Collection of Aratea poems

Aratea text: Avienus' Aratea; Cicero's Aratea; Germanicus' Aratea

Paper — 82 fols. — 290 × 210 mm — Italy — s. XV²

Support:

History: Both this MS and Montpellier, Ecole de Medicine 452 derive from a now lost exemplar, referred to as liber antiquissimus. It was discovered in Vercelli in 1442 by Cyriac of Ancona. In both copies the text of Cicero has neither scholia nor illustrations, but the exemplar had scholia derived from Hyginus' Astronomia and the Revised Aratus Latinus (the so called Scholia Sangermanensia). The exemplar was discussed by Kauffmann (who did not know the MSS in the Ambrosiana, Montpellier and Göttweig); Kauffmann's conclusions were summarised and re-confurmed by Reeve.

Selected bibliography:

1r-31r Avienus: Aratea

31r-57v Avienus: Orbis Terrae descriptio (vv. 1-1369)

58r-66v Germanicus: Aratea

67r-75r Cicero: Aratea

Catalogued (based on secondary lit.) by: Ivana Dobcheva