The role of the Reg. lat. 1669 in the Textual Transmission of Virgil and other works

Virgil’s works

1. Valuable readings
2. Conjunctive errors
3. Corrections
4. Unique errors
5. Phonetic errors

Scholia and glosses

Supplementary texts

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Virgil’s works

Valuable readings

Reg. lat. 1669 is an accurate and valuable witness of Virgil’s text. It preserves numerous genuine readings, e.g.:

ecl. 2, 41 (albo); 3, 38 (facili); 3, 98 (eruo);
georg. 2, 57 (iam quae); 2, 222 (oleo); 2, 364 (agit);
Aen. 1, 174 (silici); 2, 727 (examine); 4, 18 (fuisset); 4, 26 (Erebo); 5, 558 (it); 5, 649 (eunti); 7, 211 (auget); 8, 724 (Mulciber); 10, 270 (a uertice); 11, 480 (deiecta); 11, 624 (procurrens); 11, 708 (fraudem); 12, 801 (ne).

Elsewhere, the manuscript contains interesting and rare variant readings accepted only by some editors. The following readings of i, for example, have been printed in the text of the recent Teubner edition of Virgil (Ottaviano-Conte 2013, Conte 2009):

• ecl. 7.25 nascentem Vbisε, Seru.: nascente M: crescentem M^APaωγ, ps. Acro ad Hor. carm. 1, 1, 29, Seru. ad buc. 4, 19, Expl.
• Aen. 5. 573 trinacriis g?ik²: trinacrii PRbknr, Seru., Tib.: trinacriae M² (-cree M) P²pωγ: trinacria a
• Aen. 11. 149 pallanta M^A ix²: pallante MPRωγ, Seru., Tib.

Reg. lat. 1669 is often set apart from the other Carolingian manuscripts by the fact that it shares errors either with one or more antiquiores or with two peculiar representatives of the Carolingian tradition, a and γ: see, e.g.

ecl. 6.78 narrauerit] narrauerat Ra?i; 8.109 parcite carmina] carmina (-ne c) parcite Mceri; 10.62 neque] nec Rabi;
georg. 1.2 uertere] uetere Pai; 2.208 euertit] uertit Pi; 2.529: uocat] uocant Pi;
Aen. 2.524 recepit] recipit ai; 3.407 occurrat] occurret ai; 3.454 increpitent] increpitant ai; 4.698 nondum] necdum Piγ; 5.278 clauda] cauda MP^pcVi^acrz Tib.; 5.810 rapui] eripui F^pci; 6.768 reddet] reddat Rci; 7.496 succensus] accensus iγ; 11.439 induat] induit Piγ; 12.203 cadent] cadet Rani; 12.343 Imbrasidas] embrasidas RP^pcaiγ; 12.449 agnouitque] agnoscitque Pi; 12.568 uicti] dicto iγ Char. 99, 1; 12.784 mutata] conuersa M^pcPiγ^pc; 12.795 caelo fatisque] fatis caeloque Pi.

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THE TEXT> VIRGIL’S WORKS> CONJUNCTIVE ERRORS

 Reg. lat. 1669 shares several errors with dfhjt, the second group of the Carolingians according to Kaster’s classification (Fonti Recenziori > Manoscritti Carolingi > Valore testimoniale> Errori > I Gruppi e le Affiliazioni tra Manoscritti): i can therefore be considered closely connected to this group. Some manuscripts that have not been analysed yet can also be considered part of the same group: lwz; in some places g (which is closely connected to f); kxy; c (often agreeing with the group). The transposition of two lines in Aen. 4.256-258 represents one of the most significant conjunctive errors shared by the manuscripts belonging to this group:

256             Haud aliter terras inter caelumque uolabat

257             litus harenosum ad Libyae, uentosque secabat

258             materno ueniens ab auo Cyllenia proles.

In cdhijktwxz, l. 257 is inserted after l. 258: it is very likely that l. 257 was originally omitted because of the homoeoteleuton with the preceding line and was afterwards restored in the wrong position in the common ancestor of the whole group. The agreement between the members of this group is also exemplified by:

Aen. 4.225: respicit] perspicit cdhijkwxyz;Αen. 6.141: decerpserit] discerpserit dghijkwyz; Aen. 6.591: simularet] simularat F^pccdfgijkvwxyz simulauerat t; Aen. 6.606: mensas] mensam dfghijwxyz

i is especially close to the dhiltwz subgroup:

ecl. 3.84 est] sit dhilzΛ (praeter n), Seru. (def. t); ecl. 5.9 phoebum certet dilz, recc. (def. t); Aen. 8.381: imperiis] imperio dhitwz Seru., Seru. auct. ad 8, 374 (def. l); 8.206: intractatum] intemptatum M^pcdhistwz (def. l); 9.132: nostris manibus] manibus nostris dhikstwz (def. l); 9.189: soluti] sepulti adhistwz (def. l); 10.35: uertere] flectere dhti (deff. lw); 10.602: ductor] uictor cdhti (deff. lw)

In the last few books of the Aeneid, i reveals its relationship with dht, while proving to be even closer to fg, j and kxy:

Aen. 11.104 aethere] aere dfhjikxz (deff. lw); 11.247: agris] aruis dfghijvxz, Seru., Tib. (deff. lw); 11.774: erat] sonat a^pccdfghjixzγ (deff. lw); 11.781: incauta] incensa dhij (deff. lw); 11.877: speculis] muris cdfgijkxz (deff. lw); 12.719: nemori] pecori dghijkxyzγ^pc (deff. lw); 12.757: tumultu] fragore a^pcdijkx (om. h), Tib. (deff. lw); 12.882: aut] haud chijkvxzγ^pc, Tib. (deff. lw)

 

Such closeness to the above-mentioned manuscripts is confirmed by the fact that i shares its titles with many other members of the same group (Fonti Recenziori > Manoscritti Carolingi > Titoli), while preserving some non-Servian annotations that are found in f as well (Ottaviano 2009, 294).

 

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THE TEXT> VIRGIL’S WORKS> CORRECTIONS

Several hands inserted corrections, variants and glosses in Reg. lat. 1669. Among the nine hands that are distinguishable in the apparatus, the two most frequently recurring (i², i⁵) can be compared to the handwriting responsible for the Servian commentary that fills the margins of the book. More episodic interventions can be ascribed to i³, i⁶, both contributing to the scholia, and to i⁷, i⁸, whose activity concentrates on f. 192r.

A recurring correction consists in supplementing lines that have been omitted mostly because of an oversight; normally, the copyist himself supplies the skipped line: the case is recurrent with tibicines (Aen. 3.661; 4.400, 503; 5.322, 574, 653; 7.439; 8.536; 9.295, 467, 520, 761; 10.17, 284; 11.391), or when the text facilitates a saut du même au même (ecl. 3.104-105; 4.60-61; georg. 1.237; Aen. 8.59-162, 397, 646, 652; 9.370-371, 745; 10.118, 188, 214, 279, 300). Limited sections of the manuscript may have been affected by the copyist’s lack of attention due to fatigue (Aen. 3.575, 650; 9.156, 162, 275, 287, 340, 360, 405, 438, 548, 563, 705, 727, 736; 10.77, 130, 146, 162, 198, 227, 271, 309, 316, 385; 11.308-311, 324).

Later hands insert spurious lines, as happens with a verse (lubrica conuoluens sublato pectore terga) added by i⁶ after georg. 3.437 imitating Aen. 2.474. Other interpolations, widely circulating in Carolingian manuscripts, are: Aen. 4.528 (i⁵); Aen. 2.76 and 3.661 (i⁷); georg. 1.389^a and Aen. 10.278 (i⁸). Aen. 4.270 has been supplemented by i⁹, a late hand perhaps dating back to the 11^th or 12^th century and leaving only scattered traces in the rest of the manuscript.

To conclude, the correcting hands active in i can be divided into two groups:

• hands coeval or not much later to those that wrote Virgil’s text (9^th century): i²– i⁵
• later hands (10^th-11^th century): i⁶– i⁹

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THE TEXT> VIRGIL’S WORKS> SINGULAR READINGS

The analysis of the errors shows that i derives from an exemplar written in minuscule, as there is some confusion between letters that are similar in that script:

 

a/c: georg. 3.105: haurit] curit i

n/ri: Aen. 2.239: gaudent] gauderit i

s/r: georg. 2.277: setius] retius i; georg. 3.266: est] ert i

There are also examples of misunderstood abbreviations:

uer (ũ): georg. 3.252: uerbera] ubera i (the copyist has not noticed the titulus above u)

par (ṕ ): Aen. 5.858: parte] post arte i (confusion between the insular abbreviation for per/par and the continental abbreviation p’ for post)

 

On the other hand, other errors may be witnesses of a previous ancestor, as there are also examples of confusion between letters that look alike in capital script:

E/I: Aen. 1.297: demittit] demittet i; Aen. 1.540: permittit] permittet i

P/F: georg. 2.166: plurima] flurima i

T/F: georg. 1.298: terit] ferit i (cf. georg. 2.341: terrea] ferrea codd.)

Other scribal tendencies can be revealed by the analysis of the most recurrent errors in Reg. lat. 1669.

One of them is the accidental omission of one line: see, e.g., f. 16v (ecl. 10, 38); f. 31r (georg. 2, 457); f. 33r (georg. 3, 62); f. 135r (Aen. 8, 397); f. 142r (Aen. 9, 156).

 

The inversion of words is another error occurring quite frequently in i: it seems plausible that errors of this kind result from the practice of self-dictation, see CAROLINGIAN MANUSCRIPTS>ERRORS>INVERSIONS. Sometimes inversion does not imply any violation of the meter:

Aen. 3, 102: tum genitor ueterum uoluens monimenta uirorum

uoluens ueterum i

Aen. 3, 417: una foret uenit medio ui pontus et undis

medio uenit i

ecl. 5.9: certet phoebum] phoebum certet i, recc. apud Pier.

georg. 1.315: uiridi stipula] stipula uiridi i

georg. 2.365: nondum falcis] falcis nondum aci

Aen. 1.735: coetum Tyrii] Tyrii coetum i, recc. quattuor apud Burman

 

In other occurrences, the inverted order transmitted by i is clearly wrong, as in the following example:

Aen. 1, 360: his commota fugam Dido sociosque parabat.

dido fugam i

 

Interpolated glosses also appear, mainly generating a text that does not fit the hexameter:

Aen. 1.297 alto] alto caelo i^ac

Aen. 2.191 imperio] ab imperio i^ac

Aen. 2.40 omnis] uulgus i^ac

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THE TEXT> VIRGIL’S WORKS> PHONETIC ERRORS

Reg. lat. 1669 does not show phonetic or orthographic peculiarities: the copyists appear to have been meticulous in reproducing the formal features of the antigraph. Exceptions to the general correctness are represented by a few hypercorrections in the treatment of diphthongs or by the appearance of some alterations typical of the age such as the substitution of k with c, the change of the accusative plural ending to -es from -is; the geminate spelling dii for di.

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THE TEXT> SCHOLIA

 

The margins of Reg. lat. 1669 preserve the Servian commentary without Daniel’s additions. The text of the commentary belongs to a highly contaminated branch of Servius’ tradition, the Tours family [2]. The corrector i³ intervened only in the Eclogues and the Georgics; in the interlinear or marginal space, he added non-Servian notes identical to the annotations of the Reg. lat. 1495 published in Thilo’s apparatus (Ottaviano 2009, 288-93). The same set of notes is preserved in the Par. lat. 7928 (s).

Other correctors added materials deriving from Isidore and Augustine (Isid. Orig. 8.7; Aug. Doct. christ. 2. 27-8: f. 3v; Aug. Civ. 18.17: f. 16r; Isid. Orig. 3.44.1: f. 20v).

i⁶ was responsible for some notes that are occasionally identical to the glosses preserved by f. Such annotations consist essentially of Servian materials reshaped and contaminated with contents from other sources (mainly Isidore and Augustine): see the section on GLOSSES> fi. Other hands, on the contrary, added almost exclusively Servian notes: among those hands, i⁷ was able to quote its source, as in the following gloss (f. 81r):

Ad Aen. 3, 671 ‘Potis’ nomen est indeclinabile, sed Seruius declinabile uult: ‘potis potis poti potem potis pote’, quod, ut ipse dicit, nomen esse ratio docet comparationis, quia facit ‘potissimus’ in superlatiuo. Cui ‘-simus’ detractum nominis positionem inuenies ut ‘acerrimus acer’, ‘fortissimus fortis’. Declinari autem compositio docet: ‘impotis’ et ‘compotis’, ‘impotem’ et ‘compotem’ quod simplex non est in usu.

Cp. Serv. ad Aen. 3, 671: ‘potis’ autem nomen est et declinatur ‘potis, potis, poti, potem, potis, a pote’. Et nomen esse docet ratio conparationis; nam in superlatiuo ‘potissimus’ facit; cui si detraxeris ‘-simus’, inuenies nominis positionem, ut ‘acerrimus acer’, ‘fortissimus fortis’. sic autem, ut diximus, declinari conpositio ostendit; nam ‘huius impotis compotis, impotem compotem’ facit: quod in simplici difficile inuenis, per conpositionem agnoscis facilius.

The slight disagreement that opens the quotation from Servius is comparable to

Rem. Autissiod., In artem Donati minorem commentum, p. 64, 26 Fox: ‘potius’ comparatiuus est et uenit a nomine, quod est ‘hic et haec potis’ et ‘hoc pote’ indeclinabile;

Sed. Scot., in Donati artem maiorem, 2, p. 250, 42 Löfstedt: et ‘potius’ est comparatiuum a nomine quod est ‘potis’ indeclinabile.

It is therefore possible to consider the notes added on the margins of Reg. lat. 1669 as either directly influenced by Remigius’ teaching or relying on one of his sources also available to Sedulius[3].

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THE TEXT> SUPPLEMENTARY TEXTS

The first pages of Reg. lat. 1669 do not contain Virgilian materials but a selection of astronomic texts, namely excerpta from Macrobius’ commentary to the Somnium Scipionis accompanied by illustrations and relevant passages from Beda and Isidore. It is possible that the leaves were originally blank and were filled only afterwards, when and where Virgil’s text was copied.

Except for the final section deriving from Isidore, the excerpta and the charts resemble those contained in the manuscripts transmitting Dungal’s letter to Charlemagne (811). The topic of the letter was the explanation of a solar eclipse that occurred during the preceding year (MGH, Epist., iv, 570-78, n° i). The coincidence between Reg. lat. 1669 and the two exemplars (both from Italy) of Dungal’s letter (Berlin, Deutsche Staatsbibliothek Phillipps 1784, IX¹ sec.; Monza, Biblioteca Capitolare, c-9/69, X¹ sec.) suggests that a French branch was involved in the transmission of the letter. A manuscript from Saint-Remi in Reims, now lost, probably provided further evidence to support the existence of a French tradition of Dungal’s letter (Ottaviano 2009, 299-305).

The f. 192r. displays further texts more or less closely connected to Virgil’s works; they were copied by scribes active between the 10^th-11^th century.

Some of those texts are glosses (see a transcript in the section: GLOSSES> i), while the Vita Vergilii, also known as Periochae Vaticanae, deserves special notice because its typology relies on the system of the seven periochae or circumstantiae used to make the author more accessible to the reader. The periochae were also a feature of Johannes Scotus Eriugena’s teaching activity. The text of the Vita recalls the content of other biographies[4]; it is, moreover, perfectly coincident with the text handed down by Par. lat. 8069, a French manuscript dating back to the end of the 10^th century (f. 6r). In the Par. lat. 8069, the author’s biography is part of a rich collection of materials often identical to those preserved by Reg. lat. 1669, f. 192r (glosses 1 and 2, AL 392 R.)[5]. The two copies of the Vita Vergilii are likely to descend from a common ancestor: this conclusion is suggested by the typologies of error that the two copies share; moreover, it is noteworthy that the abbreviation for est used in Fleury by Abbo’s time appears both in Par. lat. 8069, ff. 1-6, and Reg. lat. 1669, f. 192.