Volume / Number: 3 / 363

• Milan Italy Biblioteca Ambrosiana R. 57 Sup. [palimpsest old]

Written in some centre of good calligraphic tradition, probably in Italy. The original MS must have been a fine volume with ample margins. Re-used in the seventh century, doubtless at Bobbio, for writing Sedulius (see preceding item).

Script is Rustic capital not of the oldest type: H resembles K as in the Milan Plautus and Seneca G. 82 sup. (CLA 3.345, 346); the first and last strokes of M are almost upright (they are oblique in the oldest type); G and V approximate to the uncial form, which is characteristic of the later stage of capitalis Rustica. Ancient contemporary marginalia by an expert hand in tiny, almost illegible uncial (p. 7) and in beautiful quarter-uncial (p. 17). Strips with traces of ancient capitalis Rustica doubtless taken from this MS were used to strengthen the back of the Sedulius volume.

• Provenance: Bobbio library (Zironi 2004)
• Text: MSS with texts available in the Bobbio library during the Lombard period (Zironi, 2004)
• Script: MSS with sloping uncial, half-uncial, or quarter-uncial marginalia