Volume / Number: 11 / 1614

• St Petersburg Russia Russian National Library Lat. Q. v. I. 10
• St Petersburg Russia Russian National Library Lat. Q. v. I. 6
• St Petersburg Russia Russian National Library Lat. Q. v. I. 7
• St Petersburg Russia Russian National Library Lat. Q. v. I. 8
• St Petersburg Russia Russian National Library Lat. Q. v. I. 9

Written in Italy in a centre of high calligraphic standards. Arguments have been adduced by O. Dobiaš-Roždestvenskaïa for ascribing the manuscript to Cassiodorus’s Vivarium and to Cassiodorus himself the cursive note against the Pelagian heresy on fol. 1; these attractive and seemingly cogent arguments would establish this manuscript as a milestone in Latin Palaeography since Cassiodorus died ca. 580. Reached France probably before the year 700, to judge by notes on foll. 1 and 61. Belonged to Corbie certainly by the ninth century. Mentioned in several Corbie catalogues. Transferred to Saint-Germain-des-Prés, Paris, in 1638, where it bore the numbers 580 and 840. Acquired by Peter Dubrowsky in 1791, who had the manuscript bound in five separate parts. Entered the Imperial Library in 1805.

Script, by several, mostly expert, hands, is a rather graceful uncial: the bow of A is often small and raised above the line; G has a long tail; M and O are broad; the first stroke of R and the lower stroke of S are often rather long; tall T occurs; Y is short and rises branch-like; half-uncial ꞅ and the ligature Uꞅ occur at line-end. Greek words are partly interspersed with Latin capital or uncial letters. Various marginal notes and corrections: an important entry on fol. 1 in contemporary cursive in the margin before the treatise by Ps- Pelagius calling attention to the heretical contents of the text with the entreaty: ‘hic liber qui attitulatur rufini non te seducat o pie lector / quia pelagianus est et blasphemiis pelagianorum plenus / simulans enim contra arrianos disputationem venena suae / haereseos inseruit unde hortor caritatem tuam ut hanc / blasphemiam de vestro codice abscidatis et pro ea librum scī / augustini de vera religione describite ut quantita/tem codicis reparetis’; another contemporary cursive entry on fol. 78; crude old cursive occurs also on fol. 113, etc.; other marginalia in uncial or half-uncial; an entry in barbarous Latin on fol. 220v concerning food, provision, etc., in Italian cursive recalling the North Italian type ca. saec. VII; two further notes warning against Pelagius in French cursive minuscule saec. VII–VIII on foll. 1 and 61; a table of contents in Corbie minuscule saec. IX on fol. 220.

☛Nordenfalk, Die spätantiken Zierbuchstaben p. 184–88. ☛Byzantion 74 (2004), p. 499 dates to saec. VIII. ☛For the writer of the cursive note, see F. Troncarelli, ‘I codici di Cassiodoro’, Scrittura e civiltà 12 (1988) 47–9; ‘Litteras pulcherrimas’, Scrittura e civiltà 20 (1996) 107–8.

• Provenance: Corbie library—alien MSS present by ca 700 (Ganz 1990)
• Script: MSS with sloping uncial, half-uncial, or quarter-uncial marginalia
• Provenance: Corbie library—MSS from Corbie (Zechiel-Eckes)