Volume / Number: 5 / 571a

• Paris France Bibliothèque Nationale de France Lat. 8084 (foll. 1–155)

Written doubtless in Italy. Belonged to the Dupuy collection (Melot, 4, 426) which passed into the Royal Library in 1657 where this manuscript bore the number 4017 (see fol. 1).

Script is a pure Rustic capital of a late type by two scribes: G ends in a thick down-stroke; the hasta of E and F transect the stem; F and L rise well above other letters; H is K-shaped; the vertical strokes of M are almost upright; U has the uncial form with the second stroke upright and thin. A contemporary hand using sloping b-d uncial notes the metre of each poem in the margin; the same hand entered on fol. 45 the subscription ‘+Vettius agorius basilius’, referring to the well-known Vettius Agorius Basilius Mavortius who annotated Horace and was consul in the West for the year 527. This gives the approximate date of the entry and the main text does not seem much older. The added leaves in uncial furnish corroborative evidence, since they seem of the first half of the sixth century.

☛Mabillon, De re diplomatica p. 352 and pl. VI. 2. Nouveau Traité, III, pp. 60–1, 64, 159, 267 and pl. XXXV. 8. 1 and 3; XLIII. 1. 1; XLIX. 1. 2. 3. 3.

• https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b52508669w

• Script: MSS illustrated in De re diplomatica