Vergilius Vaticanus

Rome (Italy), between 370 and 430
Capitalis rustica

Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana
Vat. Lat. 3225

Date of Publication of the Facsimile: 1984
Publisher: Akademische Druck- u. Verlagsanstalt, Graz (Austria)
Series: Codices Selecti Phototypice Impressi and Codices e Vaticanis Selecti

The manuscript of which this is a facsimile contains a series of fragments of the Georgics and the Aeneid of Vergil, the Roman poet whose works were an essential component in the teaching of Latin throughout the Middle Ages. Study of the retracing and of the annotations in this manuscript show that it was frequently read in Italy until the seventh century. The manuscript was in Tours (France) in the second quarter of the ninth century, after which it was apparently neglected and dismembered. It was rediscovered around 1400, when a French scribe made further annotations. Sometime in the fifteenth century, it returned to Italy.

Note how this elegant formal script, which is characteristic of the earliest surviving luxury manuscripts of Vergil, has been copied in the Utrecht Psalter, which is also definitely a luxury manuscript. Note also that there is no word separation in these early manuscripts.

fols. 21v-22r

fols. 39v-40r

fols. 45v-46r

Utrecht Psalter

Seligenstädter Lateinpädagogik