The Raterian iconography or ''Civitas Veronensis Depicta'' is the oldest known depiction of the city of

Verona Verona ( ; ; or ) is a city on the Adige, River Adige in Veneto, Italy, with 255,131 inhabitants. It is one of the seven provincial capitals of the region, and is the largest city Comune, municipality in the region and in Northeast Italy, nor ...

. Dating from the first half of the 10th century, it was found by a

Benedictine The Benedictines, officially the Order of Saint Benedict (, abbreviated as O.S.B. or OSB), are a mainly contemplative monastic order of the Catholic Church for men and for women who follow the Rule of Saint Benedict. Initiated in 529, th ...

monk from

Lobbes Abbey Lobbes Abbey () was a Benedictine monastery in the municipality of Lobbes, Hainaut, Belgium. The abbey played an important role in the religious, political and religious life of the Prince-Bishopric of Liège, especially around the year 1000. The ...

(Belgium) in a medieval

codex The codex (: codices ) was the historical ancestor format of the modern book. Technically, the vast majority of modern books use the codex format of a stack of pages bound at one edge, along the side of the text. But the term ''codex'' is now r ...

that also contained the '' Rhythmus Pipinianus''. That codex had belonged to Ratherius, bishop of the city between July 932 and 968. Since the codex was lost following the passage of French revolutionary troops, the one that exists today is a copy made by Scipione Maffei, an 18th-century scholar from Verona. In the aftermath of Scipione Maffei's demise in 1755, his copies were bequeathed to the

Chapter Library of Verona The Chapter Library of Verona () is an Italian library, considered one of the world's oldest library in continuous function. History The Chapter Library of Verona is one of the oldest library in the world. Of the many metropolitan churches whi ...

, where they are currently housed. Specifically, the '' Versus de Verona'' and the ''Iconography'', which were transmitted in 1739, are located on cc. 187r-188v and on the final folio of the codex. A few years later, in 1752, a merchant from

Aachen Aachen is the List of cities in North Rhine-Westphalia by population, 13th-largest city in North Rhine-Westphalia and the List of cities in Germany by population, 27th-largest city of Germany, with around 261,000 inhabitants. Aachen is locat ...

facilitated the acquisition of a copy of the ''Rhythmus'' in praise of Verona and the Iconography by Giovanni Battista Biancolini, who printed both in 1757 in the volume ''Dei vescovi e governatori di Verona'', pp. 115–119. However, the preparatory papers, particularly those that presented the reproduction of the drawing with the plan of Verona, are now lost. The Maffeian apograph, dating from 1739 and currently housed in the Chapter Library, and that of Biancolini, discovered in 1752 and published in 1757, provide the basis for the reconstruction of the drawing once housed in the Monastery of Lobbes, which was destroyed in 1793-1794. The Iconography is an ideal representation of Verona, evoking the city's image in the imagination of Bishop Ratherius. When observing the Iconography, one perceives Verona through the lens of a 10th-century intellectual, centered on the

Adige River The Adige is the second-longest river in Italy, after the Po. It rises near the Reschen Pass in the Vinschgau in the province of South Tyrol, near the Italian border with Austria and Switzerland, and flows through most of northeastern Italy ...

and Ponte Pietra, with the Roman Theater, the

Arena An arena is a large enclosed venue, often circular or oval-shaped, designed to showcase theatre, Music, musical performances or Sport, sporting events. It comprises a large open space surrounded on most or all sides by tiered seating for specta ...

, and several other structures depicted along the periphery. This image is contrasted with other traces of Verona's past, such as the ''Antiquities of Verona'' by the painter Giovanni Caroto and the ''Antiquitates veronenses'' by

Onofrio Panvinio Onofrio Panvinio (; 23 February 1529 – 27 April 1568) was an Italian Augustinian friar, historian and antiquary who was the librarian to Cardinal Alessandro Farnese. Life and work Panvinio was born in Verona. At the age of eleven, he ...

: printed works that describe the ancient monuments of the city with the help of a rich iconographic apparatus. The iconography also contains the following description of the Arena of Verona:

References

Bibliography

* {{Subject bar, portal1=History, portal2=Italy Verona History of Verona

See also

References

Bibliography