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

Catullus Gaius Valerius Catullus (; ), known as Catullus (), was a Latin neoteric poet of the late Roman Republic. His surviving works remain widely read due to their popularity as teaching tools and because of their personal or sexual themes. Life ...

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

Description

It is a Latin manuscript, written in Gothic minuscule script on

parchment Parchment is a writing material made from specially prepared Tanning (leather), untanned skins of animals—primarily sheep, calves and goats. It has been used as a writing medium in West Asia and Europe for more than two millennia. By AD 400 ...

, 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 The Bodleian Library () is the main research library of the University of Oxford. Founded in 1602 by Sir Thomas Bodley, it is one of the oldest libraries in Europe. With over 13 million printed items, it is the second-largest library in ...

Oxford Oxford () is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city and non-metropolitan district in Oxfordshire, England, of which it is the county town. The city is home to the University of Oxford, the List of oldest universities in continuou ...

and ''codex Sangermanensis'' (G) in the

Bibliothèque nationale de France The (; BnF) is the national library of France, located in Paris on two main sites, ''Richelieu'' and ''François-Mitterrand''. It is the national repository of all that is published in France. Some of its extensive collections, including bo ...

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

. 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 Renaissance humanist and notary, and one of the most important political and cultural leaders of Renaissance The Renaissance ( , ) is a Periodization, period of history ...

. In the mid-16th century Achilles Statius, 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 (, ), 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 ...

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