ), more commonly known as the Vatican Library or informally as the Vat, is the library of the Holy See, located in Vatican City, and is the city-state's national library. It was formally established in 1475, alth ...
. According to art-historical analysis the manuscript was copied from a model of the 3rd century. The manuscript is referred to in the ''
apparatus criticus'' of modern editions as "C".
Description
The manuscript was made at
Corvey
The Princely Abbey of Corvey ( or ) is a former Benedictine abbey and ecclesiastical principality now in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It was one of the half-dozen self-ruling '' princely abbeys'' of the Holy Roman Empire from the Late Middl ...
in about the year 825 by a scribe named Hrodgarius. The illustrations were made by three artists, one of them was named Adelricus.
[ It contains illustrations of 141 scenes. ]Bischoff
Bischoff is a German surname. Notable people with the surname include:
* Amaury Bischoff (born 1987), Portuguese-born French footballer
* Anna Catharina Bischoff (1719–1787), wife of pastor Lucas Gernler, known for her well-conserved mummy
* Ber ...
dated the manuscript between 820–830.[ The text of the manuscript in English translation was edited by George Colman in 1768. The Latin text was edited by Christoph Stiegemann and Matthias Wemhoff.
The Vatican has digitized the manuscript and added it to its online library, DigiVatLib, as a part of its project to provide free, online access to the Vatican Library's collections of manuscripts and incunabula.]
The archetype of the codex
Since the end of the 19th century many scholars tried to estimate the age of the model from which Vaticanus 3868 was copied. According to Weitzmann the latter is a most faithful copy of a late classical original manuscript.[ On the basis of the art-historical data the original manuscript was dated to the 5th century by Weitzmann, Koehler, and Mütherich.][ The artist was schooled in the Greco-Asiatic manner.][ This point of view dominated before ]World War II
World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...
.
In the 1960s another more detailed art-historical analysis was made. The pictures of female masks were compared with three female masks dated between the years ca. 242ca. 267. The hairstyle of the Terence portrait is close to the one favoured by emperors between the years 238 and 249, suggesting that models from which the codex was copied were made in the 3rd century.[
]
References
;Citations
;Bibliography
*
*
*{{cite journal, last=Morey, first=Charles R., title=The Vatican Terence, journal=Classical Philology, date=1931, volume=26, issue=4, pages=374–385, jstor=265109, doi=10.1086/361395, s2cid=161548323
Further reading
Phormio. Translated into English prose by M.H. Morgan, with a new prologue by J.B. Greenough, and with the Vatican miniatures accurately reproduced for the first time
(1894) Cambridge.
Digitized manuscript in Latin at DigiVatLib
External links
"The most ingenious and expressive work of narrative art known from all of Late Antiquity" (820)
2004–2012 Jeremy Norman & Co., Inc.
9th-century manuscripts
Carolingian illuminated manuscripts
Manuscripts in the Vatican Library